Surprised? French romance might look good in black and white, but film noir will never speak to me like The Notebook. Romance in Japan, from my perspective, has yet to debut. This is a whole other ballgame I have yet to write about seriously or respectfully, a project I plan to tackle soon. But if you try to unlock the doors to what we call "love" in Japan, you can quickly become jaded. Unless, of course, jealous servants to the emperor, suicides, forbidden and unrequited love, or comic book porn fits your ideas of romance.* I prefer the more wholesome American kind, the difficult, innocent, infuriating, passionate, unending, fateful, star-crossed-with-happy-endings kind. I'm not even a big chick-flick fan, but The Notebook stole my heart. Here's why:
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting!
Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight. You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what?
Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now. What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.
* * *
No samurai or cigarettes. Just two people fighting about how they want to love each other despite everything else. It's enough to sweep a girl off her feet.
* I haven't seen Memoires of a Geisha yet, but I can't wait to watch it and compare it to what I've learned in Japan. Many years ago I liked the book, but I have a feeling the movie will bring a different reaction.
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