Best.Movie.Ever

"...I feel my all-time favourite movie should match my spirit, which is far more positive, excitable and sentimental than Steve Zissou’s misadventures..."





The Life Aquatic:
A Story of Father & Probable Son

For a number of years I’ve maintained The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is my all-time favourite movie. But in recent months I’ve realised that it just isn’t so anymore.



Make no mistake, I am not off my love of Wes Anderson, which a friend of mine announced to me a little while ago. He’s aboard the PT bandwagon. PT Anderson is another favourite filmmaker of mine. The first time I saw Magnolia it was like I had never actually breathed oxygen. I wasn’t living (and that is a very ridiculous claim). I left the room looking at movies, storytelling and life in a whole new respect. That was after an immediate re-watch the second it finished (yes, six straight hours of PT). It was part of my Phillip Seymour Hoffman month and Magnolia was far and away the highlight of the marathon.





The Magnificent Andersons: Paul Thomas (left) and Wes (right)                                       The Hoffman-athon



Every minute of Magnolia was compelling; it was like it was always building to something – constant panning and slow zooming; secrets and revelations unravelling scene to scene; orchestral music forever on the verge of a crescendo. And then that stunning moment… I’m sorry, P.T., but are all your characters singing an Aimee Mann song across scenes, sets and storylines? Is this really happening? How could he do that? How come no other filmmaker has ever realised this genius device before? Then “the frogs scene”. I was actually smiling and shaking my head in disbelief like a really irritating grandfather quibbling/revelling in modern technology. If you haven’t seen Magnolia, you’re missing out on some really fun and original filmmaking.

   



Magnolia: The Frogs Scene



But I’m way off track – I was reconsidering my all-time favourite movie. I don’t think Magnolia would take my number one spot, but I’m not looking to replace it exactly. I’m just trying to feel okay about my re-evaluation, or betrayal, you might say. You probably wouldn’t say “betrayal” – I doubt Wes would either – I would, because I feel very strongly about films. It’s how I learn about other people, cultures, histories and sides to life from a safe distance. And in turn, considering other possible/fictional worlds and circumstances, it’s how I make sense of my world.



The Crayon Ponyfish

The Life Aquatic had a very significant impact on me – it was 2007, post-graduation, post-schoolies and the friends and family I was closest to all happened to be abroad. I was working a cruddy job and wasn’t sure if I should study film or transfer to television – as was the suggestion of a QUT professor/interviewer. I am probably more a TV than movie person – I think you form greater and more meaningful attachments to a series because you have regular, years-long interaction with them. Anyway, I was stuck a little and didn’t have any of my usual confidants around. Then late one lonesome night, The Life Aquatic came on Channel 7. 

 



Seu Jorge: Portugese
Acoustic Bowie Covers

It was the right deep-sea/deep-soul exploration, providing the right humourous tone, that I needed to help negotiate my - what I believed to be original - existiential crisis. (Not to mention the stellar David Bowie soundtrack.) If a film could move me this much and toward the strangest sense of self-assurance, damn mother-flippin' straight I’m studying film. My love affair with Wes continued and but we've been evolving since in quite different directions, creatively and personally (I presume, Wes!). Indeed, there have been times I’ve considered he might be indulgent or unfeeling or cyclical, but a mere re-watching or analytic study of his films prove him to be a hilarious, introspective storyteller, if not  dedicated artist. The thing is though, I watch Rushmore more regularly and possibly more enjoyably than any other Wes film. And Fantastic Mr Fox is really something else; I felt like a proud mother / gloating one-night-stand when it came out. My point is The Life Aquatic will forever be dear and significant to me, but it’s really not what I’m about. Or something, I dunno. I feel my all-time favourite movie should match my spirit, which is far more positive, excitable and sentimental than Steve Zissou’s misadventures.





Team Zissou: an all-star cast

So, Wes, please know I will continue to watch The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and continue to feel fuzzy about it and grateful for it. I will continue to recommend it to others as well as defend it against the critics. This is, by no means, a goodbye or even the slightest omen of a farewell. It’s a big hug and perfectly-wrapped box of smooth chai tea leaves to acknowledge a beautiful past together and signify the endless search for my actual all-time favourite movie. I’m not even 21. Like relationships and jobs and housing and family, it’ll never really be settled. I know it’ll change and become unimportant at times.

It is a little trivial, I admit. But as a film graduate and sometime socialite, I’m often asked – and as a matter of fact, it’s a really sweet thing to have in the back of your mind: when you need a little pick-me-up, when you want to share a lovely evening in, when you’re nostalgic for its characters, when you’re delirious from recalling and laughing at its quotes, it’s sweet to know you can pop on this one movie that seems designed for you and enjoy it start to finish, even if it’s the 100^th time you’ve seen it. 



Steve Zissou: The search continues...