a good woman.... aka lady windermere's fan.

i just watched 'a good woman' at nova. suddenly i have the urge to wear silk gloves and live in amalfi, italy, in the 1930s. so much more glamour! ah yes, to hark back to the grand old days when women always wore hats, threw cocktail parties in old italian mansions and whatnot. i wonder if the people who lived in that era thought that their own existence was mundane and banal and thought back to the good ol' days in the 1900s, when women wore corsets and were presented at court, and life was more glamourous, damnit! nostalgia is a very powerful force.

of course, if i had actually lived in those times i would not have been one of the main protagonists, with the silk dresses and the mansions and the mixing with british aristocracy. most likely i would have been one of the random common folk selling fish from the scene at the market. or i would have been the parlourmaid or the second cook or the milkman's daughter. all very humdrum and distinctly unglamourous [unless, of course, u're talking about the palourmaid from a mills and boons' novel, in which case the life of a parlourmaid is very interesting indeed, being ravaged by the dark broodingly handsome lord of the house, and turning out to be the lost daughter of an earl. but i digress. and i'm not talking about that sort of parlourmaid. i'm talking about the sort that has dalliances with no higher than the assistant butler].

so really what i was struck by is both the glamour of a bygone era and a higher class. and of course hollywood's depiction of it. and of course, the chance to dress up.

best line from the film: 'crying is the refuge of plain girls. pretty girls go shopping'.