I'm scratching at the edge of an idea. Starting to maybe get a glimpse of the way I run my life out of fear. It's not all fear, of course. Mix of desire, joy, habit, instinct. I pride myself on independent thinking, on great desire. On calculated risk. But so much of my childhood was vying for autonomy and control. Me announcing "Stupid... is not a nice word" at the dinner table and etc. Our family with eagle eyes for weakness, pecking at vulnerabilities in jest but with beaks that still hurt. Keeping my life so busy that no one will ever be able to say I don't do things, I don't have friends, I'm not interesting. Trying to have a wide enough base of support that I only ever need any single person very little. Very lightly. Still afraid that the weight of me is crushing. Like I'm a river always on the brink of overflowing its banks and flooding the town. What if I just let it happened? And stopped using all my energy hauling around sand bags? It would probably not go well, to be honest. Some of that is probably just the business of living, of existing in a society, of trying to get a handle on my shit. But it's exhausting being the main monster in my life. Of letting her out for a run from time to time in order to quiet her down. Mr. Stevenson was really onto something with Jekyll and Hyde. Of course he was.
MLog time!
WEST SIDE STORY
2021
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Tony Kushner
Watched: 1/22/22
It’s a retelling of Romeo and Juliet. The white gang of boys, the Jets, is in a turf war with the Puerto Rican gang of boys, the Sharks. One of the Jets leaders, Tony, has quit the Jets because in their last war with the Egyptian Kings he nearly killed a kid. He doesn’t want to do that again. The whole area in New York where they live is getting torn down to make way for gentrification. Riff, the other leader of the Jets, carries on with the turf war anyway. He negotiates a rumble with Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, at a dance. That’s when Tony sees Bernardo’s younger sister, Maria. It’s love at first sight. That night, Tony goes to see Maria even though she lives deep in Shark territory. They kiss and agree to continue seeing one another. Chino, college-educated and wants to be part of the Sharks, was Maria’s actual date for the night. He’s the man Bernardo would like to see Maria with. Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend, sings about loving America while Bernardo dreams of some day moving back to Puerto Rico. Riff convinces Tony to come to the rumble. Tony goes to try to stop the rumble, as he had promised to Maria. Bernardo and Riff fight. Bernardo kills Riff. Tony kills Bernardo. Chino leaves with the gun that the Jets had brought to the fight. Tony and Maria agree to flee that part of the city, to go somewhere they can be together. Maria asks Anita to tell Tony that she’ll be along shortly. Anita goes to the shop where Tony lives/works. All of the Jets are there, mourning Riff’s loss. They attempt to gang rape her before the shop owner intercedes. In anger, Anita tells Tony that Maria is dead, that Chino killed her. Tony in his grief runs out into the street, where Chino has been looking for him, carrying that gun. He asks for Chino to kill him as well. As Chino steps out of the shadows, Tony sees Maria with her luggage walking towards him down the street. Before the two reach each other, Chino shoots Tony, who dies. Maria grabs the gun and aims it at the gang members assembles. She aims it at herself. The police take Chino away, and the gang members together take Tony’s body into the store.
I sat in the back row of the theater for this movie. (For Nightmare Alley too, just trying to get good distance between me and other people in the theater because of COVID.) I’m wondering if it negatively affected my experience. The dancing was great, but I wasn’t right up in the dancing. Just like in Romeo and Juliette, I found Riff and Bernardo to be more charismatic than Tony. As I get older, the love-at-first sight thing seems more absurd. The singing was very good, and the dancing was awesome. But the chemistry between Tony and Maria wasn’t completely there for me. Tony was a littttttle flat. I also found myself a little distracted as I tried to remember what happened in R + J. There was a letter, right? That got delayed that said Hey, I’m just pretending to be dead. Some tricky plotting. I liked how each of the character’s motivations track with their actions. Everybody makes sense, even when what they do is tragic and senseless. Tony can’t seem to avoid the one thing he wants to avoid: killing another person. He can’t communicate his love for Maria to her brother. He can’t stop Riff from being Riff. His love for Riff and his grief pushes him to murder. His grief for Maria pushes him to seek death. Anita’s grief for Bernardo and her anger at her attempted rape push her to lie, to punish Tony. Push her to not like America anymore and plan on returning to Puerto Rico. The wheel of fate is grinding in this movie and, as always in this story, the young lovers can’t escape it. I walked home from the theater doing a little dance.
Rating: ★★★
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