A number of years ago a team of medical experts placed a camera in my anus to search for the source of my intense abdominal pain. They didn’t find anything.
A few years later they were back to search again. Afterward, the main doc was coming around to each of the examinees in turn, telling people they’ll have to come back for more tests, etc.. When he came to me he said “we didn’t find the possible source to your symptoms,” before adding lest I feel dejected, “…we found a polyp!” in an almost cheery manner.
It reminded me of that scene in Life Of Brian when a group of ‘terrorists’ hid in a small house and a full garrison of Roman soldiers marched in to search for them. They didn’t find anything, then left. A little while later they returned because there was some place they forgot to check. Following the lengthy entrance and exit, the garrison leader was expecting a positive find, but instead was informed “we found this spoon, sir!”
I do enjoy it when often totally unrelated events or circumstances remind me of something from a movie or book or painting or whatever.
So anyway, last night I had to go to bed early due to headache and tingling extremities (I mean fingers and toes you gutter-minded lot). As I lay there shivering under two heavy blankets I suddenly found myself thinking of Christopher Reeve in Somewhere in Time.
The connection isn’t as obscure as a Roman legion to a rectal exam, since Reeve’s character is indeed shivering in bed in one part, but still it’s a testament to the movie that it came to mind at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a number of bed shiver scenes in movies since and before seeing Somewhere in Time.
It’s a strange little movie that is nonsensical on paper -Christopher Reeve comes to believe he “belongs” with a woman (played by Jane Seymour) some 50 years or so in the past. He obsesses about this until he finds a way to get there. There’s more, but I don’t like to spoil these things.
It’s too romantic to admit to liking. It’s too silly/ far-fetched for most “romance inclined” individuals I would guess, but still this movie has an almost haunting quality. It seems to get under the skin and stay with you even as you throw your eyes in the air and decry its hopeless romanticism.
Apart from in Superman I wouldn’t say I was ever a fan of Christopher Reeve. He was too pure and perfect to have any real personality flaws exposed before a camera.
Jane Seymour likewise for me has always been a bit too much of a personification of perfection to take seriously.
And yet, these two actors playing their parts in a ridiculous script find a kind of perfect existence together in a place and time that can never be.
It’s easy to scoff at it, but yet every time I’ve come across it on TV over the past 25 years or so I’ve found myself glued to it until the end. I’ve subsequently bought it on dvd (going cheap now most places) and continue to enjoy it I’m not totally ashamed to admit.
The movie also has a fan club, which amongst other things organises annual trips to The Grand Hotel as a kind of Somewhere in Time Convention.
Not many 30-year movies can boast such a thing.
That’s more or less it. Time Travel romance. Beautiful music by Rachmaninov and John Barry. Corny, but made and played with a lot of heart. Give it a shot if you haven’t already. Tell me what you think.
