Ang Lee and the Negative Zone

"To find yourself in the negative zone, as the Fantastic Four often do, means that all everyday assumptions are inverted. Even the invisible girl herself becomes visible and so she loses the last semblance of her power. It seems to me that everyone exists partially on a negative zone level, some people more than others. In your life it's kind of like you dip in and out of it: a place where things don't work out quite the way they should. But for some people, there's something about the negative zone that tempts them and they end up going in -- going in all the way."

This quote from The Ice Storm sums up its many repressed, longing and confused characters. It also works as the conflicted core to many of Ang Lee's accomplished films. Each tragic figure is tempted by something that would ideally lead them closer to some kind of happiness, be that true love or self-realization. At first it seems as though the world would never allow it, but eventually the world opens up and makes it possible, and ultimately it's the individual that refuses it or accepts it only moments too late.

How true to life... How depressing, gorgeously shot, and true to life...

Happy Wednesday!