The weirdest thing about blogging on movies is when you only come to blog about films months later. In fact, the next 5 blog postings are all super old old, let’s see:
– Sunset Boulevard: Watched around 29 January
– The Last Laugh: Watched at the beginning of September 2009
– Milk: Watched on my flight back to Germany, i.e. 12 December 2009
– Le Amiche: Watched on 14 December 2009
– Platform: Watched around 26 December 2009
So except for that one movie at the end of January, they were all from December last year! I don’t really know in which order to blog these films now, but I’ll just randomly start with
Milk
I have always wanted to watch the film, but the fact that flights from and to the U.S. never have subtitles, I was a little unsure whether I should though. Also, Up was running at the same time, but since I missed about 20% of Up already, I ended up sticking with Milk. What a good decision it was!
Somehow I feel like I should start with Milk’s weaknesses: I can’t really take that film for serious, just like I am unable to do so for most biographical films. I am sure that the true Milk was not like this, and just like every other Hollywood adaptation, even when it’s a Gus van Sant directing it, we are dealing with a good portion of twisting reality. And clichés. I know what hard path homosexuals have had to (and still have to) go through in the U.S., but the glorification of all that, especially with the way the characters are depicted, is just a little bit over the top.
But, everything else turned out to be quite marvelous: Sean Penn is absolutely the perfect actor for this role, the storyline was engaging and it made me cry quite a few times. I thought the opera scene was absolutely perfect! After just about a second into the scene, I recognized that it was „Tosca“. Perhaps this is because deep down I still remembered the music, but as a political drama, „Tosca“ is the best fitting opera for that scene – it couldn’t really be anything else.
After watching the film, I was thinking of it a lot. After taking out the Hollywood elements of the film, the core of the story is still very intriguing. I liked how Sean Penn was portrayed as a multi-faceted character, and I am sure that the true Harvey Milk was a fascinating man, and much more than just a spokesperson and politician. At the same time, I dislike everything emotional in political dramas (and hated V for Vendetta partially for this reason). The film makes you think that they have fought bravely for the best thing in the world, even if it is not actually the case. It was immensely touched and overwhelmed by „Milk“ nevertheless.
The ending scene where they showed how the characters really looked like was absolutely lovely. I am very glad that I have seen the film, but although I think it was a great movie, I am not really sure if I would recommend it. At the end of the day, it’s still Hollywood.