Midnight in Paris

Last night David and I went to go see "Midnight in Paris."  When selecting the movie, I pick it based on its sweet title and fun poster. Owen Wilson is depicted walking along the bank of the Seine in Paris and the evening sky has transformed into a "starry night"-esque Vincent Van Gogh form. What I loved about last night was that David and I spontaneously decided to have a "date night."  We went first to our favorite pizza joint, the Upper Crust, wasted time getting lost in the book stacks of the Brookline Booksmith, and then crossed the street to the eclectic Coolidge Corner Theater.

I thoroughly enjoyed the fantatsical journey that Woody Allen took me on. The only other Woody Allen film I have seen was "Annie Hall."  I remember it vaguely as interesting but flat. While this latest Allen flick is entirely nonsensical for some reason I wanted to believe in the story. I wanted to be lost in it. Perhaps it is the romantic in me or perhaps it is the historian.

Seeing the personification of Paris in the 1920s warmed by soul.  I too wish I could be transported back to that Golden Age like Wilson. It was delightful to see Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Hemingway, Salvadore Dali, and so many more writers, artists, and philosophers of the time. Perhaps why it is such a fun movie is because like the characters so often said, each of us in the present are caught up in the noise around us and question our time's value.  That in living in the present it is more compelling at times to permit razbliuto to seep into your skin and to long for the less complicated, more artistic, and more inspiring past. But, in the end, while I long to live in the 1920s as a blonde-bobbed flapper, the reality is life in the present is fairly good.  Just like Wilson who at the end of the film leaves behind the 1920s midnight excursions, the feeling of the present's inadequacies, and Fitzgerarlds to settle with a lovely mademoiselle, I too am quite content with my present situation.  But, flashes of the past particularly in such an old city like Boston creep in to my mind's eye from time to time.  Because really who doesn't want to know what Isabella Stewart Gardiner was like?