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shadowkatSaw the film The Queen today with a friend. The film, without going into too much detail, is directed by Stephen Frears , best known for Dangerous Liasons and The Grifters and stars Helen Mirren of Prime Suspect fame as Queen Elizabeth II. It takes place in 1997, when Tony Blair first took office and Princess Diana died and details the difficult interaction between the Queen of England and the new Prime Minister, with the circumstances surrounding Princess Diana's funeral a fitting backdrop. Very ironic movie in places. One of the best lines is at the end, which I won't spoil you on but made everyone in the theater chuckle a bit due to its ironic nature. And the actors playing the Queen, Tony Blair, and the Queen's husband are amazing. One of the best character films I have seen in quite a while.
Afterwards we went for drinks and appetizers, then more drinks at a Brooklyn bar called Abilene that has the best Bloody Mary's and Cosmo's. Also delicious hot ciders with rum. We did happy hour.
Had a long chat.
During it discussed how people just like different things. I'm always amused by best and worste lists - which are really the writers opinions on what they liked most or least. It's all based on your own perception, really. As an example - Wales and I discussed funerals - this was in relation to the film, the central conflict surrounding Princess Di's death at that time was in regards to how her funeral should be conducted. The Queen wanted a private dignified funeral - without the public in attendance, just close family, and no fanfair. The Prime Minister and her son, Prince Charles, realized that the British Public wanted a "public" funeral.
My friend was raised to go to every funeral in tarnation, get drunk, and mourn the person. I was raised to not go to the funeral. To remember them alive. My mother considers funerals morbid and an open casket offensive. She refused to go up and see my paternal grandmother's and did not allow such a thing for her father, who was cremated. I was raised to believe that once someone dies, it's just a body. That the dead body is unimportant. Waste. It's the person inhabiting the body that was important - don't misunderstand, I am not saying our physical form or body is unimportant, just that without our living essence inside, it is nothing more than a "shell" that will soon become ash. Living essence is *not* just a soul - but our personality, who we are, the energy that gives our bodies life. Think of it like a snail's shell without the snail inside - if that helps.
This boggles my friend's mind. She was raised to attend funerals - that the emotional experience of mourning is a way of honoring the person. While I was raised to believe that we honor their lives best in other ways. My Aunt and Uncle didn't have funerals. Yet my mother keeps albums and has my Aunt's old letters and stories and jewelry. My grandfathers' funerals, never made it to - mother didn't want me to come, she felt it was best that I stay in College and honor theirlives by continuing my work. Only one that I made it to was my father's mother.
I told my friend neither way is right or wrong, they are just different. My family, in short, saw funerals much the same way as the Queen of England did when Diana died. While my friend sees them more like the people and Blair did.
One way is not right and one is not wrong. They are just different, I think. Cultural differences. In Islamic tradition - people are buried immediately after death, at night, due to the heat and the possibility of decay - according to the movie. While in certain areas of Wales, the Gawain Valley, and areas of Ireland, people may hold week or two day long wakes around the person's coffin. I've been reading a book on World Philosophies and Religions (the two are more less intertwined) and it starts with Asian philosophy. An eye-opening book. Because I've realized the people in these cultures do think differently. One philosophy is not better or worse than another. I think people, too often, put value judgements on things. What is "best", what is "worste" - as if we are in some sort of perpetual context or competition. Comparing them in that matter would be like taking a triangle and a circle and saying a circle is better than a triangle. You can't do that. And you can't really understand the triangle by looking at the circle or trying to translate the triangle into a circle or fit into the circle, you have to well examine it as a triangle. Like well speaking and reading a foreign language - you understand it better when you aren't trying to translate it into your own language. Je ne sais quoi - makes more sense when I'm not thinking oh, that means "I don't know what".
At any rate, that is what The Queen is about: two people from completely different mindsets struggling to understand one another's perspectives. It's also about the difference between a soveriegn and an elected official. It's hard for Americans to understand what it is like to have a Queen. Or why one still exists in Great Britian. Why the Commonwealth countries still to some degree or another respect the Queen. It seems both romantic and silly to us. We envy it and laugh at it and respect it, but don't quite understand it. Again it is a bit like a circle trying to understand a triangle. At any rate - Fascinating film. Highly recommend.
