In the mood for Love

Well. I don’t know the reason, but this afternoon I feel naive. Maybe it will be the nearness of summer time, or maybe not. One thing is true, today we are going to talk about romantic moments in the movies. Why not? Don’t I have the right to be mawkish (I expect I won’t) at least once every quarter?

Love or romantic scenes in the movies seem (too often) to be written by teenagers while hugging their pillows. Ugh! Bad vibrations, if we want to make a high-quality film. Is there a hope? I think so, and that is the reason why I will emphasize the following three examples:

In the mood for love

Edward Scissorhands.- This fairy tale about a kind of updated Frankenstein whose inventor died before he was finished is one of my favourite films. The scene takes place when Edward (Johny Depp) hides from the Police, and comes back to his adoptive home. There he meets Kim (Winona Ryder), the girl he loves. Kim, as Beauty (in the classic tale “Beauty and the beast”), begins to fall in love with Edward. When she sees him, she asks Edward to embrace her. The scene is brilliantly shot, inserting a moving flashback of the Inventor’s death, especially when Edward refuses the embrace because he thinks he will hurt what he loves the most. But Kim insists and puts his arms over her shoulders. Danny Elfman’s music is at his best setting the mood for the moment, and so Tim Burton is.

The Village.- I will review this film in an upcoming article about the effect of marketing in the promotion of movies. However, the scene I like is the one in which Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) finds Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) in her porch. Shyamalan needs only one close-up to narrate the moment in which shy Lucius confesses the reason why he stands in that porch every night. The dialogue is brilliant and the atmosphere created by cinematographer Roger Deakins is prodigious. By the way, this is a film which needs a second vision. Don’t get fooled by those superficial reviewers that still think this is a horror film, because it isn’t. It’s not Shyamalan’s best, but still a really good movie.

Brigdes of Madison County.- Yes. It was too obvious. We already know the final scene, with Clint deciding which direction to take. But I really like it. Not sentimental, but very moving and much better than the novel.

And that’s all. My public romantic moment is over. I’ll keep my honeyed part aside for my private life, and I will continue with my scepticism in “nan”. It’s logical somehow.