Fly Away

Rushmore
Director : Wes Anderson
Rating : ***1/2

A true comedy. But a little odd, creepy comedy...

After seeing two serious, deadly and bloody violent films (V for Vendetta and Elephant), our class watched this comic "romance" film called Rushmore. It was a bit odd and creepy because it handled an issue of romance between a student and a teacher; perhaps it was mocking the real issues of the "love" between a teacher and a student that stirred everyone.

The main character Max is like a father-like character. He pretends to act older than his real age, but really he is more like a child than any other character in this movie. It also seems like Max stayed in Rushmore longer than he should've--couldn't graduate--because he seems a lot older and bigger than other kids at Rushmore.

Max Fischer loves being involved in many different clubs. In fact, he is the founder and an official for many many MANY clubs in Rushmore. When Blume asked Max what the secret of life was, he said "find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore." So we can see how much he loves Rushmore.

But he got kicked out of his favorite place on earth because of a teacher! Technically because he tried too hard to impress the teacher: he somehow managed to reconstruct (i think it was) the baseball field without the school's approval to make an aquarium because the teacher likes fish. I think the way comedy works in this film is through kid-ish comments. Also, like Hitchcock's N X NW, this film also utilizes background music to block out the information which we already know.

This movie is definitely nonrealistic. It is a "deadpan" comedy (a new term learned!), in which the actors and actresses say humorous lines or do funny things with serious facial expressions. Mr. D said (actually someone else said it and he quoted but i forget who), "Comedy didn't have to be funny; it had to end in harmony." Hmmm.. pretty deep.

In this movie, the friendship is destryoed by lies and is rebuilt by apologies and telling the truth. I liked this part about the movie because it is true that lies can destroy frienship and the only possible way to rebuild them is through honest apologies.

So my question in viewing the movie: why does the teacher tell Max everything--i mean everything? Not very realistic. Or maybe it's mocking the stupidity of teachers. How funny. the "Stupidity" of teachers.

In relation to a student liking a teacher, maybe the director was trying to send out a message related to...pedophiles?? Because in this picture, Blume is looking at Margaret with such.......creepy, undesirable eyes. Oh, don't even get started with Max and the teacher (Yeah, I referred to her as "the teacher" because I forgot her name =x).

I'll end with a phrase that was on Max's mom's tombstone:
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."