I generally like Chris Nolan's movies and watched two back to back on a long flight to Asia recently. Insomnia with its theme of what is doing good or right really mean. Can you achieve the right and moral outcome and still feel like you did wrong or conversely follow the rules, fail to achieve the outcomes and feel like a bad person consequently. The second movie was Following also with dark themes. Things end very poorly for the protagonist here. It brought to mind that as a kid, I had often wondered what interesting things could be learned by following someone. What you think their life might be like and what it really is. This was a time before internet never mind social media. Your understanding of another human came about through direct, face to face contact.
Some people revealed more about their inner universe than others and I was always curious about those who seemed to have many hidden layers. Looking back, I have to believe these idle thoughts crossed my mind because my daily life was extremely mundane and predictable. If I ever actually acted upon my imagination, that would be the wildest adventure. Being that I was a boring and conformist kid, none of that happened. At some point the idea died ungerminated and moved on to other things. In Nolan's Following, the main character does go around following people in hopes of finding material to write about. Until watching the movie, I had not considered the moral issues associated with a kid following somebody out of curiosity. But when an adult takes such action it is no longer benign or silly. This and many other thoughts that cross a kid's mind should best die well before they reach adulthood.
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