Dressing You Up, Dressing Up In You

Dressing You Up: Lars & The Real Girl.  


My take on what's going on is that this depicts the kind of situation where someone has so much love to give, but has a hard time seeing themselves as someone who has a lot of love to give.  He's trying to overcome an incredibly damaged childhood, but the characteristic of "damaged" is still really ingrained into his self-image and his fears about the way others see him.    I can relate to this on a level.  It's like..you're you..you're yourself..your life is your life..the trauma is as normal and familiar as your left thumb...it doesn't seem like a disfiguration because it's all you've known...yet there comes a point, and this is especially sad for children, when you realize the visibility of the damage...when you're enjoying a mother-daughter event like costume fittings for a dance recital just fine without your mother and then the fat girl in front of you with pee stains on her ballet tights turns and says "Where's your mother?" and you realize that everyone else is thinking the same thing, only they are too polite to say it.  It's no longer just an issue of "can I do this," it's also about "do I look the part."  The difference here is that while I turned out pretty normal and functional (in the context of this situation anyhow :p), Lars's character is still pretty screwed up and socially inept.  He can't handle the risk involved in real human interaction, so he real loves a pretend girl (doll), or pretend loves a real girl, depending on how you want to look at it.  The prop substitute allows Lars to engage in role-playing confidence and normalcy, to "look the part" before actually "being the part."  To show the community what he would look like as a normal social being, before actually following through with it.  


This movie also depicts the kind of love that exists in communities.  The love that is inspired when a group decides to rally around an individual in need because he is one of them and they look out for their own :)


Finally, while most of the drama in this movie is very public, I absolutely love the intimacy of this scene where Lars is singing to Bianca.  It's like someone uncovered a thriving patch of violets under a heap of volcanic ash...violets whose roots fed their deep eternal song as though they'd never been choked of a single day of sunlight.  It's beautiful.


And last but not least, simply because I absolutely love this love song, 
Belle and Sebastian's Dress Up in You. 
"I'd hate to see you on the pile of ‘nearly-made-it's.  You've got the essence, dear, If I could have a second skin I'd probably dress up in you." <3