Blah Blah Flowers

I've just rewatched Adaptation and... oh my. I wasn't blown away when I originally saw it in the cinema, it was certainly one of the most unique films of the year but I was put off by what I saw as a descent into cliche in the last part of the film. It's deliberate and anyone with half a brain on their shoulders will know why it's happening, but I had an aversion to the paper-thin characters of eXistenZ and wasn't that happy when someone tried to justify it by saying "but it's a computer game, the characters are supposed to be characterless" which I saw as post-fact justification for bad writing. And I characterised this film as the same. But it's not. There's a scene at the beginning which, when I saw the film, I'd forgotten by the end, and it's this scene, this Kaufman monologue, that make it all clear. When I heard it, knowing what was going to be in the rest of the film, it justified everything. Unfortunately I can't recall it now.

So why am I writing this? Why am I wasting a little space on the Interweb with meditations on forgotten things? One reason is because I want to warn anyone who hasn't seen this brilliant film to carry the beginning with them so as to appreciate the end. Two is to say that we have to always remember that everything has significance and wonder, we are surrounded, covered, immersed in it and it's only that we forget to see it, not that it goes away. There is a direct line from this film to the chorus of the last song on the last album by The Silver Mount Zion Orchestra. This is the lesson I will have forgotten by tomorrow morning.

If I don't believe then I don't have to ache, but if I don't hurt then I won't create.