Where the Wild Things Are
Finally saw this movie Tuesday night and really enjoyed it. It actually tied into some themes I’ve been musing on myself lately, which made it more interesting. (Or perhaps these themes reached out and slapped themselves into the plotline just because they were tired of being in my brain – not the first time that’s happened.)
Not at all a kids movie from what I could see, I would think young children especially would find it confusing, dull or disturbing. But then again it’s been a long time since I was a young child, so maybe they’d see something different in it than an adult would. The monsters were pretty amazing, all fur and snot and a plodding kind of fierceness. That in itself must be enchanting to children.
The movie dealt with themes of wildness, relationships, loving someone so much you push them away, loving someone but being unable to tolerate them, loving someone and having them mistreat you, conflict resolution and rage and loss. And several of those things have been on my mind quite a bit lately—especially the idea of wildness, and whether we have space in our civilized adult lives to be loud and wild anymore. I know I don’t have much. Between my home with shared walls and my office and other public spaces, the need to be respectful of other people’s right to peace is usually paramount. Only in my car do I experience some level of freedom to sing or scream or just listen to music that gets as loud as I need it to drown out my own thoughts. Which is why I look like a total nutbag, belting out angry songs at the top of my lungs as I listen to my iPod on my way to work. But I don’t care. In terms of things I owe other drivers on the road, the ability not to see me singing like a freak is not high on my priority list.
As far as love and rage and loss, all those things have been very heavy on my mind. Love is very hard. Families are hard. People are hard. Love can be destructive as easily as it can be nurturing. Obsession walks hand and hand with love sometimes, and obsession and wildness are the themes that came out in my writing for The Grand Conspiracy this week. What do you do when you love someone and they don’t love you, and those feelings can’t be made to go away? Do you ignore them, accept them, or do you rebel? Do you demand what you want from people, take it when they won’t give it? It’s our instinct to take what we want, what we can’t stop thinking of. But of course that isn’t permitted when what we want and can’t have is another person. But the instinct remains all the same. This piece is about someone whose obsessive desire for someone else rips through every polite barrier that society has constructed—and I feel sympathy for her, no matter how much she scares me.
Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind lately. I do not wonder why I can’t sleep.
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