The Hours (Part 3)
This may all sound rather surreal, but the story it tells is very real. I recall walking along HDB 1-room apartment blocks, where the old folks live, and see many old folks sitting around, doing absolutely nothing, whiling their time away. Where are their children? It appeared as though life no longer held any surprises for them. They were simply waiting to die. What meaning does live hold for these people? Will we perhaps, suffer a similar fate one day?
Of course, The Hours is more than just a movie about a woman suffering from the pangs of old age. Ultimately, it is a movie about three women trying to find a meaning to their existence. One suffers from chronic depression, one suffers from the dreariness of living with a husband she does not love, and one tries to help others to give her life some meaning. Unable to come to terms with what they were going through, they adopt drastic measures to escape from their dreary lives. I have no doubt that those who have read Mrs Dalloway might be able to truly appreciate the movie, but nevertheless I consider it a good two Hours spent.
PS. I learned later via the Internet that Virginia Woolf herself had suffered from various tragic experiences during the course of her early life. Her half-brother Gerard sexually abused her, her mother died when she was in her early teens, and her half sister who took her mother's place, died two years later. Her father suffered a slow death from cancer, and her brother Toby died when she was 24. After her brother's death, she suffered a mental breakdown. After going through what she had gone through, one can hardly blame her for being somewhat neurotic.
This may all sound rather surreal, but the story it tells is very real. I recall walking along HDB 1-room apartment blocks, where the old folks live, and see many old folks sitting around, doing absolutely nothing, whiling their time away. Where are their children? It appeared as though life no longer held any surprises for them. They were simply waiting to die. What meaning does live hold for these people? Will we perhaps, suffer a similar fate one day?
Of course, The Hours is more than just a movie about a woman suffering from the pangs of old age. Ultimately, it is a movie about three women trying to find a meaning to their existence. One suffers from chronic depression, one suffers from the dreariness of living with a husband she does not love, and one tries to help others to give her life some meaning. Unable to come to terms with what they were going through, they adopt drastic measures to escape from their dreary lives. I have no doubt that those who have read Mrs Dalloway might be able to truly appreciate the movie, but nevertheless I consider it a good two Hours spent.
PS. I learned later via the Internet that Virginia Woolf herself had suffered from various tragic experiences during the course of her early life. Her half-brother Gerard sexually abused her, her mother died when she was in her early teens, and her half sister who took her mother's place, died two years later. Her father suffered a slow death from cancer, and her brother Toby died when she was 24. After her brother's death, she suffered a mental breakdown. After going through what she had gone through, one can hardly blame her for being somewhat neurotic.
