Last Thursday Brad and I went to see this film by the courtesy and insistence of our friends Liz and Eric Berget. They wanted us to see it so badly they not only offered but pursued babysitting Atticus for us so we would go. This movie is my favorite movie since....well it is now in my "lovely papered cigar box" with The Secret of Roan Inish, America, Amelie, Mostly Martha, and Babette's Feast. Really one of the most cohesive, surprising, beautiful little films I've ever seen. There have been other films where I was delighted with the story and filming and script and acting...the concept. I love this one because it is "quiet" and "real" and hopeful. Because it is clean. Because it has weight -- it has sorrow and consequences and kindness and "connection" and, always what I long for, redemption. But it doesn't preach or throw about tidy platitudes or try to be anything other than what it is: a story about a friendship born out of music and a need for companionship, but also a need to sort through some of the stagnation that both characters find themselves having fallen into. The film is a musical, of sorts, by the Irishman Jim Carney. He asked Glen Hansard of The Frames, to write the music for the film and then decided that both Hansard and his musical collaborator, Czech Immigrant, Marketa Irglova, should play the main two roles, "guy" and "girl" respectively (never named in the course of the story). So surprisingly, this story doesn't try to say that two people "save" one another. But neither is this a nihilistic post-modern story where there are no answers so aimless wandering is our only option. AND neither is it a modern pollyanna humanist morality 'play' where the answer to all things is to believe in oneself and think positively. I hope if you have a chance to see it, you will.
Yesterday Atticus wanted me to read Good Night, Gorilla three times in a row. Then he tumbled down from my lap and started rummaging through his toy tub. He found his stuffed Gorilla and came over to me, pointed to his book, and showed me his Gorilla. He is obviously brilliant.
A couple of nights ago Brad was putting Atticus to bed. The two of them have quite a set routine for bedtime. After they had said goodnight to the things in Atticus' bedroom, Brad turned the lights off and put A. in his crib to sing him a song. Atticus rolled over onto his back and grabbed his Daddy's hand and began rubbing his tummy with it. He did this for the entire song, happily content. Isn't that too sweet for real life? Sometimes I feel like life with a child is too much like a Hallmark special, but when those moments happen, they somehow transcend insipid cliche and become some of the most real and satisifying things I've ever experienced.
Last night we were at a family's home for dinner. Atticus loved playing with their kids, Grayden (4) and Karissa (2). He was laughing and "doing happy feet" and just had gladness gushing out of him. He kept taking toy vehicles out of Grayden's toy box and squealing the silliest sound we'd ever heard. This morning he was doing the same thing with his trucks and cars. He adores vehicles. If he sees a bus go by, he has to make sure I see it and must watch it noisily pass by. Motorcycles and bicycles are equally as exciting for him. We live in the path of the Minneapolis airport and so airplanes are regular traffic for us. Atticus always hears them before I do and scans the sky, finds them and watches them until they disappear. For a few weeks there was construction on one the streets we pass on our daily walking path. He was able to watch back hoes and skid loaders and all manner of tractors digging and filling holes. The construction guys were so nice -- they'd wave and smile and acknowledge Atticus every day we stopped to watch. Other moms with toddlers in the neighborhood would often be out there too. Nice community feel going on there. (-: We also have a fire station down the road from us, so Atticus can hear the fire trucks and ambulances coming from blocks away. He always jumps up and has me take him to a window or the front screen door so he can see them pass. And, lastly, there is the weekly excitement of the garbage truck. Those garbage guys are great -- they really get into waving to Atticus and being manly civic servants with really big worker machines.
One last thing we've been fascinated by is the consistently good reports we've had about Atticus in the church nursery. Three times now, nursery workers have stopped us as we pick Atticus up after church and say how much of a helper and how kind Atticus is with the other kids and the grown-ups. He helps pick up toys. If he wants a toy another kid has, he goes and brings a gorwn-up over to show them what he wants and see if he can make a trade. I hope it continues. At home he's not quite so helpful. But still sweet when he's not being wildly percussive with his toy hammers and anything else he makes into a weapon.
Last Thursday Brad and I went to see this film by the courtesy and insistence of our friends Liz and Eric Berget. They wanted us to see it so badly they not only offered but pursued babysitting Atticus for us so we would go. This movie is my favorite movie since....well it is now in my "lovely papered cigar box" with The Secret of Roan Inish, America, Amelie, Mostly Martha, and Babette's Feast. Really one of the most cohesive, surprising, beautiful little films I've ever seen. There have been other films where I was delighted with the story and filming and script and acting...the concept. I love this one because it is "quiet" and "real" and hopeful. Because it is clean. Because it has weight -- it has sorrow and consequences and kindness and "connection" and, always what I long for, redemption. But it doesn't preach or throw about tidy platitudes or try to be anything other than what it is: a story about a friendship born out of music and a need for companionship, but also a need to sort through some of the stagnation that both characters find themselves having fallen into. The film is a musical, of sorts, by the Irishman Jim Carney. He asked Glen Hansard of The Frames, to write the music for the film and then decided that both Hansard and his musical collaborator, Czech Immigrant, Marketa Irglova, should play the main two roles, "guy" and "girl" respectively (never named in the course of the story). So surprisingly, this story doesn't try to say that two people "save" one another. But neither is this a nihilistic post-modern story where there are no answers so aimless wandering is our only option. AND neither is it a modern pollyanna humanist morality 'play' where the answer to all things is to believe in oneself and think positively. I hope if you have a chance to see it, you will.