Afterwards we went for drinks and appetizers, then more drinks at a Brooklyn bar called Abilene that has the best Bloody Mary's and Cosmo's. Also delicious hot ciders with rum. We did happy hour.
Had a long chat.
During it discussed how people just like different things. I'm always amused by best and worste lists - which are really the writers opinions on what they liked most or least. It's all based on your own perception, really. As an example - Wales and I discussed funerals - this was in relation to the film, the central conflict surrounding Princess Di's death at that time was in regards to how her funeral should be conducted. The Queen wanted a private dignified funeral - without the public in attendance, just close family, and no fanfair. The Prime Minister and her son, Prince Charles, realized that the British Public wanted a "public" funeral.
My friend was raised to go to every funeral in tarnation, get drunk, and mourn the person. I was raised to not go to the funeral. To remember them alive. My mother considers funerals morbid and an open casket offensive. She refused to go up and see my paternal grandmother's and did not allow such a thing for her father, who was cremated. I was raised to believe that once someone dies, it's just a body. That the dead body is unimportant. Waste. It's the person inhabiting the body that was important - don't misunderstand, I am not saying our physical form or body is unimportant, just that without our living essence inside, it is nothing more than a "shell" that will soon become ash. Living essence is *not* just a soul - but our personality, who we are, the energy that gives our bodies life. Think of it like a snail's shell without the snail inside - if that helps.
This boggles my friend's mind. She was raised to attend funerals - that the emotional experience of mourning is a way of honoring the person. While I was raised to believe that we honor their lives best in other ways. My Aunt and Uncle didn't have funerals. Yet my mother keeps albums and has my Aunt's old letters and stories and jewelry. My grandfathers' funerals, never made it to - mother didn't want me to come, she felt it was best that I stay in College and honor theirlives by continuing my work. Only one that I made it to was my father's mother.
I told my friend neither way is right or wrong, they are just different. My family, in short, saw funerals much the same way as the Queen of England did when Diana died. While my friend sees them more like the people and Blair did.
One way is not right and one is not wrong. They are just different, I think. Cultural differences. In Islamic tradition - people are buried immediately after death, at night, due to the heat and the possibility of decay - according to the movie. While in certain areas of Wales, the Gawain Valley, and areas of Ireland, people may hold week or two day long wakes around the person's coffin. I've been reading a book on World Philosophies and Religions (the two are more less intertwined) and it starts with Asian philosophy. An eye-opening book. Because I've realized the people in these cultures do think differently. One philosophy is not better or worse than another. I think people, too often, put value judgements on things. What is "best", what is "worste" - as if we are in some sort of perpetual context or competition. Comparing them in that matter would be like taking a triangle and a circle and saying a circle is better than a triangle. You can't do that. And you can't really understand the triangle by looking at the circle or trying to translate the triangle into a circle or fit into the circle, you have to well examine it as a triangle. Like well speaking and reading a foreign language - you understand it better when you aren't trying to translate it into your own language. Je ne sais quoi - makes more sense when I'm not thinking oh, that means "I don't know what".
At any rate, that is what The Queen is about: two people from completely different mindsets struggling to understand one another's perspectives. It's also about the difference between a soveriegn and an elected official. It's hard for Americans to understand what it is like to have a Queen. Or why one still exists in Great Britian. Why the Commonwealth countries still to some degree or another respect the Queen. It seems both romantic and silly to us. We envy it and laugh at it and respect it, but don't quite understand it. Again it is a bit like a circle trying to understand a triangle. At any rate - Fascinating film. Highly recommend.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-06 05:52 am (UTC)You make the Queen sound intriguing even though I had no intention of seeing it. I just hated that whole thing when it happened. It made me sad on so many levels and it made the world seem really really kind of crazy and pointless. I am suprised they are making this film even now - it seems pretty disrespectful since everyone is still quite alive. Except I may be wrong - haven't we had the George and Laura movie already -without her pot selling college days? ha! I may have to check the Queen out now. Thanks for the review.
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Date: 2006-11-06 03:38 pm (UTC)