Midnight in Paris

Helsinki, 16 degrees

The golden age - does such an age truly exist?

So to continue with Tuesday...on Tuesday I met two of my favorite girls and went to the cinema to see Woody Allen's newest movie "Midnight in Paris". Here's again the trailer to get you into the right mood.

As the name says, this movie is set in Paris. I don't know how many of you know that I went to Paris in 2006. Anyway, I had huge expectations and was hugely disappointed when my expectations did not get answered. I also thought it would have been a romantic trip, but it turned out to be something completely different. My point being that even though I don't have happy memories related to Paris since I experienced both a bomb alert followed by evacuation and a person jumping in front of an underground train, both in just a few days of time, I wanted to see the movie nevertheless and I didn't have any prejudgements. After all, even though my personal associations with the city aren't all pleasant it's a beautiful city, no doubt about it.

Source: IMDB

Eventually, I didn't think the setting made that much of a difference. I think how the main character describes his feelings concerning the city, can be related to other cities as well. In a sense, everybody has their "Paris", a place they find magical and, therefore, have thought about living in.

I'm going to try not to spoil again the movie for you by telling the plot, but merely discuss some of the thoughts the movie inspired in me. The main character in this particular movie dreams about living in the 20's, a time he felt was the "golden age", when everything was better. People like that are often called nostalgic and living in the past. I loved the fact that the movie should that there is a counterpart to all of that; when you dream about living in a different time, say the 20's, and then actually get to try it out, you'll realize that the people during the 20's actually wanted to live earlier as well, in the say 1890's..how ironic is that? One should therefore not idealize passed time, but put theory into practise and change the things that one doesn't like in the present by setting an example. After all, nobody can tell us how to act, dress, talk or think. We set our own rules and norms for that.

Source: IMDB

Woody Allen is a master of just that - challenging our norms and playing around with them. I love it.

Sometimes I've been called nostalgic because I like to think back on how time was when I was younger, even though I'm only 25 years old. That doesn't mean though that I wish I could be reliving those moments, but I merely wish to remember the emotions and thoughts I had at that time. Our experiences make us who we are, and I think it's important for us to recap and reflect on the things we've been through.

The movie also got me thinking about that some places in the world are related to the past. I mean, when I started thinking about going to Rome the first time, I wanted to do so because I had got inspired by movies like "Roman Holiday" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Why? Because they were set in passed time. Cities like Rome, but let us also say London and Paris, are all related to the past. When we walk on the streets of London, how many of us think then of horse carriages on the streets and the "Old London"? At least I did. In Paris again many think of the time of artists like in the movie I just saw. And no one can deny the connection between Rome and ancient times. Try walking beside the Colosseum without thinking about history, that would be more difficult.

On the other hand, cities like my own, are strongly related to the future. I remember that some time ago, I went to see an exhibition about Helsinki in 2030. I recall myself thinking that I wish I would have been born at a time when the future would be already present time. I mean, Helsinki is going to be changing enormously in the next 20 years. When I'll be 45, I'll belong to the ones remembering how Helsinki was in the 2010's...

I would like to see a movie discussing this. The want to live in the future, haha. I think it's an interesting idea, no? Of course, there has been a lot of future based movies, but they are in my opinion always hugely exaggerated. Why not base those movies on real city plans, in the nearby future? Other cities than Helsinki must have those kinds of plans. I wish a movie maker would dare to touch a subject like that. 

Source: IMDB

One can not write about Midnight in Paris without mentioning rain. The movie has such a cute approach to it since the main character, a man (!), loves it and tries to find somebody else who thinks the same way about it. One of my friends and I have been joking about it ever since we saw the movie - hereafter every time somebody speaks bad about rain, we'll ask them to see this movie and they can't help but find it romantic for sure. I'll try that with my customers, let's see how it goes.

So again, I have to recommend this movie, for its plot, actors and for being so neurotic as only a movie of Woody Allen could be.