Heavenly Creatures 1994 is useful, fun. There are musical sequences, outrageous stories being made up. It’s comedic and the characters are overly dramatic. Winslet’s mother seems to sleep with her clients. It’s based on a shocking crime, true story, and though mine isn’t about murder, the reality of it touches upon the ridiculous, even. Very dynamic as a composition. They make up fairytales, stories, which is what Nicole and Maria do, what everyone does. Miracle Mile is not about that relationship.
There’s a dark undertone. It’s somewhat making fun of the drama, too, as Winslet runs away through the mountains because her parents will be gone for a few weeks. She’s inconsolable. Winslet is a super super dramatic character, outlandish, so this could be Dr. J. Dream-like, even psychedelic, the dream becomes real. There are unicorns. A fairytale vibe. This is taken from her diary, I imagine. They have special powers — they can see “the fourth world.” There’s a danger present in totally living in the imagination.
Things start to turn. It starts getting bloody in this case… so maybe this is… reality coming in…the scary music when the priest starts going…is that when JOSE comes down the stairs…maybe Angelita has dream sequences as to what she wants to do to the father, it’s just, evidently, this is a real story about murder, I think, so it merits that kind of treatment. It’s not to suggest that my story is like that, but there’s a stylistic cohesiveness that I enjoy, the introduction of the color red. I love that she’s in a pink robe. I enjoy the color palette, also.
The camera work feels…”scary” at times. I don’t know how to describe that…but it’s dealing with the drama with a dramatic hand which makes it comedic. Dark comedy.
Around the section where Lynskey is having an unpleasant sexual encounter and escapes into fantasy, I thought this could be a good basis for a Dr. J pic, too. Or maybe she had a dark fantasy vibe, I mean, there are “dark” artists, nothing wrong with that. It’s a matter of context. Just direct that appropriately. I don’t know. But Dr. J was pure fantasy. It could be heartbreaking if she comes from a dark world.
And I can see Lord of the Rings coming, so I’m feeling a bit tearful, I wonder where I could go. With this castle. There’s a fascinating line of sorts between dream and fantasy…in a sense. This is cinematic…but if I say fairytale, this is what people are going to expect. So not necessarily the same thing. Right.
There’s a clear through line with Mario’s music. Opera. This is Dr. J land. Besides that, there’s a real presence of music in this house. Love songs. So dramatic. I love all those songs. MARIA can sit there to Through the Years…and have some hilarious fantasy sequence…looking at all this. Thinking about her “family video?” Looking into camera, sure.
The scene on the bus is super crisp, which I wanted, that meets psychedelic, perhaps, or some kind of otherworldly touches. Can I use real photos? There’s a photo of me at this age where the grass behind me is just slightly blurred, a fuzz.
So I don’t understand what “cinematic” means in The Stranger Thing bible, because…is this not cinematic? Maybe that means a film made for TV. I get that this is extremely clear? So I want to be as clear as I can in communicating vision, which is where I’m at now, the story and structure will adjust according to that.
I’ll think more about dream sequences…
Maybe there’s a bit of a symphonic vibe in the ensemble of this family…from Maria’s perspective…less that she wants to be a part of them. I wasn’t like that. There’s an artistic appreciation of the image, the theater of it. Well, I’m thinking about the relationships. Winslet is like her mother. These relationships make sense. And Dr. J is on the level of opera, it’s stunning, and MARIA maybe sees the reality in it. She sees that real life can be theatrical. That it can magically move…that the composition and timing can be exquisite. Comedy, the punchline. I was amazed. That’s basically it. At that age, I was taken with how many realities there were, in fact.
Nicole was SUCH a believer, I didn’t come from this world, so my experience of the games we were playing were much different. I was studying Dr. J. Bigger fish to fry. Studying “the mean man” regardless.
I’m going to watch a movie that changes perspective…
It’s about this strong mother — this family — I think that’s correct. But MARIA studies this. Obviously.
I could do it…shrugging, in the voice of Jodorowsky's Dune.
