Saw Stardust

Damn, sucked in by the reviews. I don't like Gaiman, and I don't like fairy stories, but since all the reviews hyped this "wonderful fantasy film", I thought it might be worth seeing. Alas, no. It's still a fairy story and it's still Gaimanesque (although I'm sure with way less of the creepy stuff he would have included in the novel, which I didn't read). Meh.

Evil witches and (not-quite-so) innocent maidens to rescue. >yawn< There were a few vaguely entertaining moments, including Robert De Niro as a screaming queen, although I note he failed to get properly "dressed". The movie hit a lot of fairy story tropes, but didn't play with them. And, you know, it felt like the same old tired sexist shit. Even Shrek manages to put much more amusing spin on all those things.

I still haven't put my finger on why I like fantasy and yet not fairy stories. Speaking of fantasy movies, I love The Princess Bride. But it's not a fairy story, although it's still boy-gets-girl. Westley doesn't discover he's really a prince. It's not magic that drives the plot. And it is actually funny, and does actually play with the tropes too. Hm.

Stardust wasn't a complete waste of money, but I would much rather have waited for the DVD, if I had to see it at all. Some nice cinematography, though.

ETA: Fixered wonky HMTL!

More on Stardust

stormkpr indirectly reminded me that part of the reason I don't like fairy tales in general is their often moralising tone. I don't like parables either.

The moral of Stardust, as presented in the movie, is that love is unconditional. You know, you don't make the young suitor go off and bring you back a fallen star so as to "prove" his love.

<rant on> I hate that. Of course love is fucking conditional. There are personality quirks and behaviours that make you fall in love with that person. There is the underlying sense of passion, shared goals and compatibility that makes you stay in love with that person. There is the avoidance of unrecoverable fuck-up behaviour or too-divergent paths on both sides that don't kill the love. If those aren't conditions, I don't know what are.

And yes, love does have to be proven. Not necessarily by way of showering gifts or doing X thing (like standing in a church while a strange ritual is enacted over you). But love needs to be demonstrated in such ways that the demonstrator truly feels and that the demonstratee can truly perceive. If that doesn't happen - in whatever way works for both participants - love is not sustainable.

If those feelings and willingness to enact them only go one way, then it's sure as hell not love, it's infatuation. And even that is conditional on the object of infatuation maintaining whatever it is that is so attractive - good looks, "coolness", whatever - or the infatuated person remaining in their state of mental aberration.

So, yeah, each time that particular line came up in the movie, my eyeballs went into a spasm of rolling around in my head for five minutes, so it was distracting. If they were saying, "love isn't selfish", well, ok. It wasn't framed that way, unfortunately.