Twilight

So I just finished watching TWILIGHT. I wasn't satisfied with the ending. The ending of the movie doesn't give me the closure that I want from a dramatic romance story like this. They never really tell us what happens with Edward and Bella. I'm going to assume that they stay together. They never tell us what happens with Bella's friend (The Native American guy whose name I can't remember) and the warning that his dad paid him to deliver. What about the antagonist Victoria? I would have liked to see Bella reconciling with her dad after she said so many mean things to him and left him like her mom had. Poor guy. So do Rosalie and Bella finally end up getting along with each other? I like endings that tie everything up in a nice little bow.

There was one part of the cinematography that I really liked. There is a scene where Bella is standing against her truck watching Edward who is across the parking lot. When Mike comes to talk to her and asks her to the prom, Bella does not pay any attention to Mike since she is intently watching Edward. This is emphasized by the shallow focus/short depth of field that puts Edward, who is in the background, in sharp focus while Mike, who is in the foreground, is blurred. When Bella finally realizes that Mike is talking to her, the camera racks focus and Mike is now in focus.

During the scene where Edward watches Bella figure out the he is a vampire, the characters stand still while the camera swings around and around them. This movement shows that as the characters are standing there, they are going through a lot of inner struggle which makes the scene very intense.

I think that the conflict between Rosalie and Bella could have been portrayed better. The scene in the kitchen when Rosalie breaks the glass because Bella has already eaten doesn't really show why Rosalie is upset. It doesn't show a good enough motivation for her to suddenly break things. In the garage scene where the family is preparing to fight/flee from James, Rosalie says "What is she to me?" and refuses to help Bella. But she is at the edge of the frame and you only see her side profile. There isn't a front or close up shot of her to show how she is relenting and changing her mind about hating Bella. If they chose to use this conflict in the movie, then I think that they should do a better job of portraying it and showing the struggle to overcome it.

My favorite part of this movie is Edward's struggle. He wants so desperately to kill Bella for her blood, but he doesn't. Because he loves her so much, he will control his own desires. He puts her interests before his own. To me, this is a really good analogy of how I should be living my life. When I love my family, friends, and other people that I interact with, am I serving them or am I serving myself? Real love is not about what others can do for you. It's about serving people. In what ways am I loving selfishly? What can I do to control my own desires in order to serve others more?