Friday 20 April 2012

Lolita, light of my life,fire of my loins. my sin, my soul...



Plot: Humbert Humbert, a divorced British professor of French literature, travels to small-town America for a teaching position. He allows himself to be swept into a relationship with Charlotte Haze, his widowed and sexually famished landlady, whom he marries in order that he might pursue the woman's 14-year-old flirtatious daughter, Lolita, with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love, but whose affections shall be thwarted by a devious trickster named Clare Quilty.


I have always been obsessed with the film Lolita by Adrian Lynes which is based on the book under the same title by the Russian author Vladimir Nabokov. As in most cases, the book is better than the movie... but that is not to say that the movie is any less than AMAZING!

Although I have seen it many times, I got the pleasure of viewing it at my close friend's place after spending a lazy Sunday in Notting Hill together.

The film begins with a narration which is the first paragraph from the book :






I could go on talking about the details of the Authors life, the book and the film but that could easily become 10 pages so I will concentrate on what the combination of all three actually provoked in  us (as both the viewers and readers of the story).

As soon as we finished the film, our heads were filled with a million questions :

1) How did they film it ? did they use someone who was the actual age of Lolita (age 12) or someone older?
2) Was it legal to use someone so young in such a sexual context ?
3) Would you allow your young daughter to play in a movie like this ?
4) How did people perceive Jeromey Irons after this film -as he has to kiss and touch a young girl for the role?
5)What happened to the actress who plays Lolita ? what affect did the film have on her when she watched it later on ?
6) Would she be able to play this role so well without feeling and understanding Lolita ?
7)Is it possible for someone to write a novel about a paedophile with so much detail and feeling without having all these feelings himself ?

There was a lot of googling the next morning and we found some very interesting answers to our questions, but the most important one which cannot really be answered directly is the last one. It makes you think that if someone has such a natural love and passion towards something that is considered so wrong, is it actually wrong ?can loving something ever be bad ? why do we enjoy reading/watching it ? it blurs so many lines in my head and that is why I love this story so much.

                                         The Stanley Kubrick version which I have not seen yet..




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