In general, I'm not really a film person. As I get older, my attention span seems to be getting shorter and my ability to will myself to do... well anything is lessening day by day. And I know that watching a film isn't exactly hard work, you just sit there and it unfolds before you, but anything over ninety minutes and I get bored. And then I start doing something else. And the film never gets finished, and it hangs over me like a credit card bill. I find film-watching an overall depressing pastime. I watched Beginners the other day, and all it did was make me sad. I watched The Rebound today, and all it did was make me sad, but in a very different way.
But yes, I really do need a pastime. I've started running again in a bid to spend all summer on the beach, but that is more a grueling necessity than something I find enjoyable. Perhaps I should devote myself entirely to learning the Italian language - I do really love learning grammar - but it's just so hard, and I find it difficult when the man from whom I buy coffee sniggers at my pronunciation, let alone when people I actually like are listening to me butcher their language.
I've started reading a lot more, and strive to do this outdoors now that it's getting warmer and I'm beginning to discover all the open spaces Rome has to offer that seemed to hibernate over the winter. Currently, I'm trawling through the Stieg Larsson books. I say trawling, I am absolutely loving them, and I just can't stop turning the pages (pressing the "next page" button on my Kindle). I am yet to see either version of the film, but I'd like to finish the trilogy first so I can make up my own mind about how everyone looks and sounds. It's a nerd thing.
I suppose cooking could be my pastime, but I don't really have any money, so buying fancy ingredients is a bit of a struggle, and I invariably end up making pasta. It's one of the side effects of living in Italy.
Drinking, shopping and museum-going also all fall into the not enough money category. Basically I need ideas for things to do that are free and require little or no effort. Let me know!
I've included this video, not because I like the song but because I think she has a funny singing manner and feel you should appreciate this. She has a similar demeanour to a nodding dog.
I think it's a shame that you don't feel that you have the attention span to cope with feature films any more. I've read in a few places that the YouTube generation can't concentrate for longer than 10 minutes, but I was hoping it was just the usual pessimism being expressed by older people about the young. Are you perhaps choosing the wrong films? Here's a suggestion: Why not combine learning Italian with film watching? At the risk of pointing you in the direction of yet another film that will make you sad, I feel compelled to recommend one of my favourite films of all time (in any language), La Vita e' Bella - a brilliant Holocaust tragicomedy directed by and starring the incredible Roberto Benigni. And if you don't manage to find another pastime, there's always blogging.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the suggestion, I've been meaning to watch it for a while, and I'll probably actually get round to it now! This could get the ball rolling, you never know! x
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