The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou reminded me of my childhood. I thought it was interesting how for Ned and Jane this was about their childhoods. This was about their childhood image of Steve Zissou and about Steve being human (about him being "Stevesie" and "Papa Steve" and "Dad"). But Wes Anderson did not let that get in the way of having lots of fun with dynamite and explosions and guns and wetsuits and I admire that. Ryan talked about how this was almost an action movie. Reading this from Ryan made me think about the action side of the film more and that is probably why I noticed the lack of anything to tie this movie to the action genre. These were not the fights we get into every day, no, not even I do, but we can still watch the film and think "yes, if pirates were attacking me that's probably how I would react." These are not ordinary situations, but they're still ordinary people. It's the humanity that I love about this film. The subtle humor and the Proust and the siamese kittens roaming the ship, pouncing on those poor budgies just bring that out more. (I loved the Proust scene, by the way, especially the part when Jane asked Ned if he wanted her to catch him up on the story and he said he would figure it out. Yeah, I read that last year. There is no plot.) Oh, and I also want to say that I loved Annemarie. She was so great, stomping around in her semi-clothed state, so secure and pissed off at the same time. Great women in this film, all three of them. Great men, too, but great women.
Posted by linnea at December 30, 2004 1:56 AM