
Saw a crazy, creative and quite fabulous film French film about dreams and sleep last night. It was called The Science of Sleep and the characters had trouble distinguishing between dreams and reality, but there was also a sweet romance with plenty of tension about whether the boy would actually get the girl.
Came home to dream that I had fifteen minutes left before closing time in the shops and I had to buy about ten birthday presents. I spent the entire time trying to organize others into who would buy what, with all of them complaining and nothing being bought.
Not surprisingly, I have to drag myself out of my writing cave to go shopping today. Off to Brisbane tomorrow for – you guessed it – family birthday celebrations.
There was also another truly beautiful film called Conversations with my Gardener, which I loved -- about a renewed friendship between two men who were friends in primary school and haven't met since. One is a Parisian artist , the other a rural railway worker. When the artist's marriage is on the rocks, he goes back to the place in the country where he grew up and hires his old friend as his gardener. One character is sophisticated and worldly and open to new ideas; the other is simple, rustic and un-malleable as rock. Each, in his own way, helps the other. So simple, but so powerful. These foreign films are wonderfully refreshing.
BTW, who saw Jane Austen's Emma on ABC TV last Sunday night? I thought Mark Strong as Mr. Knightley was just fabulous. That dignified bearing. Those eyes!!!!