An under-appreciated BEAUTIFUL movie! (MAJOR SPOILERS)

vicky_lc2001-1

I love this film! Very underrated, I really don't understand why people hate both this and Author Author so much! I just re-watched this with my mom, & we both loved this and Author Author, I gave both films a 10/10 rating. However, I have to disagree with some people's assessment that Pacino was living through his racing. I believe that he may have had a fuller life or at least, had a life when he was younger. He would do impressions of Mae West as a kid, w/c is a clue to how this lifeless man became a race-car driver & how he had lost himself in the process. But I believe racing was what eventually sucked him dry or his approach to racing. It was mentioned that he had many friends who died in their profession, & Lillian commented that he lived his life, trying to 'not die'. I believe there is no truer statement said about Bobby, I never really considered it, even when we were shown him lamenting (well, not really lamenting but you know what I mean) & fussing over how his peer-racer died. It made sense that he was concerned, for all I know, he did this occasionally but the moment she said those words, it became a revelation to Bobby and his life. It was true, he may have had more substance before but as soon as he became more meticulous with death & its prevention, he at the same time, learned to numb himself around that concept & to everything around him. Numbing himself or this self-detachment was the only way he knew how to cope with the high risk job he had undertaken (he couldn't even muster any facade of feeling for his ailing mother, his brother went to France, all the way from Nework just to plead for him to visit their mother, how sad is that?). He couldn't really think about death & racing 24/7 w/o a coping mechanism of sorts, numbing himself was his defense, defense from fears involved with the job. To be able to live through it, & at the same time, go over its possibilities/prevention schemes, to be able to function, to self-preserve amidst the fear. We see him & his life w/ his devoted girlfriend, a lifeless & empty existence, & we contrast this to Morrelli & hers. Bobby has lived with death for so long, he became accustomed to it & it became a shadow he had to live with in his life, Lillian was newer to the experience & handled it differently. Lilian & 'her manly hands', her strong masculine features were the embodiment of life or the 'opposite' Bobby needed, as Lillian commented, Bobby was more delicate, effeminate even, and I just loved that not only was their characters different, their physicality attested to that fact, it was the embodiment of these 2 opposing forces drawn together. Towards the end, at the tunnel, I expected or was waiting for Bobby to scream, but he never did, that to me spoke more than anything, Bobby had reverted to his old life, or to his lack of life, & yes, this was not only a tragic love story, it was tragic for Bobby. To have experienced vibrancy (Lillian), to have learned & changed, only to revert back to before there was a Lillian. I imagined he went back to his girlfriend & they could've married, had children even. He was as hollow and as empty as he ever was, a lifeless corpse w/o a Lillian to give him life! So in the end, Lillian didn't only die, the Bobby that developed/was born through her, died with her as well.:(

score 9/10

vicky_lc2001-1 12 September 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1944971/