Oil, water and ashes

[chani]

Yesterday I saw There Will Be Blood...I wasn't really blown away despite some interesting stuff and intense scenes (at the beginning of the film mostly). Probably too Bible-oriented for my taste.

*spoilers under the cut*

The score (by the guitarist of Radiohead!) was great and the cinematography fits in the subject with the dark colours, the wandering in huge landscapes, the derricks like towers(or church's spire) reaching the sky or  like huge phallus in that men's world (women count for very little in that world). 

I found there were too many tracking-ins though and the film tends to show off and say "look at the masterpiece"which kinda annoyed me. And the ending showed little direction of actor which was bad.

Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is really something but he must be controlled otherwise it turns into a big nothing.

As for the Bible references they are legions, the soil bleeding oil, oil used for baptism, Abel and Cain( Daniel killing first his false brother, then Eli who calls him brother, is another fraud...and whose' father name happened to be Abel), Eli the false prophet (and what about Paul ? Twin brother or split personality?), Daniel/Abraham sacrificing HW/Isaac for his God/Oil...the boy being compared to Mose, saved from the waters- or in this case from oil-"a bastard in a basket"...the film flirts with allegories but it's muddle-headed.

At the end of the day I much prefer No Country for Old Men.

However the kid playing HW, Daniel's adopted son, had charisma.

What can I say? I'm more Greek-oriented. By the way speaking of Daniel and D men...I watched Lost again.

First off, I must say that short hair really suits Desmond. He looked hot, especially when wearing his military béret! Yummy.

"At least it was a bloody military dream" cracked me up!

It's funny how a classic Desmond-centric episode actually helped knowing more about Daniel Faraday. Shall call it the D. constant ?

Damn it poured when poor Desmond was in the army yard...but hey it's Scotland!

So our Desmond/Odysseus is again on a boat. It's a long way home though. The way he kept mentally jumping from 2004 to 1996 and vice versa was nicely done.

I loved how the writers keep playing with names and situation: Minkowski (wasn't he in The Lord of the rings too?) died because he didn't have a constant !!! Yet the Minkowski's constant is a well known theorem in Maths that deals with networks of numbers. Networks and numbers, it's all about Lost  and let's not forget that Desmond was stuck on the island because he had to enter numbers (Hurley's cursed nimbers) and push the button !

And of course the episode was filled with recurring numbers, the numbers Daniel gave to Desmond as a code to convince himself, the time difference, Penny's address, the phone number. Geometry of numbers and connections are what Lost is based on.

I already mentioned the nice hint at another literary couple that was kept separated(Heloise and Abelard*) through the mouse but there's also the maze that Daniel made...it fits in the chaotic situation Desmond was experiencing. Labyrinth represents Chaos, produces chaos. It's Greek again! And it's perfect for Desmond/Odysseus who's meant to follow a chaotic journey before he can go back to his home-island UK/Ithaca and his beloved Penelope. It has been 8 years (even though he saw her again before when he was training in the US for the ship racing )so logically, if they follow Homer, Desmond has still 2 years to pass without Penny. 2 years is what 's left for the show !

The being stuck on an island (both Circe's and Calypso's island?) phase seems over but I bet he still has obstacles to face ahead. Will he visit the underworld? In a way he has been Tiresias himself when he was able to foresee things. Will the freighter lead him to a tempest? Will he meet a Nausicaa?

By the way I've just realised something about Penny's last name...Widmore...sounds almost like Wind More, more wind is what sailors used to ask the gods for in ancient Greek times.

And the auction, as I said in my previous post I loved the scene. The ship on the painting, the Black Rock , recalled the area on the island, the first mate's diary echoed Daniel's journal in the episode, and the artefact was sold by a mister Hanso which makes a new connection to Dharma.

Desmond and Sayid are the perfect buddy couple. Both military men. One represents the romantic side of Odysseus, his journey and trial, the other represents the warrior and his tricky side, what Greeks called mêtis. I believe I already said it a long time ago but Sayid is wise and cunning, like Ulyss was in The Iliad and The Odyssey! They totally complete each other.


As usual there were cinema references as well. Daniel telling Desmond to find his former-self in Oxford was a wink to many time-travel films/novels like Back to the Future. Also when Desmond was talking to Daniel on the phone and suddenly found himself in the public phone box, it calls The Matrix to mind. And Daniel leaving a message to his future self! Hee!

Now I wonder, for whom were all the Christmas presents behind Penny? And those decorations and drawings on the fireplace? Didn't they imply the presence of a kid? Could Penelope have had a son?

Anyway she won't give up and he's got an anchor. Constant love is the key.

*ETA: And the reference works even more given that Deslond almost became a monk like Abélard, before he met Penny.

I found Gene extremely hot in the last episode of Ashes to ashes ! *g*

I loved his "my station, my evidences", and how he walks with that long coat. and there were a few shots on his eyes that were just wow!

Also the hints at Alice's adventure in Wonderland were quite obvious again, Gene echoing them with the "curiouser and curiouser" line.

Chris and Ray were fun. Is it me or Ray has improved a lot since Sam's time?

The mother/daughter angle is still the core of Alex' problem.

I still think that she's interpreting things wrong, when putting her own daughter in her place...with Evan working as an axis, taking care of Molly just like he got her when her parents died. It must be a mental construct.

I think that she's working out her feelings towards her mother because she failed herself as a mother and as a cop (she failed in protecting Molly), not because her daughter would be in the same situation as she was.

So what do you think, is she a C cup or a D cup ?

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

As Doctor Who would say, there's a paradox issue there indeed and I am not sure the writers thought about it.

But it doesn't really bother me because I don't see it as a "true time travel". For me everything on Lost is a mental construct and I'm not sure there was a rat to begin with...