ZEN Bitchin'

My favorite color is blue. I wear a lot of black. Most probably on account that I’m a big guy. I like some shades of green. Gray doesn’t complement my skin tone. I discovered I can get away with orange, a bit of yellow, pink and purple. But not red. My mother, who shopped for my clothes until I was about 18 or so, favored green. But she always dressed me in blue, as all boys must do–in her opinion. My mother would sometimes berate my father because he liked to wear red. So I, as all mama’s boys are wont to do, must have acquired the taste for blue. Black came later. Though it shocked my mother to see me in black, she was still glad I didn’t like red.

Lately, however, I found myself buying a lot of red stuff. Like this red Bally shoes I got from UK (okay, ukay-ukay!).

When I got my first DSLR camera in April, I bought a couple of camera bags for it. One I could carry on quick trips, and another that can house my MacBook as well. Guess what color these Crumplers are. And when I went to Saigon a couple of weeks ago, I planned to buy a replacement for my weekend bag that retired (broke down) on me months ago. And I also got a kikay bag I can bring when I go to the market or some other errand. Guess again what color these bags came in.

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I was at my friendly neighborhood (pirated) DVD store last week to purchase my weekly dose of films and TV shows when I spotted this title. The package stood out among the other DVDs in the rack because the cover was in white and dominating the space was a collage/ mosaic of the sun, consisting of photos of a wide-eyed girl. And of course that intriguing title: (500) Days of Summer. The parentheses are not mine, promise. But I recognized the lead actress Zooey Deschanel–sister to Emily Deschanel of the TV series ‘Bones’, (which I love). Zooey also recently starred with Jim Carrey in Yes Man. I like Zooey; she has a goofy charm about her. She’s like the fun version of Chloe Sevigny. Joseph Gordon Levitt, of course, started out in the sitcom ‘Third Rock from the Sun’. To my gay friends, he’s known as the lead star in ‘Mysterious Skin’, the Gregg Araki film adapted from Scott Heim’s novel. Based on the stars alone, the film had potential. Even if the director Marc Webb is a newbie to feature films (but following the career paths of music video directors David Fincher (Seven), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), and Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo). However, I passed it on because I had purchased my quota of discs. But I made a mental note of buying it the next time I returned to said shop.

Two days later I got a call from R, asking me if I had seen this film. I told him that I’d seen it at the shop but hadn’t bought it. he then started raving about it and he told me he’d drop it at my house the next day so I can see it for myself. R is not particularly prone to gushing so I thought, there must be something there. However, I also recalled the times when our opinions of films (and music) didn’t really agree so I considered that too.

Nevertheless, I saw the film (in one of my late-night attempts to fight off insomnia) with no great expectations and an open mind. And boy, was I glad to have done so. I found myself smiling within 10 minutes of the film and laughing 20 minutes later. I was in tears in the last 15 minutes of the film and by the time the credits rolled by, my heart was just about to burst. Did I say that I was prone to gushing? My apologies then. But I was genuinely touched by this film. If I remember correctly, the last time a movie made me feel this way was when I saw ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. But of course, to compare 500DOS (pardon the text-speak) with the latter will do both films a grave injustice.

I understand that the film was marketed as a romantic comedy but I don’t think it is. For a romantic comedy it didn’t pack enough rollicking scenes and snappy dialogue. As a dramatic film, it didn’t have enough tension. I think it (safely) straddled the line between a romantic comedy and a light romantic drama. This is no mean feat to accomplish. I mean, look at ‘Lucky You’–that clunky Drew Barrymore-Eric Bana movie that had a serious identity crisis, genre-wise. Like the voice-over narrator said, ‘This is a story of boy meets girl. But let me tell you up front, this is not a love story’.

The narrative jumps back and forth within the 500 days that Tom (Gordon-Levitt) spent with Summer (Deschanel). I guess that explains the title. The premise, however, is simple enough. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. Told mostly from the perspective of Tom, the film shows in both oblique and straightforward manners how mutable our perceptions are of other people. Through Tom’s eyes I see how the same memories can be interpreted and re-interpreted, depending on how we feel towards the object of our remembrance. In one montage of Summer, Tom’s voice-over goes, ‘I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love the heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.’ Minutes later, the same montage is replayed, but the voice-over has turned to, ‘I hate her crooked teeth. I hate the way she smacks her lips. I hate her knobby knees. I hate that cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck.’

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Nega-star

Wallowing in grief and sadness

I didn’t realize that instead

Of being unhappy I was

Increasingly becoming

Like a pig in a pool of mud:

Oblivious and indifferent

To all the things I thought

Caused my deep misery.

Sure, I still keep my family

At bay, all my friends insist

On frustrating me, my job

Is as un-fulfilling as ever,

And my love-life remains

Bitterly non-existent, while

The rest of the world teeters

On the precipice of doom via

Wars, disease, and the effects

Of climate change.

I think, when the real shit

Hits the fan, I will only have

My Misery to shield me from

The stinking gobs that will

Soil the perkiest and liveliest

Of these damn optimists.

Because shit really happens.

And sometimes, they rule, too.

Phnom Penh, 2009

Copyright Michael P. De Guzman