Myteensurvivalguide

What a wonderful and charming movie! The basic premise is that young and naive 16 year old Lili is trying to find her way and a place to live after her father has died and stumbles into a dangerous situation before being rescued by a dashing magician. She immediately falls head over heels in love with him and ends up deserted, lost and alone at a circus carnival outside of Paris and is saved, (yet again) by the mysterious, cynical, but kindhearted Paul Berthalet, puppet master. Their relationship is my personal favorite in the movie as there is always a great amount of tension and chemistry between them that is just mesmerizing to watch. Lili’s naivety and innocence takes the forefront for most of the movie as her infatuation for Marc the magician gets her in complicated scenarios without every losing her sense of self, only growing up and finding a new understanding of her worth and what she wants in a climactic confrontation with the man she was pining over about everything that she was able to learn while working and taking and singing with the puppets although she didn’t even know it. For me, one of my favorite parts about Lili’s personality was that she had this kind of sweet air of sadness to her that almost made you think she didn’t understand grief but at the same time her flowery and delicate comments she made could feel like a heartbreaking punch in the gut. 

Throughout the course of the movie there was never a wonderfully romantic relationship between Lili and Paul (and also we’re just gonna have to ignore the fact that he’s 32 and she’s 16 it was the 40′s) in the traditional sense, but it was more in the way they looked at each other as the other left the room or the things they said when they weren’t there that aided in the subtlety and sweetness of their relationship while fighting and arguing all the time when they were together. 

Some honorable mentions in terms of scenes would be when Lili first performs in front of an audience and is just so sweet and gentle and everyone just fell madly in love when she sang the classic song Hi-Lili Hi-Lo. And also, when in the penultimate scene, we’re taken out of reality and Lili begins to dance with the puppets as they all transform into Paul and realizes that the love she has be shown and has given to these puppets has been from Paul, the man who she thought hated her. 

Fave quote: “No. She's like a little bell - that gives off a pure sound no matter how you strike it; because, she's, in herself, so good and true and pure.”

So, once again I will stress that I am in no way writing in a place of having everything together and just crushing life but rather being inspired to write about a feeling or emotion at any given point in time RIGHT NOW. Anyway, that being said, lately I’ve been feeling kind of in between. By that I mean I feel like there is this line that categorizes people into “depressed” or “not depressed” and while yes I acknowledge human emotion is more fluid and complicated than that, I do feel that right now I don’t really fit into either box. There’s something strangely polarizing about, at least from where I am right now, the two extreme labels. In many ways I feel I split myself in to many pieces trying to fit into either category rather than just being one whole me and that being ok. To elaborate, in some ways I feel much lighter these days, and in a lot of ways I can see that I am getting better and feeling better; I feel more hopeful and find myself very social and more motivated. Although in other ways I still feel quite empty, like I’m missing a part of myself that’s run off somewhere and the rest of me is always a bit anxious yet subdued and apprehensive. And feelings change and vary day to day, I could tell you yesterday I was at a 2 whereas today I feel like I’m at an 8 and vice versa. I guess my point is I feel that we don’t often stop to realize that like I said before, human emotions are fluid, complicated and also valid meaning you don’t have to wake up every morning and check a box that says “I’m doing amazing!” or “everything is terrible uhhhhh” you can be floating somewhere in between. Trust me, you’re in good company...