I was eager to see the movie that beat out Pan’s Labyrinth for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards. Beki and I took a trip down to Santa Fe that included a screening of Live of Others. While I think Pan was the more deserving film, Lives of Others is a fantastic piece of work. I was disappointed by the overly long denouement, but that’s forgivable. I was most impressed by the pacing of the film. As Beki said, there were no “makeover moments” in which a character suddenly makes a change.
Prior to seeing the movie we went to The Plaza to get tamales, sit in the grass, and read/nap. Being the anniversary of the war, The Plaza was full of folks protesting the war in their own quiet ways. There were hippies with t-shirts and funny looking dogs. There were witty signs addressing the president around the monument in the center of the park. I saw an upper-middle class teenager dressed to the nines in Abercrombie and a popped collar with his light jacket open to reveal a white t-shirt with a handwritten message to the president about getting out of Iraq. There were bougie hippies (a class that’s extremely well represented in Santa Fe) talking about their love of Amy Goodman. There was also a mediocre clown doing juggling tricks for children. It was the warmest day of the year and the sun was in full force. We sat a blanket and read for two hours before getting some dinner before the film. A very pleasant afternoon.
