My Melancholia Diary. So far, a MASTERPIECE- Still watching.
I never do this, but I feel like screaming it: I am at ep6 and this is feeling like a MASTERPIECE. I will update/change this review when I've completed my watch. The space limit here is a challenge, btw. Here's where I am as of ep6 into 7:
Has anyone ever gone on record as being for student-teacher love relationships? Can I get a show of hands? Nobody with a shred of decency believes that's a healthy thing, and this show is not advocating for that. In fact, there's only one adult in M who is desperately trying to do the right thing. Doing the right thing requires filling some big shoes.
M is screaming this at us through a virtual megaphone as it sets up a wild contrast to punch its point home. People enjoy screaming down wrongs and then walking away as if they've “fixed” the dreadful problem. It takes more than words. In the 80's they moved to ban the novel Huck Finn from school libraries because it contains the racist “N” word. The (truly embarrassing) irony is that Huck Finn may be the most profoundly anti-racist American novel ever written. What is more important? The fact that, as part of illustrating how wrong racism is, they first show us racism, or the technicality that they used the “N” word? Of course, the message is what's important. If the people behind the book burning were trying to keep racial tensions stoked it wouldn't look any differently when it comes to Huck Finn. Now we have Hyuk-Fin. Viewers were fin-ished as soon as they heard it was a teacher-student romance. Scream loudly & fix the problem: Activated. What these people missed was the real problem and this elegant show's true message.
Many of us may have to deal with inappropriate feelings of some sort. It is difficult to control feelings. People will fall in love. We are not responsible for the inappropriate feelings or dark thoughts that invade our psyche. We ARE responsible for what we do. The first mistake we make is lingering. If one went to Sunday school and remembers the story of Joseph, the right thing to do sometimes is get your Monty Python on and RUN AWAY!
Melancholia is a trick problem, though. On one plane it's dealing with how we deal with inappropriate feelings, but on another plane it's goosing us. There is only one adult in this show who is not f'g the kids, and that's our FL, the one who is in love inappropriately. She is not the problem. All the other adults are. I'm in ep6 and I'm beginning to think this is a masterpiece. The acting is comprehensive brilliance while the writer and director are legerdemainists of the highest order.
“During the Qjng Dynasty, there was a scholar who kept failing the Imperial examinations. So he decided to commit suicide... Before he did it, he complained to the Jade emperor. “I tried so hard… why couldn't I pass it? How come people who are lazier and less smart than me pass it?” The Jade Emperor summoned the god of effort and the god of fate to compete in a drinking contest… The god of Fate drank 7 glasses while the god of effort was only able to drink 3. From this fable came the saying “Unchil gisam” the success of a person depends on luck rather than talent or effort.” Ms Noh makes her point to the privileged parents of her privileged students. FATE put them there, these owners of manifest destiny. But she's interrupted by an upstart woman; little more than a girl, really. “It was the god of JUSTICE who was in the drinking game, not the god of effort. /Justice/ is society's underpinning,” she asserts. The police come and collect her. They want to know if she slept with her student. Then we go back 4 months.
Lim Soo Jung is the teacher, “Soo”. I haven't seen her before but her look in M is calculated. She's so pale. Crunching numbers has kept her out of the sun for years. She looks like she cut and dyed her own hair in the laziest, most unartistic, & cheapest fashion imaginable. She probably grabbed the dullest scissors from the school's art room. This actress is astounding in the way her facial expressions mark reserve. They show concrete walls behind her eyes when she interacts with her clod of a fiance, but when she's with her student Yoo, she's fulgent.
Imaginative but not imaginary: 👠Walk a mile in her shoes. Soo dresses in drab but her shoes do the talking. At the end of ep2 her feet are in bright green shoes: Green for go, youth, nativity, & growth. She's ready to get moving with this kid. Later, she meets her fiance and future mother-in-law to try on wedding dresses and on her feet are chunky black Oxfords with black socks. They look like combat boots. In ep4 they sit on a park bench and eat Popsicles as she wears pinkish-tan slip ons. They cover her entire foot except for the entry slots, like boat shoes. They are barely pink, but they seem like budding feelings. At Jeju it's utilitarian SNEAKers. It appears that they keep her full feet out of the frame unless there's a message for us.
