Film analysissss (Love is dead)

A certain genre of love film

As soon as I heard the proposed title for our film "The writings on the bathroom walls", there was one film that immediately came to mind, "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". Its just got a very similar inviting esoteric quality to it, you kinda get it (I think in ours much more than eternal sunshine but thats beyond the point) but you don't reallyyy understand. It has a very alluring draw to make you want to learn more. 

Maybe because of that title connection it was also one of the first pieces that I was drawn into for inspiration for our themes and approach. This is one of those films that follows one of my favorite sub-genres of films, which is those not-love love stories that end in tragedy and heartbreak and teach you something new about romance and the human experience along the way! For clarity's sake ill just call them 'love is dead' films. These include many films, as discussed in the last blog post, ranging from the previously mentioned ETSOTSM (rolls right off the tongue), 500 days of summer, past lives, and moonlight. On the surface they are love stories, but they each throw a unique spanner into the works that complicates the stories from overly romantic and idealized love into a more realistic depiction of the depth of interpersonal relationships. 

So lets get into the nitty gritty of these films and see what we can learn from them! 

Past Lives

Past Lives (2023)

On first thought there's a few things that stand out to me about this film. First, it explores how a communication medium can fundamentally change the dynamics of a relationship. In our film, of course the medium is bathroom walls so while its not exactly the same I still think Past Lives can give some great insight. In the film, our main character Nora connects with an old childhood friend who lives in South Korea (while she lives in Canada) through the power of the internet and video calling. (Spoiler Alert), the film essentially shows how their attempt at romance fails as a result of the distance. When they are able to reconnect again, Nora is already married and nothing can happen between them. 

What I really like about these choices, especially how it deals with the interactions of the characters with a certain degree of the ambiguity is the way that it explores the way that 'love' is challenged by outside forces. One of these, is time. Since they didn't take the time to make something work while they could because of the compounding effect of distance, once they met up, all they could think about was "what if". 

This brings a really interesting question and potential idea for a resolution to our own story. If we follow a path similar to past lives, we can explore the theme of losing what could have been because of other factors. My idea for this is, near the end of the story, the homophobic girl is outed and is kind of forced into having a change of heart and embracing her queer identity. She then tries to pursue the openly queer girl, but by the time she has made up her mind, the open girl no longer wants her. She has seen who she truly was behind the bathroom writings, and what there was between them could no longer it existed. It now only existed in both of their minds as a "what if?", a love story that could have been beautiful and worked out under separate circumstances, but which could now never work.