The Witching Hour, a la Paris

A few nights ago I dreamt that I was in Paris.  I went swimming in the Siene (which in my odd dream world was simple a creek flowing between buildings, something I know to be false), and had to stuff millions of folded-up napkins under one of the legs of the Eiffel Tower to keep it from wobbling like a bad table in a cheap restaurant. 

Tonight, I watched the new Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris.  From the very beginning, I was enamored with the Paris that Allen presents.  30 second shots of Paris from streets so narrow a car shouldn't be able to fit to the Eiffel tower to people walking in the rain, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background.  Cafes and scarves, women on bicycles, men in fashionable suits.  Before the plot even began, I knew that if Allen could create this film with the same love he created those simple shots, this would be a triumph.

And it was.  Blending fantasy, time travel, science fiction, and historical persona's with a modern, callused, blase attitude toward the antiquated, the film honors the past while showing the important joys of the present, and looking eagerly toward the future.  Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgeralds (both F. Scott and Zelda), Dali, Man Ray, T. S. Eliot, and so many others make their characters known, balancing the truths of the people with the love that any good Liberal Arts Major has for them.  The strikingly harsh difference between the Artistes and the modern characters forces the audience to realize that all the technology and modernity that is at our fingertips (literally, as I type this is at my very fingertips), is not always a necessity.  It helps the viewer to ask what love is, who deserves it, and how is it obtained.

Love is a beautiful treasure, that only the City of Love could ever convey.  The French understand something that we Americans are perpetually trying to ignore.  There are hundreds of different kinds of love and hundreds of ways it can apply to us.  As people we can love our husband or our wife, we can love our lovers, we can love our mortal enemies.  The film captures this beautiful, enigmatic idea, challenging the audience to believe that not only is love possible, but it can approach, capture, and ensnare our every fiber at any time, and in any place. 

Time is not as linear as we would like to believe, so if you have not yet seen this film, for whatever reason, Turn off the Computer And GO!
XOXO, love on!