When I first watched this movie, it was completely on another level of understanding. I was inevitably thinking, as the great part of people who saw it, about dreams, love, romantic life, etc. I was even thinking about the Taoist filosophy about the metaphor of butterfly when i saw the flying fish, and some reincarnation theories when turtles were on scene, thanks to my particular cultural background, which let me get to a deep level of understanding of this kind of lines(even without director doing it on purpose, probably). But then, after a long long while, my approach to this movie has changed quite a lot, and I'm not really sure if it's actually a good sign or not.
Someone says it's a surreal movie. It's totally not. Someone says it's the worst one among all Kusturica's pieces. This could be. But here I'd have few words to express.. just to see if it's because of the low-key understatement of director telling something which he doesn't want to show too much clearly.. probably on purpose. About some cruel facts of the cold reality, by all means far from what we call "dreams and romance", which is apparently inspired in great part of its viewers. At least it looks like.
I tried to read a couple of comments here, but none of those I've read, on my advice, got this juice out of it. But nothing to blame, since me too, only touched this deeper layer of the story after ages. Well, basically, with few words, it' a huge sarcasm towards love, life and the american society. But you have to measure it with the fact that, the director himself is from a socialist background, and as a western man, he knows very well how western capitalistic society works. Maybe instead of the word "sarcasm", let's say there's a cold and rational eye hidden and watching on the existing rules being completed.
I'm not talking about the sofisticated technics he adopted in this work, which are for sure worth of admiration. I'm talking about the attitude he adopted, the philosophy which lies underneath the apparent hilarious chaos and prosperity of details which compose the whole story. It looks very romantic, that's beyond any doubt. True love just ignores the differences of ages and the level of material richness etc. but wait a second, it really can pass over the material richness? I would put some shadow of doubt on this point. Never forget when Axel met Mrs. Elaine Stalker, she wasn't really rich, she just looked like. Who was really rich was the step-daughter Grace. But Axel was desperately attracted by the step-mother, without even paying attention to the other one. Why this? Very simple: because they don't belong to the same social class. (BAAANG!)
"Social class", an idea which embodies the pain in the ass of almost all americans, as a writer once said. It's what they care the most, the social superiority compared to the others. They don't do it as secretely as how some of the european people trying to do, but very openly, let's say, shamelessly(not neccessarily a bad thing). Not sure if there's some religious reasons behind the phenomena but actually it's even the funny side of people of this huge piece of territory . When Axel was still a poor guy without any legacy he could connect well with Mrs Stalker. While Grace, to whom her father left a big amount of money and an entre mine after he's gone, she could take care of herself and her step- mother comfortably. Axel could see Elaine as his soulmate, since they were almost in the same kind of shit.
Big love story beyond the difference of age, which turned to be an equally huge joke after Leo's depart to the moon(just for not mentioning the word "dead".. ops). At that point Axel became a rich guy as well as Grace , and magically just at that moment he suddenly can see through Elaine of which he was so crazily in love, and at the end of all those "fogs and the clouds" he sees Grace, which before he had sort of continuously ignored and even hated to the point to appeal to the violence(in this case, yes, Axel=Asshole). Ironically, after Leo's departure, guess against whom he brutally behaved like that again? No surprise: to the step-mother, Mrs Stalker. What's behind of all this changes on my advice is exactly that thing called "social class".
The fuse of the explosion and big change was Millie, the "beautiful but dumb" young girl, the ex-wife and later widow of Leo. Same as Elaine, blond, tall, with an amazing body, full of feminine beauty under the male gaze, delicate character and graceful nature in the personality. Nothing less than Elaine. Even something more: the youth. That's what made that woman go in crisis. They are too similar to avoid that she feels the threats out from comparison. And Axel's youth is even more fuel to the fire as an unchangeable fact.
But the step-daughter this time could save herself from the mess. She is very different from Millie, which makes her relatively safe a part from a slight hostility to her because of Axel. Besides, she's much richer with a much higher social importance than her, and whatsmore is that she anyway doesn't get any whole love from Axel.
By saying this I probably say a bullshit, as I don't know how much money Leo left to Millie, but even though, I doubt if she could have the same social position as Grace has. Anyway, all the crap about richness, social position or capitalistic society, in the end, could just result a crammer at all, honestly, after years I've been in contact with the European society, and somehow with american people too, I can feel almost intuitively what the director might be intended to mirror. Without any kind of generalization, naturally, which can be dangerously a crime(reason for that the director tried to say it with such a low-key understatement....?). I can by all means be totally wrong.
Meanwhile hope I made my point clearly.
Probably in the future I'll get again new prospective about this movie, as the view changes with time, surprising even myself. I think is not that bad, at least, it means that my life is not boring and unchanging if I am changing . And pardon readers, in case there will be any of them, for my inaccurate english.
Good-intentioned corrections are undoubtedly well-accepted, as always.
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