Thoughts after The Lake House

Watched The Lake House with Mum at the Cineleisure Damansara (next to The Curve), while Dad, Kevin and Sara went for Garfield 2.

It's really quite a perfect romantic movie, vivid in its cinematography and sweeping in its chemistry. Not much in terms of plot, but very evocative. By the end of the movie, I was left with one thought, inspired by the elements of time and death in the movie. Well, the thought isn't mine; it's T.S. Eliot's;

You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.

--From 'The Dry Salvages', Stave III

What makes the Cineleisure Damansara such a wonderful place for romantic movies, however, is this: they have 'couple seats', which are sets of two seats without the arm-rest in the middle! A wonderful device for couples who want to huddle up in the cinema, seeking the warmth of each other in the cold air of the hall...

* * * * *

In his masterpiece The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis suggests that romantic love should always be seasoned with fun and humour, that couples should not take love so seriously to the extent that it becomes a matter of life and death (such as is often portrayed in romantic tragedies and pop culture).

We are under no obligation at all to sing all our love-duets in the throbbing, world-without-end, heart-breaking manner of Tristan and Isolde; let us often sing like Papageno and Papagena instead...

...Lovers, unless their love is very short-lived, again and again feel an element not only of comedy, not only of play, but even of buffoonery, in the body's expression of Eros [romantic love].

* * * * *

Heard this in the car just now, before Mum dropped me in Taman Segar to get some work done at the Stationery Shop, develop some photos and get a haircut.

My Girl
By The Temptations (written by Ronald White and Smokey Robinson)

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it's cold outside I've got the month of May.
I guess you'd say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin' 'bout my girl (my girl).

I've got so much honey the bees envy me.
I've got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees.
I guess you'd say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin' 'bout my girl (my girl).

Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey
Ooooh.

I don't need no money, fortune, or fame.
I've got all the riches baby one man can claim.
I guess you'd say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin' 'bout my girl (my girl).

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day
with my girl.
I've even got the month of May
with my girl...

* * * * *

Sara outside the Cineleisure Damansara office...


...and Kevin in 'jam' mode yesterday morning.


* * * * *

It's already been a week and 33 minutes...