Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen again. I can't say I'm a fan but I do try to see his films when they're released. Midnight in Paris definitely isn't one of his best, and though 'the message' is simple and a bit cliched, it's still an enjoyable film - if you're not expecting too much.

That cliched message - that we always reminisce about the past and think it's the best, when people in every era before us have the same kind of thinking - is actually kind of what I've been going through these days. I find myself looking at my home town a lot these days, sighing all the time - it's really changed beyond recognition, I always say. From a distance, things are especially vivid and you're shocked at how things have gone downhill. How I wish it would stay the way it was, in the 80s when I was a child. Those were the days, and those were the days that are gone forever. As much as I love my home town, sometimes I don't feel I belong there anymore; or perhaps I don't want to belong there anymore, for it has changed so much and there are so many things and people I hate about the place now, I don't even want to identify myself as a member of that community. But the problem is, of course, if you don't belong there, where do you belong? There's nowhere else. No matter how many years you've spent abroad, I still stubbornly believe that those years don't make your adopted country your 'home'. A home is where your roots are, and your roots often go deeper than you think or want to admit.

And back to the message of the film - am I just being too pessimistic then? I don't know, but my understanding of the 80s at home is that people were energetic, hopeful and happy. Things were fair and a lot less chaotic. People didn't complain so much not because they were ignorant, but because there wasn't much to complain about. Life was decent, unlike now.