Terribly Happy (Frygtelig lykkelig, 2008)

The trailer and reviews of this Danish movie convinced me that I was going to like it. Quirky! Black humor! Coen Bros meet David Lynch! Edgy! Noir! Well, I ended up pretty much hating it. Then again, I guess I've never liked David Lynch very much either.

It's about a cop from Copenhagen who has done something bad and is sent to a rural farm town as punishment. There he gets caught up in the backwater shenanigans of a cast of creepy, quirky small town characters and their small town secrets. That's the story anyway. What it's really about is bad people doing stupid things. Repeatedly. I hated every character in the movie, including the protagonist. I wanted them all to die. (Not enough of them do.) I found it amusing for about fifteen minutes, and then I settled into a dull, seething hatred.

I think the last movie I hated this much was Pan's Labyrinth, so bear that in mind. I know a lot of you love that movie. I suppose it's a sign that there was something effective going on in Terribly Happy that I had such a strong reaction to it. The one thing I did like was the look of it, which used the rural countryside effectively to communicate isolation and alienation and entrapment.

Ah well. Afterwards holyoutlaw and I went to Samurai Noodle again, and this time we tried the ramen. I had a spicy green onion ramen that was pretty delicious. A nice slow burn on a clammy night.

Like wind playing through an empty reed: a rant

WARNING: pissing and moaning about messy feelings to follow.

So I've been blue for the past week or more. When I dig into the blues, I find self-pity at the bottom. When I dig into the self-pity, I find fear and regret at the bottom. When I dig into the fear and regret, I find the facts of life: I don't know what happened, I don't know what's going on, and I don't know where I'm headed. In short, I don't know nothin'. So what else is new? The bottom line is that these feelings are transitory, like wind playing through an empty reed. Life goes on, in the key of E flat, as my friend Reid used to say.

Some specifics: I'm pissed at Sharee for pulling the rug out from under my fantasy life. No, not *those* fantasies. I'm talking about the fantasy that -- at long last, after forty years! -- I had a soulmate out there in the world, even if we couldn't be together. Which means that I'm pissed at myself for being such a blindly romantic nitwit to begin with, despite all my efforts to remain grounded and in touch with so-called reality. Not that there is anything wrong with the level of connection and friendship that Sharee and I have in reality, which is a fine and beautiful and lasting thing, even if slightly bent and fragile at the moment. No, it's the fantasy that there was something cosmic about our connection, like that moment when the music swells in the movie and everything is tears and bliss and angelic choirs for all eternity.

Whatever. What the hell use is fear? I'm afraid of being alone for the rest of my life. Why? What does the fear even mean? I'm not actually alone in the world, so what the fuck am I really afraid of? Yo, fear! Stop being so fucking sophomoric! Grow the fuck up!

I just don't get it. I'm almost fifty years old and yet it's as if I haven't learned a single damned thing my whole life. I still torment myself over complete bullshit that has no basis in reality. It's like I'm still sixteen, still churning through the same cycles of fear and desperation and self-alienation. Still afraid that I'm stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with myself. No one comes to help! Waaaah!

Well, whatever. This too shall pass. The fundamentals are all good: good job, good home, good friends, good family. I live an amazingly privileged life by almost any index you care to name. All of this pathetic mewling is unsightly. Let the wind blow. I just need to pull my head out of my ass and get on with it. I'm really getting fed up with still caring about any of this shit.

And that's what all the poetry was covering. Stupid poetry!