365 Inspirations—165: Before Midnight Movie

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."—Friedrich Nietzsche

To celebrate the end of the quarter, Yoon and I went out to the movies. We went to see Before Midnight, the last of the trilogy. The first two were Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. All three are movies by Richard Linklater.

Before Sunrise is about a couple (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) who met in Europe and while traveling and spent about 24 hours together. Most of the movie is focused on conversation.

The movie ends with the couple leaving each other not know whether or not they'll ever see each other again.

About nine years later, the couple meet in Europe while Ethan Hawke's character is on book tour. They spend the day together again. The movie ends with Hawke trying to decide if he should stay in France with this woman or return to his wife and child. He is in a loveless marriage at home and finds it hard to leave this French woman he met years ago and hasn't forgotten ever since.

I know I'm probably spoiling the trilogy, but the last movie shows that Hawke did decide to stay in France, but he had to make very hard choices in doing so. He had to leave his wife, but more heart wrenching is that he had to leave his son behind in the States after he decided to start a new family with the woman he really loves. His biggest difficulty is the guilt he feels for leaving his son, who he only sees on holidays.

All three movies are based on conversations and emotions. The movies are very real and true to life. They are not glossed over with Hollywood glitz and glamour. They seem like a very realistic couple with very real problems. They go through things that we can all relate to.

For me, it's been interesting to follow this fictional couple through their lives in their 20s, 30s and now 40s. I'm the same age as they are in the movies and I've enjoyed watching their lives unfold on screen as mine has unfolded in real life. I wish they would do another one when they are in their 50s, but I think that's the last one.

I saw the first one with my friend and the last two with Yoon in the theater. I now want to rent the first two again to remind me of their journey, as I've forgotten a little.

Anyway, I recommend all of these movies. Yoon and I love to go to the movies together. It's one of our biggest joys. It was also a great way to celebrate the end of the quarter.

Do you like to go to the movies? What movie(s) have you seen recently?

365 Inspirations—13: The Movie "Chasing Ice"

“We as a culture, we are forgetting that we are actually natural organisms and that we have this very deep connection and contact with nature. You can’t divorce civilization from nature, we totally depend on it.”—James Balog

















Yesterday I went to the discount ($3.00 movie tickets) Landmark Theater called Crest near my house in Seattle. We saw the 5:15pm showing of Chasing Ice about a photographer named James Balog who was given an assignment by National Geographic to photograph the disappearing glaciers around the world. He set up cameras in Alaska, Greenland, Montana and other places and left them there for several months to record, through time lapse photography, how rapidly these glaciers are disappearing.

The two most inspiring things about the movie were:

1) James Balog's dedication to the Extreme Ice Survey project. Despite the fact that he had had knee surgery three times, he did not let that stop him from ice picking his way to across some of the most treacherous terrains in order to see this project through. What started out as simply an assignment, very soon became a passion to educate the world that climate change is very real.

2) The photography and footage are breathtaking, miraculous and heart-breaking all at once. I could never really wrap my head around climate change until I saw these photographs and footage.

The movie inspired me to "be the change" I wish to see in the world and to pay more attention to my natural environment and treat it well.

Have you seen any interesting or inspiring movies lately? Did they inspire you to do something different?