Tristan + Isolde

Tristan + Isolde

For the 200th time, dearest Jinwei asked me if I'd watched the films he'd burned for me. Okay, I've watched Full Metal Alchemist the Movie, but I haven't touched the films yet because I really wanted to save it for some day when I'm really bored stiff. Besides, recently I've been hooked onto yaoi on Youtube. I mean, why would I want to watch a guy with flaws falling in love with another girl when I can watch flawless guys who wouldn't touch another girl? yea... I guess this was what Jinwei meant when he said that after watching too much anime, I wouldn't find real life guys shuai anymore. hai... (Jinwei, lose weight fast then you can be the exception~)

More on yaoi another time, that deserves a post all by itself. And I'll put up lots of shuai ge pics, especially of my collection of Yukis. It's amazing how many similar minded people I can find in youtube going crazy over Yuki (whichever one since all the Yukis are so shuai).

Anyway, I finally decided to watch one of the many films I have on hand one fine day because I had the time. Of course it had to be Advent Children which incidentally is the only film not burned by Jinwei. But it turned out that my Advent Children can't play beyond the 18th minute. I don't know what's wrong with it. I just got to see shuai shuai Sephiroth when I can't see anything much already. sucks~

Just now, after dinner, and after reading a reading, I decided to treat myself to a full length movie. Okay, it isn't so much of a treat since I was trying to watch Cardcaptor Sakura the Movie on Youtube, but I could only watch part 1. Part 2 stalled. If you've been following my blog I guess I've mentioned once that I'm a big fan of Cardcaptor, owning all 12 comic books and the full set of anime VCDs. But sadly, I missed out owning the first movie of Cardcaptor. I have the second and third movie, wait... Is there a second movie anot? hmmm... I know I own everything except for one movie, that is. Although I know the full story about it, it's still nice to try and watch it if I cannot own it. Actually I know the DVD shop here in Freiburg is selling it, and many others, but that's in another post. Will talk about it when I post my entry on yaoi.

So just now, I was deciding between Tristan + Isolde and MirrorMask. I wasn't really in the mood for a sappy love story, but I didn't want to watch a story about a girl. I think I've penis envy after watching too much shonen-ai and yaoi. Torn between two choices, it's the apple orange game again.

I MSNed Cindy (Teo) and asked her to choose between tomato and potato (doesn't it rhyme? Isn't it better than what stupid apple orange?) I can't remember what she chose, but I remembered that I forgot what I chose to be tomato and potato, so I asked her to choose again, between strawberry and blueberry with the former being MirrorMask and the latter Tristan + Isolde. Cindy chose blueberry.

I had actually absent-mindedly put in the disc for MirrorMask into my player. Just like the other time I asked Cindy (I can't remember her surname. damn... Lin? No... Koh!!! damn... Her surname's on her email address and I can forget it. I think I'm really damn cmi. And I've not told you guys the number of times I had to take the return tram back to my room because I forgot to take something out with me. hai...) what I sort of sauce pasta I should cook and she said cream over tomato, but I absent-mindedly picked out the packet of tomato sauce to cook. But this time, I remembered it in time before damage can be done. Taking a disc out of a player is reversible much unlike putting a packet of powder into a pot of cold water to boil (at least that's what I did, at least that's what I thought it read in German).

I keep digressing. At this rate I'll never get to tell you guys that Cindy (the first one) was saying Tristan's damn shuai. That's also the reason why I took out MirrorMask and put Tristan in, rather than jiang cuo jiu cuo. I really have penis envy (please click on the first penis envy link above and read the theory put forward by Sigmund Freud. It's damn interesting.) sia. To be very honest, Tristan was quite disappointing. I thought the young Tristan was sorta cute in a yaoi way, with his blond hair and stuff. All Yukis have light coloured hairs. But why did the old Tristan turn out to have black hair??? Okay la... My dear Touya has black hair too...

Isolde was okay looking. The normal kind of pretty ba... I told you I have penis envy already! The story was pretty slow to start, and I was multitasking at the same time, so I wasn't really that impressed by that film. But after Tristan and Isolde met, and I stopped multitasking, I got engaged in their love story and realised that this isn't your typical sappy Romeo and Juliet love story even though it's touted as the Irish Romeo and Juliet. It reminded me more of the kind of Hong Kong period war dramas that I like to watch.

Girl and boy falls in love. Boy's loyalty is with king. King marries girl. Girl and boy torn over what they should do. Girl and boy have an affair. Enter the villian. Villian finds out about girl and boy. Villian hatches plot to take over the king's throne. Villian exposes girl and boy. King falls into villian's trap. King angry boy and girl and wants to kill them both. (Usually in Hong Kong dramas, the villian will kill king, boy and girl will die, but before boy dies, boy will somehow also manage to kill villian, or maybe king will not die, depends, sometimes just seriously injured.) But this is in Britain, Europeans tend to be more romantic, so king pities boy and girl but boy still goes back and fulfill his task (ie go and kill villian and also gets himself killed). Oh wait, I should say ***spoilers***, forgot... hai... Anyway it's so stereotypical that I think you can guess what happened. ***More spoilers*** Actually I thought girl would die too. I was hoping girl will die beside boy, but the movie didn't show... disappointed...

But what struck me at the end of the show was that I had a pang of deja vu. *spoilers* The scene in which Tristan lay dying in Lord Marke's arms and Isolde walked over to him and dropped down beside him. I saw it somewhere some time ago somehow or another. It's like I had dreamt of that scene before. Either that or I've really seen that scene before but didn't realise it. But I don't think so. I haven't even watched the trailer for Tristan + Isolde. creepy...

Another interesting thing from the movie is this line twice read by Isolde to Tristan. Once when they first met in Ireland and she was tending to his wounds, not so sure if they were having sex too, and the last was when she buried him or something.

Isolde: [reading] I wonder by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? were we not wean'd till then? But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be; If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone; Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown; Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally; If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

Familiar??? At least it is to me. Jasmine, Yingling, Zihui, Shuhui, Rozie, Hami, you girls better recognise that poem!!! Especially Jasmine~

I always wondered what's the use of learning all those poems. I never saw a need of using metaphysical poems in real life. In fact I've never uttered a metaphysical poem in real life before, other than in literature class and I'm asked to read the poem out loud. hmm... I do have one whole book of collection of metalphysical poems lying at home in my drawer. Now to think of it, next time when I lie beside my guy I can sprout out lines like...

Imagine, early morning you wake up beside you guy and the sun shines through the window. You hug your guy back to the bed then recite:

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both the'Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear: "All here in one bed lay."

She'is all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy'as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

Or say one night, you and your guy sit by the balcony watching the nightline. You look deep into his eyes and recite another poem:

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

I tell you. Unless you guy is a metaphysic literature nerd, he bound to say "siao ah you... Talk what crap? Want to fuck then fuck la!" But then again, this was a period film, so maybe in those days it was in vogue to recite metaphysical poems to your guy like it is to recite (I'm trying to think of what sort of poems are in vogue now, but I can't think of any. I think the closest would be this ba...) love songs to your guy. (I'm trying to think of current hit love love song but realise that I can't think of any at the moment. It must be all the shonen-ai I've been putting myself through...

I think I should end here since I'm like way off tangent again. Anyway, the above poem mentioned in the film is by this guy (click on his name and you will see his face and bio), and as a parody, the two poems that I mentioned were also written by him. In fact, The Sunne Rising was really written to take cause I mentioned.