Happy Valentine's Day

I'm spending Valentine's Day single this year. I don't mind because frankly I think today is just another day and that couples should treat each other on every day of the year. But I do love, love and we can never have enough of it. So here are some of my favourite on and off screen couples and a Happy Valentines to you.

Edward Scissorhands and Kim, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, Scarlett and Rhett, Jacob and Hannah from Crazy Stupid Love, Isaac and Tracy from Manhattan, Jareth and Sarah who weren't actually a couple but I wish, murderers and husband and wife Mickey and Mallory, Pretty Woman's Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (who cares what their character's names were!), Phillip Morris and Steven Russell, Ron and Hermoine, Edie Sedgewick and Bob  Dylan not the real couple but close enough, Larry and Ally McBeal, and my favourites of all time, Tom and Daria.

IF ONLY LOVE HAPPENED LIKE IT HAPPENED ON SCREEN!

The English Patient

After a long and amazing weekend I came home today and woke up and watched The English Patient. I haven't done anything else, particularly none of the things on the long list of things I desperately need to do, but I don't care.

This movie is amazing. I haven't watched a movie that really made me feel anything for a very long time. And to be honest I never really appreciated and understood the devastation of war until I watched this movie, because although the movie focused on love and pain within the context of war without concentrating on it explicitly, I never really got it until now. Sorry for the sentimentality, I'm still caught up in that massive wave of euphoria that follows a really damn good movie. The emotions in The English Patient; love, pain, guilt, freedom and regret, were just so subtle and yet huge, really really huge.

The things that I really loved about this movie:

It was unpredictable, through the entire movie I kept imagining what would happen next, that it would follow the typical routine of two forbidden lovers running away together and that the tragic ending when they are found out and separated. But it didn’t. I was never shocked at the plot turns, but it was highly original and the fact that I didn’t expect anything was very enlightening.
The characters were flawed, there were no heroes or bad guys; each character was stripped back to exactly what they are, human. There were so many in-depth characters and the audience is able to empathise and connect with even the minor ones while our connection with the major characters is huge.
The timing, the movie cuts between past and present seamlessly, by connecting and juxtaposing moments of emotion; gradually unfolding the epic love story with patience and tenderness, like a parent reading a fairy tale to their small and eager, beloved child.
Everything else.

Watching this movie today made finally certain that it is film and television that I want to be studying next year. It also made me desperate to read again, of course first beginning with The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje which I understand is quite different to the film but I’m sure will be equally brilliant.

Finally, I’m too young to know but am now eager to find out if a love exists like those explored and portrayed in The English Patient.