Currently Playing: The Weepies - Somebody Loved.
Rain turns the sand into mud
Wind turns the trees into bone
Stars turning high up above
You turn me into somebody loved.
I’m not a big fan of the saccharine, but this song manages to stay sweet and sincere without being sickeningly so.
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If you’re able to read this entire entry through, I salute you. It’s possibly one of my lengthiest yet.
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I’ve been bitten by the Love Bug. As frequently as my moods change, there aren’t many times when I find myself romantically-inclined, but here I am, breathing this feeling in and finding peaceful contentment. It isn’t a person that’s responsible for my state, but a Story. A part-Story really…I’ll explain later.
I have got to write this down quickly, because I suspect that if I don’t hurry, I’ll lapse back into my Saving The World personality, and all cynicism will return.
Irony has reared it’s jesting head, that I should be writing about this.
You see, the other day I caught my sister watching Thumbelina on the VCR, and found it an innate duty to sit next to her and tell the tale as it really was. Throughout the entire movie, I made snide comments and joked about the dancing Thumbelina and her Fairy Prince. I slipped words in between their scripts as a form of mockery, and finally chided my sister for being enchanted by a so-called ‘love story’ so unrealistic and beyond credulity. I mean, who proposes after a brief introduction and a night out singing, dancing and flying? Regardless of whether it was make-believe or not, and regardless of whether Widad, at almost 16, is old enough to distinguish dream-like fairy tales from real life, I needed to be sure that no sister of mine was going to be fooled by such codswallop. My sister protested to my continuous ridicules, of course. After the movie ended, she turned to me and asked, "Why do you have to be like that? So….GAAAH!" Apparently, no word was strong enough for a befitting description.
Now though, she’s having the last laugh. Despite great doubts that I will do this again in the near future, if ever, I am fully delving into romance for this post.
What is my impression of Love, one might ask. I remember a friend of mine (Khairie, I think it was you) who once told me of a passage from the book "Captain Corelli’s Mandolin", where Dr. Iannis is talking to his daughter about Love. It reads:
"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an
earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a
decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so
entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not
excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we
are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had
it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all
the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were
one tree and not two."
I find this a wonderful definition; an apt and profound take on a matter that has become so underrated today. I don’t fancy the modern world’s romance; there isn’t enough earnestness or truth in it. It’s taken for granted far too much. It has become common.
If I were to paint you a picture in moving imagery of what I find to be the perfect depiction of True Love, it is the part-Story I’m about to relate to you. I wasn’t able to watch the entire movie, having missed the first part of it completely, but what I managed to catch was enough for me to fall in love with it. It’s this part-Story that enraptured me wholly.
I am talking about Terrence Mallick’s cinematic masterpiece, The New World.
CAUTION: There will be major spoilers, so movie buffs who are keen on this film, BEWARE.
The story is slow and features more voice-overs than actual dialogues to capture what is not said rather than what is said. Facial expressions and subtle gestures is given considerable attention. If anything, the story flows more gently through the sheer artistry of inner reflections and constrained speech.
The plot is based on the historical account of Pochahontas and the Settlers that first came to the New World. I don’t want to go into too much detail - I’ll presume most of you must have already watched the Disney version. Most of the story revolves around developing the relationship between Pochahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher) and Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell). I would have to call that unfortunate. From what I saw, there was nothing real that I could see between them. It was a young girl’s infatuation, and perhaps he being her first, that infatuation grew stronger and so intense until we are made to believe that that infatuation is in fact, heartfelt Love. Cavorting about and frolicking around the forrest seems nothing more than childish love to me.
I didn’t buy it, and was relieved when the good Captain made the cowardly step of sailing away from the Indian Princess. John Smith may have felt a great deal of something for Pochahontas ("Love… shall we deny it when it visits us… shall we not take what we are given?" he says) but he knew that his ambition for the seas was stronger that he abandoned her and made her believe he had drowned. He simply wasn’t the man he knew she craved for. ("Don’t trust me. You don’t know who I am!") To her though, he wasn’t merely a man. She placed him on a pedestal, gave him a deity-like status ("A god, he seems to me"). Highly reminiscent of first loves, I thought. Intoxicating and passionate, but lacking any real substance to be more than a fleeting sensation.
So he sailed, and she was left, crushed and alone. Not only had she risked her life to save his at one turning point of the movie only to ‘lose’ him, but her father had also banished her from her tribe which she betrayed for falling in love with ‘the enemy’. As a consequence, Pochahontas was made to reside with the Settlers at their fort, Jamestown.
And that is where John Rolfe comes along. Although he may have had only a fraction of screen time in this movie, it was the definite best.
