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Had dinner last night (and later, beer) with Emman de la Cruz, Angeli Bayani, Vanni Liwanag, Tara Illenberger, and Fiona (didn’t catch her last name). We talked about, naturally, films, Lav Diaz, “Death in the Land of Encantos,” Angeli’s baby boy (whom she named after the character named Marik (Marat) of Alexei Arbusov’s wonderful romantic play, “The Promise,” and translated into Tagalog by the late Rolando Tinio as “Kawawang Marat.”)

Since Emman, Tara, and Fiona were not familiar with the play, I said it was like the counter, the opposite, play of the very post-modern “Closer.” Both work best if you have good actors playing the characters. After watching or reading “The Promise,” you’d feel like “Ah, it’s worth it. Every tear, every heartache. Love prevails.” After watching “Closer,” you’d end up questioning your notions and ways of loving.

Am posting my thoughts on “Closer” here. 2005.

best regards,
ian

—

A Closer Look at Closer

[Or, Concerning Close(r) Encounters of the "Strange(r)" Kind]

by Michael Ian Lomongo, April 13, 2005

 

“The truth shall set you free.”

- Jesus Bar-Joseph

 

“What if truth were a woman?”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

Hello, stranger!

 

If you really (and I mean, REALLY) knew the person you loved, would you still love him/her? (And, mind you, I’m not talking about knowing the “truth ” about the person you loved for we can very well ask with Pilate, “What is the truth, anyway?”)

 

The film/play “Closer” (written by Patrick Marber) raises a lot of tough questions about many of our notions about truth, truth-telling, lies, deception, and the relationship between knowing and loving (either the person or the truth).

 

Is loving ultimately based on the unflinching look on the “truth” or “reality” of the person (no matter how harsh it may be)? Or is it inevitably tied up with the blurred and prettifying (Should I say “lying”?) vision which makes lovers overlook glaring flaws and imperfections in the beloved and perhaps for our own sake, perhaps makes the very movement of loving possible?

 

What is our relation to “truth” and truth-telling? As individuals? As lovers?

 

What do we really know about the “truth”? (Pilate: “Quid est veritas?”) What do we really know about the people we love (or think we love)? (“Hello, stranger!”) What do we really know about our own peculiar ways of loving? For that matter, what do we really know about loving?

 

All four characters in the story are engaged in professions that could be interpreted as somehow engaged with the veiling/unveiling of “truth.” Dan (Jude Law) is a writer/journalist/novelist. He writes obituaries and is adept with the use of euphemisms. And he shows how the glib use of words in euphemisms is just a step closer to outright lying. Larry (Clive Owen) is a doctor, a dermatologist. And we all know how, aside from probably being the most lucrative branch of the healing arts, dermatology blurs the line between healing and arts, between medicine and cosmetology. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a professional photographer. For her favorite subjects, she takes portraits of strangers, and tries to capture the all-too-unnoticed beauty lurking in their faces. Alice/Jane (Natalie Portman) is a waitress/stripper. The striptease is, of course, as all girly-bar philosophasters and enthusiasts know, the ultimate metaphor for the play of truth, its veiling/unveiling.

 

At first glance, it would appear that the two men are engaged in the “lying” professions, while the two women are with the “truth-telling” professions. (Anna reveals the “truth/beauty” about strangers. Alice reveals the “truth/beauty” of her body.) But Alice indicts Anna’s art as a lie. Alice revolts at the “lying” that takes place in art-making, whether it be in Anna’s photographs or in Dan’s novel (“The Aquarium”). “Hello, stranger!” becomes a cry of revulsion at the pretensions of artists who smugly think that they have captured the reality or “truth” of persons in their pretty little words or images, much like pretty fish are displayed in an aquarium. Alice/Jane herself, in the very act of stripping, hides her “truth,” and escapes the penetrating gaze of the voyeur.

 

A closer look thus reveals that no one is innocent. Everyone, man or woman, is implicated in the propagation of lies, deception, the veiling of truth. But more importantly, the characters showed four different ways of relating with the truth. Anna lied because she was a coward. She often lacked the courage to face her truth. That’s why she’d rather take pictures of the truth she saw in strangers’ faces. Dan, the more calculating and sophisticated liar, either told the truth or lied, depending on whether it served his self-interest. Alice/Jane had that one big lie about who she was: Out of fear? Out of self-defense? Out of defiance? Against the attitude of the voyeuristic and truth-obsessed world that would “know” her and reduce her uniqueness to a static, banal identity?

