I Have Loved You So Long/ Sycheadaofjwoe

Guest blogger: N. Huelster
First attempt: Schenechdote(?); I was warned by a professor that this film was trying too hard to be "meta," was pretentious and not worth seeing. Giving it a try, however, proved this to be true. The name is similar to the name of the town in Upstate New York where the film takes place, but is a word meaning "a trope where a part is used to refer to its whole," which is supposed to explain the connection between the play within the film, I think, but frankly, the whole film is so messed up that I couldn't understand what the director was going for. The psyche of the main character is painful to witness from the start of the movie, and after his wife leaves him, and his health begins to deteriorate, it only becomes more and more painful to watch. Not only this, the effects of Kaufman's mixing of the fantastic with the real is lost in this flop, whereas in "Eternal Sunshine" it served the characters and the story to make a superb (and meta) film. Fastforwarded the last hour, it was my favorite part.
Second attempt: Il y'a Longtemps Que Je T'aime; French film starring English actress Kristen Scott Thomas. This was a good film, exploring the reunion of two sisters after one is released from fifteen years in prison for murdering her son. Throughout the film we learn her reason for doing it, and it turns out not to be the horrific act of violence that sustains much of the tension throughout the unfolding story- her introduction into her sister's new family, a new job, and new acquaintances on the other side of the prison wall to face (and to face her guilt). Thomas' character is bleak, and mysterious, and her relationship with her sister and her family reveals in the end what her true guilt really was. I at first liked the story for its sympathetic look at mental illness/ prison, but in the end the twist surrounding Thomas' crime gives the story a new depth. Bien!