@user-mv9tt4st9k

3 years ago

I am ready to assign this video to my student as a film literature assignment. I think the first pass is the "actual" event/memory (wedding). Each successive pass is the revised memories of some of the guests: nicer clothes, elegant style, appearances that indicate successes in life: the father figure at the cake table goes from sullen to joyful, the bridesmaid pairs with the guy mouthing "I love you" to the bride(?), the couple at the bar go from contempt to engaged; the guy at the end of the bar becomes a sailor; the band goes from reel to reel to live musicians; the woman on the phone goes from sad to happily hugging a man; the wheelchair-bound man goes from chair, to walker, to standing; the food tables, decorations, the mother figure and the wedded couple become idealized. The final scene may represent how the bride and some attendants at the wedding feel about the original memory: what ties them together is the bride and the mother figure, who are both represented the same as in the first scene. The bride's real contempt for the original situation is revealed ("... that was time that I hated from day one/eventually terrible memories turn into great ones...")("The period, you never had/There's only one that matters"). The mother figure snatching the champagne glass out of the idealized version of her signifies her disappointment and contempt of how she was/has been portrayed/remembered. All of the characters remember and for some of them the memories were distorted in ways that may have been difficult for some of them to face.

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