I came to on the stairs…one night… it was the pitch of Nicole’s scream. The clawing over one another…AHHHHHHHH. LAUGHTER AHHHHHH. “What am I doing?” I got up, walked downstairs. Was it an out-of-body experience? I seemed to have a couple of those… I just took in this picture. Of her standing at a wide open door with this “broken man” in the doorway. I sensed Dr. J’s past. Looking around. It was too dramatic, traumatic, too strange, to not pick up on a past. However, on TV, in another context, if it was some interest? Real life could mirror Dr. J’s fantasies in fascinating ways. I don’t know totally what the truth is.
I contemplated as far as I could at the time…maybe a VoiceOver…over this baby…would be funny… in some “German” accent, even. Something psychological. Was there a real “mean man” somewhere back there?
I didn’t understand this picture for another 30 years. I had no idea what to do with it. It was utterly unimaginable that my father would do such a thing. But then, as I started to awaken within this, all these years later, I heard unbelievable things. I was in this situation. From a certain perspective, wouldn’t someone logically assume that it might be true? Can’t the audience understand that…?
If YOU know in FACT what YOU are doing, and some woman is pushing that button, which she did, and you obey…right? It’s the dementia that…throws a monkey wrench into the whole scenario. Someone who cannot take action to that severe of a degree, look, I don’t know what to say about the two of them: my parents, except pity, to me at four, was my father’s main problem. I didn’t have this word until I was maybe 10, 12? I’m not entirely sure. Because he said weirdly that he let me run around in these other families as if I were having an affair…because he pitied me. It was then and there that I could identify what that was. So early. I used to think that there was NO connection to my parents at all whatsoever. Not true.
I began analyzing this from a couple of different directions. So did she. Now, in the psychological realm, you can understand the heartbreak, the fury, the game continuing, all that. Is it UNREAL? Dr. J. I was nine…the unreality of it made sense to me, you see, searching for clues through this real story for what might have happened to her. I began studying “themes” at nine. These are themes.
Putting myself in a situation, since this was the question, in which this was really happening — would such a figure always be easy to grasp? Believe? I walked a line with Dr. J since most would say, well, wasn’t she a pathological liar? But I was a child at the time. Yes, sure, she didn’t seem to know the difference, it’s not exactly soothing. And something like that is inherently a lie. That kind of abuse, no? Imagine. If incest, for example, is so psychologically damaging that one MUST voice something. And they not uncommonly point fingers elsewhere because there’s so much unconscious and indirect communication… going on…I can’t point at my family member.
I don’t know what to say about this girl in France, I really don’t, who recently confessed that she falsely accused a boy of raping her…since there was a discrepancy in her testimony. But still, the expert said it is actually common to point at the wrong person. Dr. J’s world was so casually dark…it’s hard to believe. I don’t know in what reality I am in. I see no limits, no consequences, and no boundaries. Also poverty. Unclean. Something unclean. It’s not to say that poor people are not clean, that’s not what I mean, it’s separate. Neglect of some kind. The mental health phrase, you see, doesn’t do a goddamn thing, you see, in taking into consideration what the REALITY was. Which is why I tend not to go there. Neglect, makes sense. Not to say that people don’t have…I can’t.
Anyway, to me, my mother’s genius could never beat psychology as a field. I will bring you down. That was basically the plan…though I did nothing with it.
But in this dreamlike vein, Nicole is either talking about astrology, the forces that keep us together, which I like, not sure yet, or OZ. We played exclusively Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz. Which are all belonging related. We became the characters with hilarious noises, we would switch people, play the lost boys. It was rather serious. I remember her siblings going…what? Since Nicole and I were a bit more imaginative in our leanings. Discussing the stars, too, in sparkly slippers. She wanted to get beamed up to Oz. We would twirl. So I see — not MARIA — I hear a VoiceOver, German, lol, having some kind of dream sequence… having moments where she is trying to understand her mother…does NICOLE really believe, back then? Yes.
I peeked, no? To study her belief.
So here comes their parents — talking about their relationship veering into the unhealthy. That wasn’t the case, though Angelica’s relationship to this might…or the situation itself is beginning to spin out of control.
But Pauline is always to blame.
She starts to imagine killing people. The close-up mouth: homosexuality. A condition. “It can strike at any time.” Opera.
