Heavy Handed But Enjoyable

I finally got around to watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night*. I was kind of disappointed with it even though I did enjoy watching it.

I mostly didn't like the heavy handed exposition in both the narration and the dialogue and the false dichotomy that was set up between 'artistic people' and 'sensible people'. I don't mind narration in general, and at times I even like it (Pushing Daisies was one such instance), but just about everything the narrator said was repeated by the characters at least twice in dialogue. We did not need to hear that Juan Antonio just went through a tumultuous divorce three times, once is more than enough.

Also, I felt like the differences in character between Vicky and Cristina and Juan Antonio and Vicky's husband were, in addition to being overly explained, oversimplified. I much preferred how Woody Allen showed in Melinda and Melinda the differences of character of one person in two different situations. In that film it seemed like it would be much easier to make a black and white contrast between the comedy Melinda and the tragedy Melinda but it was much subtler than the passionate artist/pragmatic student setup in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It also kind of annoyed me that the guy who played Vicky's husband (aka Claire's hot republican boyfriend from Six Feet Under) is continually being typecast as a wet blanket, square (see also Julie and Julia).

Additionally, it was distracting that Catalan culture played a major part in the film but it seemed like everyone was speaking Castilian.

Overall though, despite its flaws, the performances are what really saved the film; specifically Javier and Penelope's**.

Also, I still really want to go to Spain.

*I did not watch this last night but I had watched it the night before I wrote this. According to the time stamp I watched it on July 14th which is still long after the movie actually came out anyway. Better late then never.

**When I watched the film I hadn't seen Rebecca Hall in anything before. Although I don't think her performance in this film stood up to Javier and Penelope's respective performances I did see her in Wide Sargasso Sea and she was absolutely incredible in that.

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Tumblr And Books

I started a tumblr. It seems pretty fun so far but I haven't done too much with it yet. I need a better theme too but the infinite scrolling thing kind of overloads this computer. Here is the link (which should be obvious): http://ambivalentalumna.tumblr.com/

Also I decided that I'm going to start writing about my progress going through Jezebel's list of 75 Books Every Woman Should Read. When I joined the library, finally, I figured it was a good way to have a ready-made list of books to go to if I was feeling particularly stumped about what I wanted to read next. I'd only read like 6 of the books on the list before I came across it and now I'm about one third of the way through. I already wrote specifically about The House Of The Spirits but I'll probably write a little more about it in a separate post later. So my first Jez Book List post should be coming pretty soon (as soon as I decided what I want the inaugural book to be).

I'm currently reading 100 Years Of Solitude which isn't on the list but I already read Love In The Time Of Cholera which is.

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Redemption and Esteban Trueba

This is my first post about a book and I'm actually a bit nervous to write it. It's silly but it kind of feels strange to write about a book, especially a book that I don't have in front of me, in this informal, electronic kind of space. I'm going to keep it pretty loose and free form.

I've been reading a lot recently and the book that I got the most emotionally invested in was Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. If pressed, and if I had the book in front of me, there are tons of different things that I could write about it but the one idea that provoked the most thought for me, was whether or not Esteban Trueba found redemption.

I don't think that there's always a clear distinction between being redeemable and irredeemable and different people probably have different and valid opinions on whether or not a character can find redemption.

What makes one irredeemable; that no amount of good can make up for the bad? Is there a tipping point when it comes to redemption, is there some point when your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, that when reached brings you redemption? Or, is at the moment that you realize that you have done a lot that you need to make up for and you start doing good that you have been redeemed? Do you need to continue to do good for as long as you can once you make that realization?

Is it what, and how much good you do, or is it the fact that your intentions have changed that makes you redeemable?

Various thoughts and spoilers for those who haven't read the book after the jump.

Towards the end of the book Esteban did help his daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba, more or less saving their lives. However, it was only after he caused them to suffer directly and indirectly. He was one of the people responsible, if not the person most responsible, for putting their lives in danger in the first place. He helped bring about the coup which led to the capture, rape, and torture of Alba. The same would have happened to Blanca had she been caught.

He also fathered the father of the man who tortured and raped Alba once she was captured, Esteban Garcia. By not being involved in the lives of the child he fathered and through the way he treated the people at Tres Marias, the village where he had his country house, he helped to create an environment where this unrecognized grandson, Garcia, became the monster he devolved into.

In addition to the pain he caused his children and grandchildren Esteban Trueba raped pretty much every woman in Tres Marias. The only thing that kept his character in murky territory, as opposed to black and white evil, was how much he loved his granddaughter, and perhaps his biggest step towards possible redemption was using what was left of his connections to save her.

Those connections, however, were virtually nonexistent when it came to issues of real power in the government and he resorts to going to a loyal friend and brothel owner in order to save Alba. Would he have even helped Blanca or Alba if he had not been old, feeble, and no longer influential politically? Does that matter?

He was always going to reach a point where he'd no longer be powerful physically as well as politically, living as long as he did. Does the inevitability of the circumstances that softened him take away from the goodness of the choices he made?

If redemption occurs at the moment that you decide to start atoning for the things you've done wrong then it is possible that Esteban Trueba found redemption. However if you need to fully counterbalance everything that you've done wrong in order to be redeemed than Trueba fell far short.

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