Time is Relative

Each weekend is another proof that time is relative. I’d made a list and only achieved the easy ones. Again. Not on the list was watching movies on cable and DVD. The best laid plans….

Some time back, it came up in conversation that I had never seen The Departed in its entirety -- that I had seen scenes, and usually the same ones, as often happens when channel surfing. That I had never seen the entire film was appalling to my friends, and Matthew did something about it. The next time we met, he handed me his copy of the DVD. Saturday I finally sat down and committed to watch it. I had thought I’d iron – the stack is so high it’s toppling. Or clean the broccoli.

I watched the film. It was not possible to iron or clean broccoli or chop anything. That would have been foolhardy, and possibly as bloody as the film.

I tip my hat to Mr. Scorsese, to screenwriter William Monahan , and to the incredible cast. DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Winstone, Wahlberg, Sheen, Baldwin, etc. etc. etc. It doesn’t just sound like a dream team, it is. I don’t generally care much for bloody films about guys playing gangsters. This film has gangsters, cops, robbers, feds, thieves, moles, killers, cheats, office politics, a shrink, and lots of bloody violence. Nonetheless, this film just doesn’t fall into the usual categories. We watch two young men living lives of similarities and contradictions, and follow their paths through the maze of the Irish mob. The points where their paths meet are obvious and not obvious, expected but still frightening, and involve older men who manipulate and shape them. To state the fine performances would be merely to list all the actors Scorsese cast, a much longer list than I've offered already. There’s nary an off moment in this film, not a point in any scene that allowed my mind to wander, to compare, to even question. Emotional involvement was total. And I had no idea how long the film ran until I read the box.

See? Time is relative.

~ Molly Matera, signing off. Thanks for stopping by.