Tag Archives: Mourning

“We were supposed to be heroes”

15 Mar

A special thanks to Bryan, who has helped shape and sharpen my views on this movie.

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Initially, the plan was to write something on Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me on the occasion of its 25th anniversary last year. It’s nothing new that posts on this blog take a long time to materialize, but in the case of Stand By Me, it became increasingly hard to find the right words for it as the year progressed. I used the months between March and June to watch it something like six or seven times, and in the process I fell so unconditionally in love with it that I felt like I needed some time and distance from it in order to write about it. During that cooling off period, things happened that made me try to avoid any movie that might make me feel sad or nostalgic. As I shall explain later, Stand By Me does both. So, here we are, way into the movie’s 26th year, and maybe it is finally time to give the movie its due. (This essay contains major spoilers.) (more…)

At The Heart Of ‘Talk to Her’

2 Mar

Last week, I finally saw for myself what cinephiles all over the world have known for ten years already; that Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her is a true masterpiece. I’ve never been a huge fan of the more outre early Almodovar – to the extent that I’ve seen his movies from the eighties and nineties – mostly for their hyperactivity and perceived lack of warmth. The later Almodovar – in All About My Mother (1999), definitely, but never more so than in Talk to Her (2002) – makes up for this, with interest. Thankfully, the latter movie is also one of his most immediately accessible. I don’t say this because I detest a cinema that is idiosyncratic or challenging, but because it’s immediacy probably will have meant that more people have seen it. I should have done so years ago myself. (more…)

July 22, Six Months On

22 Jan

I’ve been trying to write this for months now, and wanting to do so for even longer. But today – the sixth-month-anniversary of the horrific acts of July 22 – seemed like the right time. We all have our individual stories of what we did that dark day – and since I was not there but lost a great friend that day – my experiences pale in comparison to do those of survivors and relative of the people who were so brutally torn away from us. And still, the grief is always there, for ever and no matter our experiences. So what do say on a day like today? (more…)

Never Forget

25 Dec

I approach the end of 2011 with mixed feelings: On the one hand, I can’t wait for it to be over. It’s been a terrible year. I lost one of my best friends in the terror attacks in Oslo this July, and several of my friends are what the media now calls “survivors”. Even for someone like me, who didn’t experience the terror, only the loss and grief that came with it, these last five months have been tough to get through. Late in the year, I also had some health problems that tore my already shaky psychol0gical defenses down further. On the other hand, I’m almost afraid to let go of 2011. (more…)

Sad. Grateful. Determined.

29 Jul

Today, it’s been a week since the terror attacks in Norway. A very close friend of mine was killed at Utøya, and a handful of my friends were among the survivors. I wasn’t on the island myself, but I am a member of the youth organization that was attacked, and I have been to the summer camp there six before, between 2001 and 2007. On Monday, I tried to formulate my thoughts over at Chris Baxter’s blog. I still feel the same way (more…)

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