Now picture Dr. J breathless, she cannot stand it, the sight, truly speaking, she’s never seen such a girl…Angelita’s daughter. There’s a drama on a heightened level. Why Nicole was made to stand beside me, maybe because they didn’t want me to go through this, I don’t know, like stand next to her…maybe this will…who knows? I’d love to see them both! Dr. J was crazy. But there’s — a true performance at play. No one believed it, but this is no longer my problem. Thank you.
And this movie has REAL — she fights with her mother, so I might be taking a turn into the real…and you can feel the difference.
They get out of the bathtub and they’re in a dark fantasy, taking their parent’s things to sell them, that’s the light hue for the father watching these shows, I think. I can’t totally remember what it was…with spotlight on this staircase, since I remember the light then. I just don’t remember light on..though I could see clearly.
“There’s something desperately exciting about bodies on stretchers.”
I like this movie a lot actually.
But I guess…here comes Brazilian music? And love songs? Ghost. It’s the love songs. And the slows…Jose the comic relief. He always was. I mean, I love these people too. Whoosh. I mean, that was complicated.
The diary entries, narration, is a strong structural thread. It holds it all together. I don’t have that. I have to laugh at the music. At this DRAMA. But it can get startlingly real. Sure. It can break down. Spin in another direction.
Then, they’re watching a movie, and a suddenly real moment happens from this fictitious reality, they start seeing things, also. So maybe Nicole and Maria can start responding to this situation in some capacity. The shadow man they can’t get away from. They start making love. There’s some kind of interplay between the fantasy and reality. Alright, so, they are in love with each other…and so, they are going to kill her mother.
Didn’t I hear about this? Isn’t this the woman who ends up becoming a writer, actually? A successful one too. Not sure. But I read a story about a female friendship just like that, she was going to move away…and they ended up killing a mother. Unbelievable no?
Sometimes, I’m not sure about the ending…in reality, she sent me home with my father…it’s just…when I got to that part some years ago…I heard “uh oh…” I didn’t get the feeling that it was…an “aw,” not in this case. And The Power of Love cued my exit to mirrors being smashed off the walls.
The music is really good…especially when they kill her.
So the love songs can underscore the action in some capacity…it can take an instrumental direction…overly sentimental.
I cannot even believe this. Killing the mother. I can’t watch. Wow. Just wow.
I don’t want to compare situations. It’s different.
Maybe I can dramatize Angelita’s inner thought process like “she hates her…” she can’t…stomach it. This whole situation twists in her mind. You can understand her thought process. If there’s child molestation involved, then wouldn’t this screw up — terrible. Could there be jealousy? Really? I just couldn’t, at that age. Thinking about her sister. Again, maybe this VoiceOver with me at that age…since, ahhhhh, this Brazilian mother told me later — I was jealous! AHHHHH. Scary. Her daughter was horrified! AHHHH. Please! I don’t understand, in a vague space. Mysterious. Sorry, I cannot be jealous of a girl’s horrified face. Of such disgusting behavior. But, she encouraged me to be. I said no. I do not come from your world. At nine, ten, whatever this was, that one rattled me quite deeply since I was investigating how we become who we are.
I look at Dr. J, for real sometimes, lady, what the hell was this? Someone asked if it was “blind guilt” in college, this scene where she totally ignores me. But then, I’m doing the same thing to my father. Ah, Dr. J Joker comes to mind now, riddle me this riddle me that. Was she guilty? UHHH, I don’t know.
I cannot grasp HOW I talked about this story…since I was the most communicative with my friend Nate who asked me the most questions. The whole thing was so messed up, in that, Angelita’s story, and maybe the camera can make us a little, uh, upside down, on purpose. Her story changed. The picture did not change…though Dr. J did. I’ll keep doing these treatments like sound spinning around her. The image of her turning to confront the blind spot is good, I think, because we have a world, a field of vision, and this is something “otherworldly.” So one might not SEE it. It happens a lot. My father does not change, specifically, but Dr. J is the biggest liar in the universe, it’s just that to the authorities — and? So she begins to feel horrible, the mother bounces, the money runs out.
