Saw Little Children last night.  Interesting movie, well made I thought, although damn if that wasn’t some hard stuff to watch at times.  I was just thinking, now, about the title “Little Children” and how its most obvious connection is to the pediphile, and also to all the kids running around the movie (seemed like everyone was a parent in that town).

But on further thought, it seems that the common theme of everyone in the movie, or at least the “flawed” people - the ones whose mistakes were, as the narrator said, ‘forgivable’ - is the temperament of a little child.  “I want it now.”  Just a full dedication to “what I want” - Kate Winslet’s daughter was a great example of it, how Kate had almost no control over her own daughter’s actions which is indicative of how little control she had over her own self.

And this lack of self control was all the more highlighted by her high level of intellect, focused in on during the book reading scene, where she delivers a very powerful defense of her actions.  True, she outlined two separate choices: “Accept your fate or Struggle against it” and at first glance it’s more noble to struggle than to accept.  However, I dont buy that jumping on the first guy she meets counts as “struggling” against her situation.  It’s just another example of a ‘little child’ grasping for what she wants.  The ’struggle’ is simply a rationalization.

The final scene in the park didn’t make sense.  Why would she just voluntarily go into the park at night?  It was too obvious, right?  I think that scene could have been explained better, if they showed them as intending to wait in the car, but the daughter getting all rambunctious saying “I waaant to go the ppaaark!!” until Kate Winslet just took her to the park, against her much better judgement.  This would have explained better why the scene in the park snapped Kate’s fantasy about running away.

She had let her daughter’s desires bring them to a point of near danger, and because of this, she forced her daughter into the car seat, whether or not the daughter accepted it.  And in this final assuming of the parental role, she then turned her new found “power” onto herself, and gave up on the “I just waaant to run awaaay with him” fantasy, and went back home.

The narrator then ended the movie with a summary “we all make mistakes, and we can all start anew” but I felt that it was a lame summary.  The movie is about our childish instincts, and our ability to parent ourselves, to “grow up” and to just assume control of our actions.  Or our inability.

                 

So, of course, living in NYC I’m used to seeing discarded objects on the street.  But usually they’re like a lost glove, a hat, a broken umbrella, etc.  In the last week, I saw three unusual of these things.

The first was on a really cold day, when it was 17 degrees.  Early morning I walked out of my apartment, and on the nearest fire hydrant someone had left a trench coat.  It was hung up, very intentionally (as opposed to accidentally).  A couple days later, I was coming back home middle of the day, and right on the corner, was sitting an empty wheelchair.  And then to complete this series, late night after a concert was left a car seat (ya know, the kind for babies to ride in).

The trench coat I can at least make a bit of sense out of.  It was the coldest in a series of cold days here in NYC, and someone decided to just leave a trenchcoat for someone who needed it.  Ok, that is at least plausible, even though I am curious why not give it, say, to a homeless shelter.  But, I won’t challenge this one.  The other two, though, leave me baffled.  Like, the person in the wheelchair… did he hail a cab and then forget to take his wheelchair into the cab.. “Ooops” ?  And was the baby car seat left alone, or with the child in it, and only the child was rescued/taken?