Saturday, June 26, 2010

young hearts be free tonight

spent tonight watching Love, Lust and Lies in an almost-empty cinema on my own. it's an Australian version of the 7 Up series. It starts with 3 young teenage girls in Adelaide in the 1970s and follows their lives every 7 years or so, until they're in their late 40s.

Lots of insights into love, relationships, hopes, dreams, hopes and dreams being crushed, lives not turning out like you expected, the Australian suburban landscape...and the whole thing is like an example of the effects of feminism on the ambitions/possibilities available to girls/females. I was a blubbering mess at least 4 times during this film.

also, unlike documentaries like Cunnamulla, it doesn't have an exploitative feel. as in, the documentary-maker is really sweet and sensitive and seems to have a genuine interest in the lives of the 3 women, and they seem to really like and trust her.

I think it's worth mentioning, because sometimes I watch these sort of documentaries and feel like the documentary-maker gained the trust of the "subjects" and then betrayed that trust by highlighting little things about their lives completely out of context. it can come across as really classist, like "can you believe people actually live like this?", and I nearly lose my mind when I witness people in the cinema laughing at parts of other people's lives that were never intended to be humourous.

when I came home I lay in my bed, listening to a combination of the rain outside my window and this song by Little Joy