American Beauty

I just switched off the TV, after watching the American Beauty, on Channel 9...
This movie was made in 1999, I watched it once since then... till today, it was the second time I watched it...

I didn't like it when I watched it back in 1999... didn't know what the movie was trying to say... maybe I was disillusioned too much by the word "American Beauty", and this blonde girl, Angela, in the show, trying to play sexy too much... What I saw was plain blonde girl trying to flirt around to prove herself, and a depressed cum supressed father/husband...

However.. today, when the show just started..
I was quite surprised of how much I can still remember, except the ending...
I still don't like the show, it's too dark... but then.. maybe after all these years, I have watched quite a different varieties of shows, then... I found myself being able to keep up with the pace and the mood in the show...
I still don't like the show...
and maybe because I have watched too many of those japanese movies that explore the darkside of human... and that, I somehow found some similarities between this "American Beauty" and those that I have watched, (japanese movies)... this is one of the rare show from hollywood, that explore the darkside, so much, in such slow pace... and, without much violence...

Characters:-
The family with Lester(Father), Carolyn(Mother), Jane(daughter, teenage)
A neighbour family with a military colonel(I cannot remember his name), his son Ricky, and his wife(who looked stoned, sick all the time, even forgetful, like she's not living in this world anymore, and sometimes sat there just like a vegetable)

When I watched it in 1999, I didn't see what I see today...
When I watched in 1999, it was just purely about the blonde girl, Angela (I thought she was the "American Beauty") like to boast about her love life (which she actually did not have any) and that, the mother Carolyn having an affair...
That could be the reason, I really didn't know where this show was going to...

Tonight...
I saw suppression and struggles... nobody in there was happy with who they were, or the life they were in, and the struggle between Carolyn and Lester, ie. a husband and wife issue
then, between Ricky and his Col. father... a father who ever thinks like, talks like, teaches his kids like, treats himself like, sees the world like a military man... he said loudly after beating up Ricky, "You can't just do whatever you wanted to do, the world has rule!!"
Early in the morning at the breakfast table, the Col. would read the newspaper and cursed the world... the mother, who's like a walking corpse, without a soul, would never remember what Ricky eats, or doesn't eat... and she would still cook then, cos, she was like totally out of her mind living a walking corpse life...
In the end, I figured out, the father was the main problem in the family, a man who shed thick and heavy dark shadow on the family... first, be his military background (maybe he was tortured enough, or maybe he had been to some life/death situation) but most importantly was his suppressed homosexuality...
Nobody in the show knew he was one, maybe only his wife, and maybe that was the reason, why she became one living walking corpse...

Then... the interesting part was the husband/wife relationship between Lester and Carolyn...
Carolyn seemed to be a successful working woman, and was working to be even more successful...
She has taken control over the family... she spoke to Lester (her own husband) like speaking to her kid... and for me, even if I am her kid, I do not want to hear my mother speak to me like that... as in, it's monologue, not dialogue, she would tell you, "don't be crazy!", "don't be silly!", "don't do that!", "you spill beer on the couch", "you changed the car without consulting me?" (which she didn't even drive), "don't speak like that in front of our daughter" (who's already a high-school teenage girl)...

Then... she started to have an affair, while still judging her own husband every day and night, picking on him (and never thought that, she's the one who's committed adultery).... she kept thinking that, Lester (her own husband) was not good at work, did not earn as much money as she did, was timid, was basically not much of use as a man, not smart, not hunky, well... seemed like, she thought that the husband was worth nothing...
I really found Carolyn irritating... for eg. the day when Lester quit his job, they started having dinner quietly together (speechless), until the daughter came back, Carolyn started by asking Jane, pretending to be nice and sweet, to ask the father, what had he done?
so, Lester told them what happened in the office, and then... Carolyn showed her true colour.. her true colour on how she viewed him, how she treated their marriage...
she started yelling, making sinister remarks and laughing at Lester (her own husband) ...
and she even interrupted Lester when Lester was trying to speak...
What I can see is, in this family, she's the only who can talk... not the others, that was the reason, why the daughter was kind of weird... she was rebellious, reserved and dark...
and for Lester...
well... the actor was Kevin Spacey... the main role was Lester... the story was kind of told by Lester... once in a while, I can hear his narration...
Lester changed the moment he met Angela... he was lusting for her...
From that very day onwards... he started to work out (so that he can look good naked) and started to (after 20 years of living under a tyrant female administration in the house) snap back to Carolyn... real snap back... Carolyn was very fumed up by his reaction, as she had been the 'queen' for many years...
while she (hai... this type of women!!) kept dating another man, she kept thinking herself as the VICTIM

so, near the ending of the show...
Carolyn was comtemplating to kill Lester (she just went for some shooting session, as introduced by her 'bed mate')...
The Col. thought that Ricky was having a relationship with Lester, while Ricky was actually selling dope, ya, he was a drug dealer, so, when the father (Col.) was beating him, he didn't bother (he couldn't, anyway) to explain, as either one of the reason, will cause the father to kill him...
in a way... it's his luck that, he didn't tell the father the truth, as in, he was working part-time as a drug dealer (oh!! besides the fact that, he was a drug dealer, I actually think that, he's the ONLY one that's normal in this show and actually he was quite a good kid... even though he was also kinda weird, he liked to film things, anything... anything that NORMALLY, a normal person won't film, for eg. a dead bird, plastic bag blown by the wind, and he kept filming Jane before they started the relationship, he called these, these things that he filmed, 'beautiful'... well... I guess, that's the meaning of the title?)
Didn't bother to explain to the abusive military father, he just admit that he was having a relationship with Lester...
yep, I think, actually he got away with this excuse... rather than the other excuse, that he was the drug dealer..

Why?...
cos, the suppressed depressed Col. was in fact a super suppressive homosexual guy...
and that cost Lester his life..
after speaking with the son, the Col. actually thought he had found his new love... or somebody who could share with him, so, he went to Lester...
and... Lester rejected him...

At the end of the show...
A gun pointing at Lester's head, while he was looking into his family photo... relaxing, and SHOOT! (for a while, I thought this is quite sad, and I think, the is the ONLY one part of the show that I actually appreciate)
and the wife, still not knowing the husband was killed, wanted to, or not wanted to... to kill her own husband...
finally, cowardly, she hurried up to her bedroom and hid the gun...

Ah... one thing I forgot to mention... just before Lester was killed, he actually HAD a chance to be with Angela... until Angela actually confessed to him that, that was her first time... instantly... I saw him, back to his normal, nice guy self... (actually I think, he was, I mean, who can tolerate such wife and such spoilt daughter for so long... so many years) and back to his, 'fatherly' feature... he pulled the break, and started to treat Angela just like his own daughter... then.. ya, then, he took the family photo and stared at it, remember how beautiful the good old days were...

I really thought that.. this movie did quite resemble some of those japanese movie that I have watched, as well as the way they did with the soundtrack...
in the end... Lester was still narating... even after he was killed.. well... that's the way how the show was made...
he said something like this, that explained the final moment of his, why he looked relaxed, and was back to the normal good guy self, (I wouldn't say I can quote exactly)
he mentioned something like... "one can't be mad for too long, after a while, you'll feel tired..." and... something like... for a moment, he saw everything was so beautiful, yellow leaves, and so on..., so beautiful that, he felt like a baloon that was going to burst...
ah... ya, something like that...
I think, that somehow explained the last moment of his, ie. calm, peace and forgive, and love...
but then, it was sad, as immediately.. or in fact, just when he was thinking about all these... these BEAUTIFUL things... (ah! I think, that's the meaning of "American Beauty"?) the Col. shot him on the back of his head...