Girl With A Pearl Earring

About a week ago, I was Netflix-less without a movie to watch over a free weekend. Desperate for choices, I had browsed my recently married buddies Jerry & Rosanna‘s extensive DVD collection… not as comparable to Rob & Doris’s collection, but comparable enough to your local video clerk (who’s struggling against the Blockbuster/Hollywood rental empire by including a curtained porno section). I had borrowed four flicks – 2046, Il Postino, Girl With A Pearl Earring, and Elizabeth (and also the book “Look At My Striped Shirt“) I know, you’re asking,”How the fuck have you not watch these movies?”

Specific on Girl With A Pearl Earring, Rosanna had mentioned how the movie was slow but that she had really loved it. Comments on movies like these tends to be a subtle challenge to me because I am defensive when people assume that all I enjoy watching are cannibal and torture flicks (and my recent admission to loving 60s/70s giant mutant animal flicks too!). For me, there are no slow or boring movies. Only bad ones. I enjoy the company of films more than a lot of people I have met. A lot humans are boring to me, esp. if they lack character. But, I won’t rant about the ignorant masses here, as I am only a humble common man that loves a good movie (or good friends with character).

“Girl With a Pearl Earring” is a quiet movie, shaken from time to time by ripples of emotional turbulence far beneath the surface. It is about things not said, opportunities not taken, potentials not realized, lips unkissed.
– Roger Ebert

And, yeah I loved Girl With A Pearl Earring. I had referred to “Becoming Jane” as a quiet movie, because that was a guy’s neutral answer. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good experience with BJ, but the pearl earring girl was a stronger quietness that embolds me with what humans think when they are holding onto their fragile emotional moments. Yes, I can be a sensitive guy, it’s a balance… because most other guys will not watch this movie. But I do not feel I am obligated to defend my masculinity here. ’cause I still watch movies of cannibalism and torture that a lot of so-called “masculine men” would squeal louder than if they watched Girl With A Pearl Earring.

I still have not watched the other 3 movies as of this entry… “How the fuck?” you say. It’s ’cause I believe you have good character.