Has anyone ever gone on record as being for student-teacher love relationships? Can I get a show of hands? Nobody with a shred of decency believes that's a healthy thing, and this show is not advocating for that. In fact, there's only one adult in M who is desperately trying to do the right thing. Doing the right thing requires filling some big shoes.
M is screaming this at us through a virtual megaphone as it sets up a wild contrast to punch its point home. People enjoy screaming down wrongs and then walking away as if they've “fixed” the dreadful problem. It takes more than words. In the 80's they moved to ban the novel Huck Finn from school libraries because it contains the racist “N” word. The (truly embarrassing) irony is that Huck Finn may be the most profoundly anti-racist American novel ever written. What is more important? The fact that, as part of illustrating how wrong racism is, they first show us racism, or the technicality that they used the “N” word? Of course, the message is what's important. If the people behind the book burning were trying to keep racial tensions stoked it wouldn't look any differently when it comes to Huck Finn. Now we have Hyuk-Fin. Viewers were fin-ished as soon as they heard it was a teacher-student romance. Scream loudly & fix the problem: Activated. What these people missed was the real problem and this elegant show's true message.
Many of us may have to deal with inappropriate feelings of some sort. It is difficult to control feelings. People will fall in love. We are not responsible for the inappropriate feelings or dark thoughts that invade our psyche. We ARE responsible for what we do. The first mistake we make is lingering. If one went to Sunday school and remembers the story of Joseph, the right thing to do sometimes is get your Monty Python on and RUN AWAY!
Melancholia is a trick problem, though. On one plane it's dealing with how we deal with inappropriate feelings, but on another plane it's goosing us. There is only one adult in this show who is not f'g the kids, and that's our FL, the one who is in love inappropriately. She is not the problem. All the other adults are. I'm in ep6 and I'm beginning to think this is a masterpiece. The acting is comprehensive brilliance while the writer and director are legerdemainists of the highest order.
“During the Qjng Dynasty, there was a scholar who kept failing the Imperial examinations. So he decided to commit suicide... Before he did it, he complained to the Jade emperor. “I tried so hard… why couldn't I pass it? How come people who are lazier and less smart than me pass it?” The Jade Emperor summoned the god of effort and the god of fate to compete in a drinking contest… The god of Fate drank 7 glasses while the god of effort was only able to drink 3. From this fable came the saying “Unchil gisam” the success of a person depends on luck rather than talent or effort.” Ms Noh makes her point to the privileged parents of her privileged students. FATE put them there, these owners of manifest destiny. But she's interrupted by an upstart woman; little more than a girl, really. “It was the god of JUSTICE who was in the drinking game, not the god of effort. /Justice/ is society's underpinning,” she asserts. The police come and collect her. They want to know if she slept with her student. Then we go back 4 months.
Lim Soo Jung is the teacher, “Soo”. I haven't seen her before but her look in M is calculated. She's so pale. Crunching numbers has kept her out of the sun for years. She looks like she cut and dyed her own hair in the laziest, most unartistic, & cheapest fashion imaginable. She probably grabbed the dullest scissors from the school's art room. This actress is astounding in the way her facial expressions mark reserve. They show concrete walls behind her eyes when she interacts with her clod of a fiance, but when she's with her student Yoo, she's fulgent.
Imaginative but not imaginary: 👠Walk a mile in her shoes. Soo dresses in drab but her shoes do the talking. At the end of ep2 her feet are in bright green shoes: Green for go, youth, nativity, & growth. She's ready to get moving with this kid. Later, she meets her fiance and future mother-in-law to try on wedding dresses and on her feet are chunky black Oxfords with black socks. They look like combat boots. In ep4 they sit on a park bench and eat Popsicles as she wears pinkish-tan slip ons. They cover her entire foot except for the entry slots, like boat shoes. They are barely pink, but they seem like budding feelings. At Jeju it's utilitarian SNEAKers. It appears that they keep her full feet out of the frame unless there's a message for us.
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