Love Letters and Keanu Reeves
Today, I have watched The Lake House for the second time. The first time I went with my boyfriend. The second time I went with my parents. For the sake of not offending my parents who may check my site to see if I say anything about them, I won’t say which viewing I preferred. I liked the movie, but if you plan to see it (and have not done so already), try not to put your mind around the whole time-crossed lovers, where do they actually exist thing. You’ll see what I mean. It’s like Back to the Future: the only rule in movies is that there are no rules.
Watching The Lake House made me wonder about the written word and why we find it more romantic that this couple uses a nearly-ancient mailbox to cross time rather than e-mail. Sure, You’ve Got Mail, which was also a remake of a movie, utilized the new and ever-popular (and now more essential) electronic mailing system. I, however, found something sweet with the magical mailbox gimmick the movie used.
I’ve always found handwriting to be more personal, even though the scribbles that we transfer to paper are only able to be read because all English-speaking humans learned the same code as they grew. We could just as easily be reading Arabic, but I think that’s beside the point. Handwriting shows the personality of a person; it shows a person took time to write a letter. And it shows that we need not depend on technology to write and communicate with one another.
Despite my stab at the art of letter writing, I do believe that an honest love letter can mean more to a person than an e-mail written off without a thought. I don’t mean many e-mails are thoughtless; I just think the handwriting part makes it a tad more personal — something I learned from the movie.
Kate and Alex (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, respectively) forge their relationship with a mailbox that apparently crosses their two years. I stay away from “time periods” because they’re only living two years apart. However, their letters make the movie. And the mailbox. The mailbox is a key player. Romance movies like this one evoke the sweet, hopeful part of romance. And I think much of that has to do with the letters. And obviously, letters are important to many of us.
Posted on June 29th, 2006 by Joy
Filed under: Letters, Romance, Sweetness
Excepting junk mail, bills, and the like, I think that getting mail has to be one of the more exciting things that happen in a day.
As you mentioned, taking the time to write a letter (for me) entails long…agonizing…minutes to not only think about what I want to say, but actually write it…using a pen and paper.
There’s something about a letter that emails don’t possess (besides a coporeal form). It’s the love (or hate, etc.) that you can feel emanating from the paper itself. As if someone had pressed their emotions into the ink. Perhaps that’s what makes them so special.
…Remind me to send you a letter sometime.
-The Kit
…Remind me to give you my address sometime
[...] Ironically, I did delve into this subject when I reflected on The Lake House, and why the characters in it didn’t choose to indulge in e-mail. [...]