Amber Bransondo you dare to love?
on-screen romance is more often than not, trite and cliched. it's always the same old plot the same old cheesy lines and the same old words. i mean come on. look at enchanted or notting hill. yes they're classics but you know. the plot and climax is so predictable you could possibly start plotting a formula at exactly which time a conflict appears and then the main characters will all have their emo moments and THEN they wake up their idea and realize they're being complete utter idiots and then find their own true love and it's all happily ever after.
or maybe i'm just perverse and wish for more emotional anguish and duress before they get their just desserts. i was kinda expecting love me if you dare to be similar. it seemed to have the same ingredients.the introduction of how boy and girl end up being friends in the midst of social prejudice and being picked upon. the friendship that blossoms platonically, rendering them almost inseparable eventually evolves into romantic love later.
but that's where it somewhat stops. somewhere along the lines something goes wrong and you kiss (quite gratefull) the typical fairytale endings goodbye. that's what made this movie strike out and why it still remains, till this day, my favouritest movie ever.
everything starts with a tin box that plays a carnival melody.
love me if you dare explores a somewhat twisted romantic relationship between julien and sophie. they don't outrightly tell each other that they love each other (perhaps not till the very end) and instead of warm embraces and tongue-vacuum kisses, you get them playing pranks on each other in sick bid of expressing their love for each other. it's a truth or dare that pretty much spirals out of control and takes over their life much later on in the future as well. they trick one another, hurt one another and in the midst of it all despite the pain and the torment, it just builds that tension. that craving and yearning for one another.
when you dissect it a little you kinda see this underlying theme of reality and make-believe. reality is the world in which they both lead, outside of the game. married, one with kids and the other a trophy wife to a soccer player (who is very much into her), have a job, a house and everything else. the fantasy? of chasing each other, the games and the pranks and the vivid imagery that litters the cinematography and makes you feel that you're half-awake or trapped in a puppet show with the stage and marionette puppets and clouds on sticks. and that carnival melody.
i don't know if it's a good or bad thing that it ended the way it did - morbid but beautiful nonetheless and totally taking that whole till-death-do-us-part (or rather NOT part) quite literally.
good thing because they finally realize they can't lead satisfyingly fulfilling lives without each other and expressing the love that they have through agreeing to die in each other's arms as cement pours over them.
bad in a sense that they're willing to give everything in the real world (you have to admit that julien worked pretty damn hard to get to where he was) only to end it because of pride (and this you have to admit, neither wants to admit defeat. sophie seems especially adamant on winning and ousting julien each time round) or a twisted sense of love, in each other's arms and covered in cement.
you tell me.
