"Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Flaubert said so, and so did Mr Edward Lam. Et toi?
As a long-time admirer of Mr Lam (hope he doesn't mind this confession of love from an opposite sex), I don't know if I just blindly praise his every production or what. Both entertaining and thought-provocative, Madame Bovary Is Me(包法利夫人們) is still "very Edward Lam/not quite normal Edward Lam" (非常林奕華). I specially like the actors/actresses from Taiwan, they are very impressive.
The story was set in the 19th Century France, but strangely it can still apply to today society. Some may say a woman's life is no longer depending on her husband so this story is not relevant anymore. I do not agree - not only to the fact that many women (sadly) still think that the value of their lives are totally depending on their husbands (so finding a good husband is the ultimate life achievement), it's also because this story is not just a woman's story, it's a story for everyone (unless you don't ever have any dream or aspiration).
It is easy to be a moralist to blame Emma (Madame Bovary) for how she had destroyed herself and her family. Yes she was not a pleasant character but I think her demons were mainly due to reading too much literature and having too much romantic reveries. Entrapped in a mundane life, albeit comfortable, the dream-eyes girl spent her life to find the passions only glittering in her dream. She was trying hard, but all in vain. Don't we are all a bit like Emma in trying hard to break the shackles of banality and chasing the dream shimmering on the far horizon? The only difference is, Emma chose to end her life when life disappointed her, but we choose to submit to reality. Emma was an avoidant, loser, or the one who insisted her vision and finally killed by her dream? We are the conformists, survivors, or the ones who kill our dream?
Anyway, does everyone have dream? Or there are some lucky ones who reach their dream so not everyone is Madame Bovary? Or it's just the freak like me always believe there is some sublime beauty somewhere? But I sometimes think that there is no such thing as attainable dream, once you get it, it's not a dream anymore. The unfulfilled/unrealised nature of dream is what the beauty is.
4 comments:
oh how i love ur telly!!!! my eyes and month are wide open when watching it.. :P (sorry nothing related to ur post!.. i just remember i watched happy prince by edward lam ages ago and i liked it. some of his writings are quite good.. did u read AM post--not sure the exact name, that free art&cultural magazine-- i think he is the only featured writer that's worth reading so far)
haha, of course i don't mind your "eyes wide open" for the live footage. This was the irrecoverable moment, I'm not sure if they will share a mic again but for sure it's not likely that they will sing in Barfly again, and that's the time when there were no idiotic fans and sycophants, i'm so vicious that "in the days when they're hopeless poor, i just liked them more"...
btw, what is AM post? I have to pay attention if there is edward lam's writing there.
umm what about artmap? am post is under artmap. anyway you can get am post in places where u can get artmap, usually i see it in bc.
Thank you, I'm too benighted to know these cultural magazines.
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