Perfectly played by the delightfully delectable Christian Bale (it’s my Laurie all over again…sigh), Rolfe is a widower who has lost both his wife and son. He’s one of the Settlers at Jamestown, where he tends to a tobacco plantation. Maybe I was blinded by biased favouritism (come on, Bale wins over Farrell any day) but I immediately took a liking to him. His manner was calm, strong, steady, gentle and kind. I watched his progression of love grow for Pochahontas, and was touched by how careful he was in approaching her. He was neither too insistent, nor too hesitant to show her his feelings.
Pochahontas, on the other hand, seemed too dead within to respond. I suppose she was still pining for the thought-to-be-deceased Smith. I remember thinking, "what is she, nuts?!"
Rolfe helps her slowly through her personal tragedy of losing both Smith and her family, that when he proposes, she agrees. Even then, I saw no love in her eyes. Only hopelessness and indifferent surrender. They marry, and Pochahontas is christened Rebecca Rolfe.
This is the part-Story that I enjoyed.
Their union was distinctively one-sided, with Rolfe showering generously his devotion to her, never pushing her to respond. Instead, he ponders silently as he wonderingly watches his wife. ("Who are you? What do you dream of?") Rebecca dutifully carries out her obligations, but there is no clear assertion of affection. She remains resolutely within her stoical fortitude.
There was this one shot, briefly done, but powerful. Rolfe is sitting outside their home, facing the camera, while Rebecca is standing on the other side of the house, her back to the audience. That shot encapsulated everything about their marriage. Both were on opposite sides of an invisible barrier, an abstract line so tangible and palpably felt.
Time passes.
Rebecca’s thoughts are gradually heard, as she carefully reaches out.
"Mother, why can I not feel as I should… must?"
She begins to stir awake from her indifference.
"Once false, I must not be again."
Her spirits start growing, slowly but surely.
"Take out the thorn."
She begins to observe her husband, his character, his daily movements. I felt like bursting at one point, where he was bent over his tobacco plants, and she stood watch, standing over him. As his head moved about the crops, her hand reaches out and softly touches his hair, a wondering sort of gesture. It was so delicately done and portrayed a woman’s curiousity.
Oh, there were many moments. You’ll have to watch it to understand. More years passed. This film depicted how Love is not all skipping about and rolling around. It took work and effort. The images as Rebecca grows more attached to Rolfe were captivatingly rich. I think the birth of their son Thomas was the final retract of the wedge that had existed between them.
Eventually however, the truth about John Smith reaches Rebecca’s ears.
I felt like screaming already. I honestly felt tempted to drown Smith for real myself, just to see the family undisturbed.
When she finds out that Smith was still alive, everything seemed to change. She tells her husband of it ("He lives. I heard it by the fort."). He did not speak, but his responding thoughts were made audible to the audience, and it was heart wrenching.
"Sweet wife, love made the bond, love can break it too."
By chance, the Rolfes sailed for England not long afterwards at the invitation of the King and Queen. There, they settled on an estate. Rebecca grew both restless and listless. Smith had still not made an appearance.
One day, her husband walks up to her and announces that Smith has arrived.
"I think you still love the man, and that you will not be at peace until
you see him. In my vanity I thought I could make you love me, and one
cannot do that or should not. You have walked blindly into a situation
that you did not anticipate."
Such self-sacrificial grace, all at the expensive risk of losing her.
She responds.
"You are the man I thought you were, and more."
Pfft. Easy for her to say, I thought. She’s going to make a run for it.
But I was proven wrong. And for that, I thank both history and Terrence Mallick. Rebecca and Smith met in the gardens, but it was clear that both had gone their own separate ways, and there was no longer the bond they had once shared. She takes a final bow, and walks away.
Now, for one of the sweetest moments in all the love stories I have seen and read. Rolfe is walking across a path, painfully it seems, head down, a dejected posture. She walks up to him, tenderly takes his arm and quietly walks by his side.
"My husband."
It was symbolic to me. Her walk from one man to the other. It signified a walk from her First Love as a girl to her True Love as a woman. Sigh. It literally caught my breath.
Undoubtedly, Rebecca’s most beautiful words that she spoke of her husband were these:
"He is like a tree. He shelters me. I lie in his shade."
And as she smiles contentedly, her thoughts speak for one last time.
"Mother, now I know where you live."
And that, dear friends, is how I imagine pure love to be. Stable, warm, subtle, certain and wonderfully grounded.
Enough said here.
Ps. I am going to regret writing this come tomorrow. I’ll probably find it cringe-worthy by then. But now is where I am, so let me ride this season out.
