Life and movies

Just finished watching two great flicks - J'taime Paris and Russian Dolls. Both movies elicited such strong emotions that I feel like I have to let some of it outpour onto this page. First, I guess since Paris is the major location for both of these movies, it really brought back a lot of past memories and emotions for me. I suppose the older you get, the more place you've been to and relationships you've been in, the more likely this will be. Still, there is something magical about Paris. For J'taime Paris, I can't help playing back my memories of what the various locations are like and what I was doing, at the same time as the characters are going through their scenes in the movies. It's kind of weird, kind of like parallel universes, at the same time it almost blurs the line between fact and fiction, movie and reality. There are the stone steps outside the Louvre's glass pyramid, where she laid her head on my knees and napped. I remember the sky was grayish-blue, with a slight breeze, and sound of running water behind us. Some tourists were nearby, but for that moment it was just us. At the same time on the screen, I see the characters from J'taime going through all the places I went to in Paris. The Montmartre where we looked over all of Paris in her splendor, the jardin de luxembourg where children play among the statues and where we held hands and looked for postcards, the cobblestone streets of a street market where the housewives buy their cheese and jamon...too many memories. And the

Both movies reminded me strongly of the places I've been to and people I've been w/. I remember meeting Matt in Prague in the summer of '05, when Russian Dolls first came out. He was one of the few (literally two or three) Americans I met on that trip, and we both loved L' Auberge Espagnol, the prequel to Russian Dolls. Despite having never met before, I really felt like we were kindred spirits (and I would meet many more in my subsequent trips - it's hard to express how special that bond is among the community of solo travelers). He's a few years older, but we've had similar struggles when it came to work, love, and life in general. Hence our strong identification w/ l'auberge espagnol. He had the chance to watch Russian Dolls while in Prague, while I missed out, and so now two years I've finally caught up. I think Russian Dolls is quite a bit messier than l'auberge espagnol. I wouldn't say the character Xavier is particularly lovable, but he's realistic. He's a bit schmoozy, womanizing, and weak-willed; but so are all of us. I think there's a little bit of him in every guy - who doesn't occasionally fantasize about landing one (or more) gorgeous woman? When we meet a great girl, we are all torn by the internal dilemma of deciding to settle on this one or continuously pursue an even "better" woman out there? It's like opening a set of Russian dolls - when do you know this one is the last one? Just so happened that Matt and I both encountered this decision at different points, and our different decisions have led us down very different paths. Now a couple years later, and looking back, I guess the only takeaway is there's no clean answer for love is there? There will always be multiple people, intersecting at different times, and no one is ever so right that it begs the obvious. Instead most of us eventually make a decision - "this is it, this is where I draw the line and 'make' her the one." Not passively accepting her as the one, but actively choosing her to be the one. Because even though you damn well know there are or may be better ones out there, this is where you learn to stop opening up Russian dolls.

And I guess marriage scenes are always touching; no matter how jaded we become, I suppose there's a part of us that always wants to believe in "till death do us apart". And yet now knowing what we know, clearly it's not realistic to expect that. So what do we expect? Is it just the best-faith effort at the time? That we will sincerely give it our best effort, even though knowing too well that we humans are too imperfect and transient to promise anything everlasting?

At any rate, highly recommend these two movies. Onto a L'Enfant and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter tomorrow.