ben and sera with an 'e'

i watched leaving las vegas again last night (last night, which happened to be christmas still, haha). i found the film extremely shocking the first time i saw it. the brutality of alcoholism and sex combined in a single movie - brutal not because of the subject matter, but because of a powerful cast and a very talented director (mike figgis, who also took care of the music and wrote the screenplay) - is almost too much to handle.

i remembered not wanting to watch it again; and leaving las vegas is a bad movie, on the contrary, it shocked me that bad (that would make it an outstanding movie) that to see it again would be to have that same shock i just had. or at least, i thought it would.

it was like requiem for a dream, which i saw some years after i first watched leaving las vegas. the themes were very similar, and also the use of style as a sort-of signifier. these are movies that you admire, you tell your friends about it, but you do not watch it again and again. repetitions are for friends episodes, or for almost famous, or for the silence of the lambs.

and then i watched it again last night, found the dvd while pretend-cleaning. and i realized - leaving las vegas is probably the best love story i had ever seen. forty minutes and i was already crying. i think it was when ben tells sera she cannot ever force him to stop drinking, which would mean she will have to see him die. the movie sometimes borders on camp, with the conversations and the music but it feels so real.

nicolas cage and elizabeth shue star as ben sanderson and sera. ben goes to vegas to drink himself to death; there he finds sera, a hooker who, despite everything, appears to have a passion for living. they meet, they talk instead of having sex, ben moves in with sera, they fall in love. everyone would know that that would never ever end well. and it does not. t think it was not figgis' intention to make his audience cry, but when sera cooks for ben (in an effort to keep him alive), one can't help it but shed tears.

an alcoholic and a hooker. disregarding the definition of tragedy, what could be more tragic?