There is a movie called Christmas, Again from 2014. Although it was an independent film, it was rarely praised by The New Yorker Magazine. Independent films have a lot of unique charms, unlike featured films. To give just one example, the amount of dialogue is very small, which gives the audience the opportunity to observe and understand more deeply about the actors (or actors and actors) large and small facial expressions, movements, and tone of voice. Even in this case, the director seems to have pursued this as well. This is a very lyrical and contemplative film for an American film. This film, which was never commercially successful, was very difficult to obtain, but the joy that came after waiting years was like a Christmas present.
The story goes something like this: Noel came down from New York upstate to Brooklyn with his girlfriend during the Christmas season last December to sell a variety of pine trees. It's winter again this year and he came down to sell trees, but this time he seems to have come alone. Perhaps there was an ordeal of parting. After last year and again, the man who never forgot to buy a tree asks Noel - The girl last year for some reason won't see him this year - Noel looks almost expressionless and gives him only a small smile, saying that she hasn't come this time. I did. It's the season of merry Christmas, but Noel, with a dark expression and few words, just passes the day with little enthusiasm. They spend a month in and around the trailer house they rode down from far north. Perhaps he couldn't calm himself down after breaking up with his lover, so even at this year-end festivity, he rarely comes out of his own narrow world like his own house, a trailer that is nothing more than his own house, and lives a near seclusion except for time to work.
But one night, on a nearby park bench, he finds a woman who has lost consciousness from drinking too much and takes care of her for the night. While having a difficult time due to parting and skepticism about his life, he rescues this woman - Lydia, who accidentally collapsed on the road, and a gentle relationship with her continues briefly throughout the movie. It is a short love story about a man who is swallowing up his loneliness in a corner of a colorful and lively city, and a woman who lives a similarly shady life. I remember it as a very warm and at the same time quite sad story.
A film with almost no dialogue... But there were a lot of scenes that stayed with me for a long time. One of those scenes that I still vividly remember is at the very end of the movie, where Lydia and Noel deliver pine trees to various Brooklyn houses on Christmas Eve evenings, with a top-down Christmas tune playing in the background, the two of them. of a possibly not happy life flows as if consoling. I remember seeing the faces of Noel and Lydia lighten up little by little as they looked at people's joy as they delivered pine trees suitable for this season, and I also remember being able to smile even a little at that time.
There were very few memorable lines. Perhaps Noel's dialogue with an elderly Polish homeless man is perhaps the most meaningful dialogue in the film:
"Even if you cut a tree, you should do it with a regular saw, not a chainsaw, because other trees will be surprised."
" ... and in Poland, trees have character. They are not perfect, but they have a character. Like tonight, you go to a forest and every tree is dressed. Dressed in a wedding white... like, brides all of But you must have an ax, not a chainsaw. Chainsaw makes noise. Everybody gets scared. Trees get scared."
Contrary to the expected happy ending, the final scene shows a different ending than expected. However, it is unclear whether the expected ending would have been a happy ending for both of them. Wouldn't this end, or no, not end like this, be the next Christmas to look forward to for Noel and Lydia? thinking to do.
The three videos below are (1) the second time the two meet, (2) a short journey to deliver a pine tree together on Christmas Eve, and (3) a short night scene the two last spent together. It is a love story, but without a single sex scene, it is a pure and beautiful film. It has become a treasure trove of jewellery for me.
- End