Dewey Finn and Hawkspath both expressed my feelings about the book very well. Thanks for being more eloguent than I. It is a nihilistic view of life that the writer expresses, but he does so masterfully.
[ducks in]I loved the movie.[/ducks out]
Well, please join the conversation then. This isn’t for “hating”. Tell us what makes it a good movie.
I’d never heard of the book and I had no idea what the movie was about when I went to go see this. I was blown away by it. My favorite scene is when Keira Knightley’s character asked for forgiveness on the beach. She realizes that she’s done an enormous wrong, and she tries to make up for it with something that turns out to be a fairy tale. Heartbreaking.
I thought just about every aspect of the film was great, especially the acting. But more than the mere technicalities of the film, it was the emotional resonance it created that haunted me for days that makes this a great film. The regret, the despair, the resignation, I know these feelings all too well.
I don’t usually like to post in negative threads. I do sometimes in moments of weakness, but I don’t more often than not. There are several threads on the front page of Cafe Society I don’t dare open and read. They’ll either make me mad or depressed, because I’m a ditz who takes movies way too seriously. This thread I read anyway and it made me depressed. Such a beautiful, sad, melancholy, fragile movie, picked on and put down. But I could’t stand it anymore. Someone has to give the movie a sliver of love, might as well be me, though I see that I’m not alone. Thank you for your post gladtobeblazed, you said it much better than I could have.
Actually I didn’t even know that this had been made into a film. And for some reason it raised my hackles a bit (although I know my hackles raise easily and I should try to keep them flatter when I can).
Maybe its a great movie but it will never be able to accomplish what the novel did. That’s why I suggest everyone who saw the film and liked it to go out and get the book. In return I will watch the movie and come back here to comment as to how well I thought it stood up to the novel.
Ishiguro hit a peak (I don’t want to say his peak because I don’t know what else might come from him) with this novel. Unlike earlier novels he is not just relying on his facility with language, his sensitivity to human relations, or his mastery of style. This time he put it all up there on the shelf and a bit more.
I agree. I hope you didn’t think I created a “negative” thread. I don’t like those either.