Alzheimer. Suatu penyakit yang begitu mengerikan, bahkan mungkin lebih mengerikan daripada kanker karena alzheimer menyerang sel otak; membuat penderitanya mengulang kata; tak mengerti sebuah kata yang sebenarnya biasa ia temukan atau gunakan sehari-hari; dan kelak, ia akan lupa siapa dirinya dan orang terdekat di sekitarnya. The Suffering of a Devoted Husband Ah, untuk film berjudul Iris, sedikit aneh memang hanya berbicara tentang aktor prianya, karena dua aktris utamanya — Judi Dench dan Kate Winslet — juga memberikan performa superior yang tak luput dari nominasi akting terbaik Oscar. Terutama Winslet yang termasuk salah satu aktris paling berani (seperti Tilda Swinton atau Naomi Watts) di generasinya, menyingkap tak hanya segala kerapuhan hati dan jiwa tiap karakter ke hadapan layar, tapi juga tubuhnya. She’s a great actress, dan tak heran dia pernah meraih prestasi sebagai aktris termuda dengan nominasi Oscar terbanyak, untuk Sense & Sensibility (1995), Titanic (1997), Iris, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004), Little Children (2006), dan, terakhir, The Reader (2008) yang akhirnya dia bisa bawa pulang piala untuk Aktris Terbaik.
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There’s hope inherent in Holding the Man, a true romance between two men that stays immune to prejudice and a fatal disease. It’s a tale as old as time, that is if you’re liberal enough to look beyond the gender of the characters. Set in Melbourne, the film covers almost two decades of the rocky relationship between Tim Conigrave (Ryan Corr) and John Caleo (Craig Stott) that started since their Catholic schooling days in 1976. Tim, who at this time already realized he was gay, was the one who made the first move despite it was not clear whether John, a football player as well, shared his sexual preference, but he seemed to be confident that he does. A few pass-a-kiss game, phone call, and hangout session in the woods later they became madly in love regardless of their parents' objections (though their respective fathers - played by Guy Pearce and Anthony LaPaglia - were quite sensitive in dealing with the matter). They ran away to Sydney and lead their own life — Tim as a playwright and John as a chiropractor — but things took a tragic turn when the both of them were diagnosed with HIV. I kind of wished that a romance story between two men doesn’t have to involve AIDS or a coming out moment since I feel like we’ve seen it way too many times before up on the big screen (well, not really). But Holding the Man (title taken from an Australian football rule regarding a certain move that may result in a penalty) executes a fine romance drama that doesn’t feel emotionally manipulative, in fact it's refreshingly un-mellow. Sequences involving John in his death bed are heart-breaking, yes, but director Neil Armfield doesn’t linger on it too long, instead he injects it with humour and a sense of hope. Like any other couple, Tim and John’s relationship was not perfect. Later on Tim openly wanted to experiment with other men, and he did just that when he was trying out as an actor (Geoffrey Rush cameo as a teacher in his acting school), but in the end he always comes back to John. One setback is the script by Tommy Murphy tends to lean too much on Tim’s P.O.V thus at times resulting in a lack of complexity on John’s side (he was missing throughout Tim’s stint as an actor and I don't even know why he wants to become a chiropractor), but then again the film was adapted from a book of the same name that Tim himself wrote; a book he finished writing in 1994 and sadly he died 10 days later from AIDS at the young age of 34. The story was his legacy, and an ode to the love of his life. It’s easy to treat Holding the Man as simply a romance between two men, spiced up with clichéd scenes of nightclubs and sweaty sex (“straight” films have that too, no?), but the film is so much more than that. In the beginning there are intriguing scenes involving Tim’s hetero high-school friends: yes, they teased him constantly about liking John, but Tim didn't care; he ignored them and sometimes he even embraced their teasing because apparently he was part of the group, but his adoring eyes never wavers from the object of his affection. Subsequently his friends grew out of it; even though one was still visibly repulsed by it but in the end he, too, let it pass. Such cool friends they were. Watch Holding the Man on Netflix. The Brits can give us cheeky comedies or intelligent thrillers or flashy actioners or heavy-handed melodramas and do so with such ease and consistent Shakespearean quality. Well, not really, because that last description mostly relates to their accents, which makes all of the actor sounds so sophisticated, innit? Here are four of the worthy-to-watch shows available on Netflix.“Vexed” (2011) |
AuthorSahiri Loing
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