Aeon Flux, Shoots and Leaves

Just saw Aeon Flux, a cool movie, watchable, highly conceptualised to the point of corny. But good monday night fare. The most stunning thing about it was Charlize Theron, and even though her close-cropped hair wasn't a match for the real, animated Aeon's super-tanduk hairdo, she looked amazing and was very, very flexible.

Some more got hole in her back for telecommunicative ease. There was a point during the movie when I thought to myself, she's about my age and I can't even run like a human anymore. I feel like a hippo, or at best, a kind of saggy, been-pregnant subhumanoid when I try to run. And for another moment, I thought, if only I was as svelte, elastic and slim as Charlize Theron. Then I thought of the hours and weeks of training that would take, and the moment passed as I relaxed back into my cinema seat with my hotdog.

There was a scene when she awoke from a dream, wearing only strands of chain - you know, those ball-bearing chains that hold your luggage tags on? The guy next to me giggled with his male friend. Sometimes I despair over the minds of our audiences here in Malaysia. If they can't handle the bare flesh of a woman in a totally neutral scene, what on earth happens to them when they see one inflagrante, ready and willing to be used for their bodily desires? Laugh out loud? Snortle and whimper?

Then there was that moment when I saw Julius Caesar at the KLPac, when Cassius bares his chest and says something like, "Here's my naked breast, stab me..." The two boys in front of me giggled and huddled close to each other, whispering. Eeeyer, people, please bring up your kids with some maturity lah! Some of them might be leading the country one day.

So Aeon was enjoyable. It was nice to see Martin Csokas speaking and emoting after the dreadful castration of being Galadriel's dumb wife-accessory Celeborn in The Lord of The Rings. The pity of it is, the film didn't do justice to the wonderful ease with which Theron and Csokas brought the characters to life. Never mind, good body, good looks, okay whaaat!

So while I balance my laptop on my table-top thighs and cuddle my three-year-old postpartum belly fat between my forearms as I type, I think smugly about how terribly pressurised being a star and maintaining the posture, health and muscle tone must be. Whilst, for the rest of us, a simple trick of the imagination transforms us into the long-legged, lithe and not-too-shy-to-go-bare-assed-on-a-Brazilian-beach-if-I-had-to sort of people we like to think of ourselves as being. I mean, I see Angelina Jolie every time I look in the mirror, please! I don't need to exercise and work on my body when I have the power of delusion behind me!

So, I suppose this blog was just to say thanks to Aeon Flux for reminding me how much I depend on my ability to separate reality from belief.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Lovey, C