 

If there’s one character that’s least implicated in the “horrendous crime” of lying, it’s Larry. His obsession with the “truth” was very clinical, like the doctor that he was. He always wanted the truth, the lurid details of Anna’s infidelity, and he made no bones about what he wanted as a person. He wanted revenge. He wanted Anna. In his own words, he was a caveman. And made no apologies for it. The only time he lied was when he told Dan that he didn’t have sex with Alice, out of a momentary feeling of pity or compassion for the weeping Dan. But he did tell him the truth. Later, out of spite.

 

In the battle for Anna’s love, Larry won because he was a man. A naive brute perhaps, but a man. Unlike Dan, who in spite of all his sophistication was a weepy little boy. Both probably loved Anna in a rather egoistic way, but whereas Dan’s “love” probably came dressed-up in the rhetorics of romance, Larry’s was unabashedly, lustily possessive. And even though Anna may have been more in love with Dan, she finally chose Larry because she can at least be assured of his constancy. (Was that a look of sadness/regret in Anna’s eyes as she turned off the lamp on Larry’s bedside?)

 

Larry’s brutish and “innocent” obsession with the “truth” was a deadly virus that began to impinge itself on Anna’s and Dan’s consciousness. Anna told Dan the “truth” about her having sex with Larry so she could get her divorce. Dan wanted to confirm from Alice the “truth” about her having sex with Larry.

 

The need to know the “truth…” Does “truth” really matter in the end? Or, are some “truths” better left unveiled? Unspoken?

 

This was what Dan failed to understand. That some truths are better left unsaid. Because their very utterance would turn them into a lie.

 

In his mind, Dan was still engaged in a contest with Larry, and failed to see the actual woman, Alice, who was right there before him, “loving” him. As if her having sex with Larry during the time that he wasn’t there had any bearing to their present relationship. He wanted a proof of her constancy and love because he himself lacked that kind of love. If anyone needed to pass a test, to prove his love, it was he and not Alice. Because Alice had “loved” him all this time.

 

And he finally realized this.

 

Too late.

 

Because Alice didn’t want to say the “truth.” And couldn’t lie. (After her one great lie.) Forced to utter a “truth” that to her seemed senseless (and heartless, too) by the very person she “loved,” she realized with finality his total egocentricity and lack of love for her. She couldn’t “love” such a person. She couldn’t “love” him anymore.

 

And not all the protestations and declarations in the world would change her mind.

 

Which makes us wonder about the nature of her “love.”

 

Oh yes, we’ve always been told that love is unconditional. But the reality of most human loving is that it would always have conditions and limitations. Non summus dei. Neither are we angels.

 

We’ve always been told about transparency and honesty in relationships. But the reality of human loving is that most of it is not unconditional. And the moment we discover certain “truths” about our beloved, we simultaneously discover the limitations of our loving. “Bye, stranger!”

 

Can people be faulted then for being less than forthright in their relations (loving or otherwise) with other people? (It is here that Larry earns my respect. He may be a brute, but at least he had no pretensions.)

 

They say “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The closer we get to people (or perhaps, the more we presume ourselves to be closer to people), the more we get to know how “utterly ugly and unlovable” they are. That’s why we need distance. A loving distance. A loving closeness, too, yes. One that doesn’t smother or suffocate. The strangeness of the other. Our sense of wonder at their strangeness, or even their strange familiarity. Again, distance! Respect. A second look. A closer look. Reverential. Now and then, renewing distance. And then, again, closer. And then, again, distance. Somehow, parallel to the striptease of truth, its veiling and unveiling.

 

 If we only knew how to preserve that initial joy and wonder at the encounter with the beauty of the strange other! “Hello, stranger!”

 

Beyond the lies, deception, and the veiling of “truth” is the way we deal with people. People would always have different ways of relating with the “truth” and the success or failure, or even the integrity of our various relationships would to a great degree depend on the precarious balance of knowing when to shut up or open our mouths, use euphemisms, or even tell a lie.

 

People are people. They are not “truths” to be known. “Truths” are discarded when they no longer serve our purpose. People change. (Do we discard them when they no longer serve our purpose?) Even in the face of a long-standing familiarity with our closest friends, they always somehow manage to be strangers, waiting to be known. Waiting to be loved. Waiting to be greeted:

 

Hello, stranger!

 

Tags: Identity, Love, truth

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 6:21 am and is filed under Art, Love, Movies, Philosophy, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.