Girl, interrupted

Here's my take on this old movie ' Girl, Interrupted', which stars Winona Ryder as Susanna, Brittany Murphy as Daisy, and Angelina Jolie as Lisa.

Diagnosed as suffering from depression and having a borderline personality disorder, Susanna is sent to a mental institution to recuperate. Along the way, she meets the beautiful but twisted Lisa, who possesses sociopathic tendencies. Wiona Ryder's performance was captivating, but it was really Jolie who stole the show.There was not one moment that I could take my eyes off her. She might have been young, but she was no rookie in the acting department. Yes, she was mesmerizing, but she was also temperamental,manipulative, unpredictable, calculative, viciously cruel, and above all, dangerous. She knew exactly which buttons to push, which made her even more terrifying as she increasingly became more and more unhinged.

The movie was pretty intense and I loved it, for its dark humour, its talented cast and compelling plot. It's a rare gem among the plethora of movies, as it has depth and substance, and is thought provoking and emotionally impactful. Although it's somewhat dark, dealing with heavy things like incest, obsessive compulsive disorders, anorexia, rape, mutilation and so on, it is definitely a must-watch.

A few quotes to end off:

"Crazy isn’t being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me, amplified."

"But I know what it’s like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in but you can’t. You hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."

"Maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid, and ignorant. But I'd rather be in it. I'd rather be fucking in it, than down here with you."

"Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted."

A drawing done for N back in 2007

All I have now are images of your impassive face, those flat, unfathomable eyes that say nothing at all, your back as you walk away, vanishing into the distance. The cold indifference of a stranger.

She looks at you, her face breaking into a radiant smile-

and everywhere, there are stars and explosions.

It breaks you little by little

your poor hummingbird of a heart

You take a step into the crouching darkness, feel the edges of yourself dissolve into the black nothingness.

Disappearing.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus left me feeling utterly disappointed. The plot was far from exciting. Like a rickety carriage driving through the dark woods, as shown in the movie, the story lurched forward in a rather pointless and haphazard fashion, and only served to confuse the audience even more. The ending was unsatisfying and abrupt, leaving my friend and I bewildered at the turn of events. And this is going to sound quite trivial but I felt that Heath Ledger, Jude Law and Colin Farrel made the character sleazy and shifty looking. Only Johnny Depp succeeded in making the character believable. Then again, I've always had a soft spot for the amazingly talented Johnny Depp. What redeemed the movie was the stunning visuals, and the talented supporting cast. Valentina ( the gorgeous Lily Cole) sparkled in her role, and the devil had me mesmerized- he was undeniably a magnetic villain.

I wanted to save you.

But only we can save ourselves.

Sooner or later you'll cease to exist.

I won't have to care anymore.

It's as if my true self is buried so deeply within, underneath the walls I put up. I can feel myself retreating further and further into myself, barely surfacing anymore. Entire chunks of my day play out, but I feel so far away, as if I'm watching from a vast distance, outside my body, somehow.

I'm trying to forget, but sometimes it gets too difficult and it just leaves me broken and all I want is for things to go back the way they were

I'll tell my little brother that unicorns and dragons do exist. That babies are carefully wrapped up in white bundles which are delivered by great white storks who fly thousands of miles. If we look carefully enough, we'll realize that there are guardian angels placed on earth to watch over us and guide us. That he has to be a good boy so Santa Claus will give him something wonderful during 

Christmas. and so on and so forth.

I think children nowadays grow up too fast. Their parents just dish out the dull, bleak facts of this world to their kids, instead of weaving them shining, dazzling gems of stories. Wouldn't you rather believe in a fantastical, amazing world where anything is possible? I guess you'd probably scoff at this idea, telling me that I'm too naive and idealistic. Well, stories were my best friends when I was a kid. There is still time for him to discover the truth, eventually. Meanwhile, he should be given a chance to view the world with a wide-eyed wonder.

One of the reasons why photography blows me away is the fact that you can immortalize a moment, and turn even the most ordinary of things into something beautiful. There is nothing more gratifying than that.

" I have this which you won't read. Whatever form of words I find, it will make no difference- there's nothing more you'll let me say to you. I work in invisible ink, unsay myself in rooms I don't want and don't know and I keep ahead of the road to stay ahead of so much silence, to be beside you in this one way, travelling as I know you're travelling, running.

I never was sure what we believed in, except each other, but since I am helpless and you may be too, I make us a prayer every night which asks if you could be happy, if you could be safe. Then I would have almost enough.

My love never was any better than that."

-  fourletterword

I can't remember what it's like to not be tired.

What I learnt in school:

1. Society views you as a unit of production:( See what capitalism does to your country? You're reduced to a mere unit, all they care about is increasing your productivity, for the sake of contributing to the GDP and making Singapore a 'world class' city

2. If you don't look as good as those who are genetically superior, or behave a little differently from the rest, you get labelled as a freak/geek/loser/misfit. It's as simple as that.

3. It's a dog eat dog world. Toughen up, or you risk getting eaten alive.

4.The Singaporean education system is utterly stifling and conformist. We're all trained to think that if we fail, it's the end of the world. At a young age, we're like docile sheep, passively accepting whatever information that is being fed to us, without bothering to challenge these ideas or even thinking for ourselves. And that's something even I am guilty of.

It's easier to say absolutely nothing at all.