If the best you can do by way of atonement is to tell yourself that they are happy because you've written them a happy ending, the person you are likely to satisfy is, well, yourself.
You are unlikely to satisfy me -- and I'm your audience in this case -- because while I understand that this type of guilt is something hideous to have to shoulder, especially when you made the error in a malice that is ignorant and youthful, you are implying that you have somehow done something good.
Was it the only thing she could have done for her own sake? Yes, probably. But given the structure of the movie and the story it is *very* hard for me to care for her as much as she does.
I don't see this as an atonement. And I'm singularly underimpressed with the deathbed confessional nature of it, as well -- she could have told the truth when it might have meant something: if not to her own parents, then at least to his. She kept it all hidden until she was dying - as if somehow, in dying, she comes face to face with the need to convert so as to not die forever.
I think it was well done, fwiw. I have no objections to the movie qua movie; we're arguing about character and motivation and we're not saying she was unbelievable or poorly written or etc.
But I loathed the experience of watching it. One shouldn't feel stupid for wanting a little light at the end of a long dark tunnel, and the movie certainly goes out of its way to make one feel stupid for hope.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 10:08 pm (UTC)If the best you can do by way of atonement is to tell yourself that they are happy because you've written them a happy ending, the person you are likely to satisfy is, well, yourself.
You are unlikely to satisfy me -- and I'm your audience in this case -- because while I understand that this type of guilt is something hideous to have to shoulder, especially when you made the error in a malice that is ignorant and youthful, you are implying that you have somehow done something good.
Was it the only thing she could have done for her own sake? Yes, probably. But given the structure of the movie and the story it is *very* hard for me to care for her as much as she does.
I don't see this as an atonement. And I'm singularly underimpressed with the deathbed confessional nature of it, as well -- she could have told the truth when it might have meant something: if not to her own parents, then at least to his. She kept it all hidden until she was dying - as if somehow, in dying, she comes face to face with the need to convert so as to not die forever.
I think it was well done, fwiw. I have no objections to the movie qua movie; we're arguing about character and motivation and we're not saying she was unbelievable or poorly written or etc.
But I loathed the experience of watching it. One shouldn't feel stupid for wanting a little light at the end of a long dark tunnel, and the movie certainly goes out of its way to make one feel stupid for hope.