Me and My Sister

So we did end up going to the RIFG Film Festival last night and seeing Me and My Sister. Like most foreign films, it spanned a wide range of emotions refusing to be pigeonholed into a single genre. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone who likes quiet, thoughtful movies and doesn't mind subtitles.

The movie was about two French sisters who haven't seen each other in three years. Louise is a beautician from the country who's in Paris for the weekend to follow her dream of becoming a writer. She has a novel that she's sent to countless publishers, and has finally gotten a meeting with one of them. She's warm, talkative, and friendly. Martine is a jobless member of Paris' upper middle class. She's stuck with a husband and son that she doesn't love, but lives off of his considerable wealth. Cold, angry, and depressed, she is the opposite of her sister and is, in fact, embarrassed by her. See if you can tell which one is which.

What follows is essentially an exercise in comparing these two styles of living through the lens of their relationships with each other, their family, and Martine's friends. Unlike the fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, you're not to be convinced that one style of living is necessarily superior to the other. It's instead a contrast of what it means to follow your dreams and living life without any dreams at all. In one of the more telling (and amusing) scenes, Louise and Martine are at the opera to see "Romeo et Juliette". We don't see any of the action on stage, but what we do see is an extended side-by-side closeup of the two sisters as Juliette performs her aria. Louise is completely caught up in the moment, near a happy and tearful breakdown as she wordlessly mouths along, "I want to live in this dream which intoxicates me". Martine is disinterested, barely looking at the stage as she fidgets impatiently with her necklace.

Movies like this often inspire me to go out and start "living my dream" or "making a difference". Maybe it's just me, but I'm not entirely sure what it means to me to do either of those things. Do I have dreams? I don't know. I have a way that I want to be living my life, so maybe that's enough for now.

How about you? Are you living your dream? Feel free to comment. Or not. Whatever.