Midsommar, a film seen in midwinter

 So, we watched Midsomar on Saturday, and I sort-of wish... well, some of the images are stickier (!) than I would have guessed, in every sense of the word, and I'm not sure if I think it's a good film or a piece of, shall we say, directorial indulgence? Many reviews praise the cinematography, and yes, it's wonderful. Florence Pugh is excellent. The story is indescribable. I wouldn't go so far as one critic quoted in Wiki ( the "horror equivalent of a destination wedding" ) - but - more than once while watching, one of us would turn to the other and say "WHAT!????!" - I covered my eyes and looked away a few times, because just looking away or just closing my eyes would not have been enough. That all said, the plot and characters are logical in terms of world-building, and I will never EVER to go Sweden.

 

the truth is out there

Hello. I am teabird, and I am an X-Files junkie. DH and I saw the movie Saturday night. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Visually, the movie has the feel of the early Vancouver years, before the production was moved to California: dark, chilly, ambiguous. Scully and Mulder are now more mature and bonded, their daily lives no longer rooted in darkness.

Scully has devoted herself to medicine. The case she is struggling with involves a very sick boy, about the age their son William would have been. How Scully should treat his illness brings on an existential crisis, as she is forced to decide between a course dictated by science, and another that would be guided by emotions - her own, and the boy's parents'. She wants to believe in the supreme value of science, yet she has chosen to work in a Catholic hospital, where spiritual, emotional - and bureaucratic! - forces are aligned against her.

Mulder is Mulder, adorned by a beard, attractively scruffy, ensconced in a study where every available surface is pinned with a clipping about paranormal events. His signature poster, "I want to believe," rules the collection. (Of course.) He claims to be happy, but any X-Files junkie will know that's not true when the camera pans to the pencil-studded ceiling. Mulder wants to believe - but no one else does.

(Note: the study reminded me of John Nash's office in "A Beautiful Mind," one of my favorite movies, even though the fountain-pen scene was a fabrication by Ron Howard...)

Plot details can be found in any review. I'll just add one note: don't leave before the credits have ended. If you do, you'll miss something very special indeed...

choose your own and do with it what you will

MoonRani suggested a writing topic for us - what book or story would you like to see as a film? You can read our answers at Tea Reads, where MoonRani wrote about the biblical story of Esther, and I wrote about The Ladies by Doris Grumbach.
(I've been neglecting Tea Reads.)

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The poem-a-day calendar that I keep on my desk at work gave me this verse on Friday. It was one of my father's favorites.

Rubaiyat 51
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Omar Khayyam