Okay, when I mean “love affair,” I really mean something struck me and now I’m an expert on it. No, let’s be humble and say I’m an enthusiast.
I actually don’t watch too many movies which seem to be so fitting considering I’m taking a screenwriting class. I just don’t have the attention span for a two-hour movie on most days, so when we had to watch and analyze a number of shorts, I indulged. No prolonged plots or long casts of whiny characters.
No Head, Full Heart
From the list, one stood out to me. I even watched it again with my family. It was a short French film titled L’homme sans tête or The Man Without a Head. The 2003 film, directed and written by Juan Solanas, intertwines fantasy with romance. This is the synopsis for the 18-minute piece from IMDB:
“With two fabulous tickets to tonight’s ball in his hands, the solitary Mr. Phelps needs to find the perfect head to please his charming date. Will he risk it all for love?”
Thought-provoking and warm-and-fuzzy inducing, right? Well, my daughter’s review was just one word: “creepy.”
The setting is eerie with its monochromatic hues and steampunk characteristics that make you question if Solanas is offering us a seat into the past or the future.
As you can imagine, the themes of identity and the pursuit of perfection loom large.
One of the best scenes comes before the finale when the man is looking at himself in the mirror. It’s sad, endearing, and then painfully hilarious. All I’ll say is that he forgot about an important upgrade.
Or not.
This isn’t an After School Special, but…
This film made me think about how we strive to improve ourselves, especially as women and ESPECIALLY when we hit milestone birthdays.
I turn 40 in 50 days, and yes, I want to poke and cut into my flesh for some enhancements, but this film wiggled its way into crevices I did not want it to venture into. It forced me to assess my flaws and possibly see them as what makes me unique, remnants and patches stitched together, sometimes delicately and other times crudely, to craft my identity.
At my first big girl job after college in upscale hospitality, a male coworker told me, “You’d be perfect if you just got a nose job.” That was almost half my life ago and sometimes it still haunts me.
What defines being whole? Can I be perfect in pieces?
What are my motivations for change?
Are smaller changes to our physical appearance deemed appropriate if they are cheaper and less drastic?
Do I expect physical scars to mask emotional ones?
Do I crave dissections of the mind or the body?
Growing up in the South as a teen, people would question what I was, like in an ethnic sense, with my black, thick hair, fleshy nose, and weird last name. (Don’t get duped by my husband’s Irish surname; I stole that.) My cheeks burned as stuttered, weak explanations dribbled out of my mouth in response to those inquiries.
Nowadays, I kind of like those questions. And I think if I went in for a consultation for a nose job, I would annoy the surgeon.
“No, but will I still look Italian-Cuban? … Are you sure? … How many Italian-Cubans do you even know? … Is there any way to look at a computer-generated annoyed version of my new face?”
I’m sure that would go well.
Whatever your views on the growing pressures and never-ending pursuit of perfection, I hope you watch L’homme sans tête and smile a little at our fucked-up-ness. And in that mess of the human condition, we sometimes find a lifeline of comfort and contentment.
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This post was previously published on Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Blogs.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: iStock