I was the responsible one. That’s later. I was the ADULT. At nine. You see? How early we teach children? Plus, the weird part, right, since it has its range, is she told me jokingly to keep my legs closed on the dance floor at FIVE, not too sure about me. The joke is not the point. My mother was a joke. That’s the point. Think about WHY I was there. It’s less a critique, she was trying to be playful, I suppose, however, it deeply affected me because my mother was sexually unhinged…already destined to become her. When this son of a bitch, Alan, was fucking her, fuck love. Fuck sex. Go look at yourself.
This situation, for its own reasons, scared the LIVING shit out of me. Do I put that in? I’m just trying to be a vessel in a sense for the heart, no? She was asking for it. She was that severely sick. But there are sicknesses that aren’t seen as such, you see how this bends all out of shape? She wanted to be hit. I see you DR. J.
Jose is a pillar for me because it was wonderful, terrible, many things at once. The complex fabric of human relationships…
You can understand why I hung onto these parties tightly. “They saved me…” I bit Nicole, for the love of God, I used to look at her scar, since, they all know, I kept asking questions about what happened. “Did I really bite you?” I couldn’t forgive myself. I had a hard time opening up these years in terms of the emotional body. I had a way of talking about this………could sound weird. Saved me from what? Right? You can see how people could be confused about my interpretation…my father being this innocent man…my mother was crazy…
The decisions that this Brazilian mother made…I didn’t put that together…that my father did literally nothing. All of that sentiment was this woman’s influence. It scared me, it did, because why all this hatred toward me? Laughing my face, sure I laughed, as the wise screenwriter said: “it was hysterical,” he got the picture. That was totally confusing to work out, battling with my badness, I just didn’t realize it because I had repressed it that deeply. So on that note, he was right. Anyway, I enjoyed Lynskey and Winslet’s performances. This was fantasy, so maybe that will be a direction for me too in taking in The Oldest Storyteller…
That was really something.
I decided to reopen up this a few years ago, that’s it. I’m really going to do it, I’m going to write a book based on my childhood. Like who cares? People do. Something began to happen, wake up, and that was the beginning of The Oldest Storyteller. I’m just lost…in these pages…taking the same track…but finally, a voice — oh my God, the voice lol — wondered if maybe I wasn’t the biggest bitch that ever was. Who gives a SHIT if it was true or not? THAT’s the POINT. I was four. And it was a journey to get there. The truth.
When I heard that question, though, it was amazing what happened, I can’t exactly call it a hallucination. But I was writing…and all these characters from my life came rushing into a psychological space…to defend that belief. I felt like there were hooks on my body. Loud. UH, what is this? You can’t exactly shut that down. Sensations. I began to battle, become aware, of what I felt. Now, do you have to believe everything you hear, did I have to believe this? NOW I don’t. But I guess that belief system was very real. Didn’t want it to be, I don’t know. I tried very hard. I had to let it go. I just thought, later on, about a role for the oldest storyteller, Death, in that flash, where Death is going to assist in this awakening…that Maria gets some information that she can turn the wheel now. But she has to do it now. Which is what I felt. I thought that it was sophisticated.
Geez, if your whole life flashes before your eyes, I have to admit, glad I worked that out.
Then, my father was diagnosed with dementia. And didn’t tell anyone.
That’s another time. But I’ve been thinking about some of these filmmakers’ early work…and thinking…there’s a path. There’s a direction. Themes. Fantasy probably being one of them, in a sense. The imagination. I don’t know.
I’m going to let that one digest.
There’s a layer of humor over their theatrics. It’s a real bloody end.
Not the same story.
So I’ll think about the end.
Not to say that the family doesn’t fight to keep her. I don’t know what to do there…
Maybe text: Nick was diagnosed with Parkinson’s though it became Alzheimer’s and he didn’t tell anyone…it was just too confusing. What the hell happened here? Some text. I still don’t know. It’s not the most satisfying ending. Maybe a fantasy…maybe I can treat it as such…and she can briefly remember it as an adult…but I was lucky, people always told me that, because I didn’t go to foster care.
I’ll keep thinking about that end.
Thanks for reading. Maybe the Spanish subtitles work.
So I can point to Peter Jackson. Playful, right. I can watch some more. And I’ll keep going.