The Mother of All Emotions
We saw Tristan and Isolde the weekend it was launched. It was fantastic. The best romantic film this year, hands down! Well it's only March, how much competition can you get right? Nonetheless it was plausible. What's nice about this flick is its realism. Nothing incomprehensibly stupid like Romeo and Juliet and nothing cheesy like Titanic. I love the fact that James Franco is gorgeous and I don't care if people roll their eyes over his constant constipated looking teary sulk. Honestly, I felt for him (now I'm being cheesy) and as a show of solidarity I think he did a wonderful job with the character (at this point you should realise that the effect of my infatuation is kicking in, which should explain the obvious bias).But this is not the gist. What I want to get across is the obscure lateral thinking this film conjured up. If you haven't seen the film and plan to, you should stop reading now because I shall be evoking the suspense element shortly. Having said that, there isn't much to hide to start with as the storyline is rather predictable. You know that you will have to endure a sad ending ánd that either or both will die though you don't know how.
Romance aside, the story tells of loyalty, honour, responsibility and courage as with most dark age epics. But all the more important, it brought forth the implication of guilt. I think most of us, can continue to live on heartbroken, disgraced and frustrated but very few can sleep at night feeling guilty. It will live on as you will, to haunt you until the people you wronged forgive you.
And that was exactly what Tristan felt, which eventually led to his death. He felt guilty for his treachery to Lord Marke (I feel the need to defend him here - it was through no fault of his, it was never his intention and he was ending the secret love affair the day they were found out). He knew that if he were to sail on that raft to spend the rest of his life with Isolde away from the kingdom, he will not be at peace for he would have had turned his back on his own people; worse, during a landmark war. Regardless of the end result, rise or fall of the throne, it will haunt him whilst the happiness with his love he thought worthy, would be scathingly meaningless. For that reason, he deserted the raft (hence, Isolde), made a U-turn and salvaged whatever he can with his life (literally!).
Love is not blind, it has never been. It cannot overwhelm guilt hence guilt is the mother of all feelings, the strongest of all emotions (unless of course, if you are an A-rated bastard... which Tristan isn't... God I just have to rub that in, don't I? Pls slap me).
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