'ANTINOUS APPEARED
RIGHT THERE BEFORE MY EYES'
"Antinous appeared right there before my eyes" ... in a Japanese movie offered as in-flight viewing entertainment.
The movie, THERMAE ROMAE, based on a popular manga, is a kooky cross-cultural time-travel yarn which has broken box-office records in Japan and is winning awards on the international film-festival circuit.
The movie tells the story of an Ancient Roman named Lucius who ...
BUT LET ANTONYUS TELL YOU HIMSELF:
There was this Japanese movie called Thermae Romae,
I read the description but wasn't interested,
It was a comedy about an ancient Roman architect who somehow finds a tunnel to the future
where he discovers Japanese style bathhouse practices,
and then takes these back to ancient Rome and nonsense ensues (...no thank you.)
I had caught glimpses of it on the little screens of people sitting in front of me, and it looked completely ridiculous
and of no interest to me whatsoever...so I didn't watch it.
But then hours and hours later, (there was this super cute Italian guy sitting in front and one seat over from me)
He had fallen asleep while watching the Romae Thermae movie...I could see his screen perfectly,
I just started reading the subtitles for no reason...when suddenly...after about 30 seconds,
They start talking about HADRIANUS!!!...this immediately caught my attention,
Hadrian was one of the characters of the movie....then suddenly, after perhaps one minute,
They call the main character and tell him to come to the palace, that Hadrianus has fallen into a depression,
Because he has lost his favorite boy in the Nile!!!!
I couldn't believe what I was reading...then out of nowhere they show a brief little dream-sequence with a hazy blurry camera,
Hadrianus is sitting in a garden, and up walks ANTINOUS!!!
He hands the Emperor a flower and then they say that he drowned...and that's it!
He appears suddenly out of nowhere, you can't really see his face, just his form, his black curly hair,
And then he's gone...just like that...it was magnificent...stunning
...I couldn't believe that I had just seen ANTINOUS out of nowhere!!!
On the flight back from ROME after having just seen Antinous!
I was overcome by a sense of extremely astonished blessedness...
I don't even quite know how to describe what I felt,
totally shocked...and yet...not surpirsed at all.
It was as if...he were turning the little wheels of the cosmos just a bit,
just for a moment...as if to say hello, (and so much more.)
Of course I had to watch the movie,
It was completely stupid, completely ridiculous,
I don't even want to go into it quite frankly,
But there was Antinous
I paused the movie and just looked at HIM for a good long time.
Now I'm going to have to buy this stupid movie just because they put Antinous in it for just 3 seconds
...I am so so glad they didn't give him any more time than that though...it would have been too much.
A Japanese Hadrian was something to see...a Japanese Lucius (hot, but the villian of course)
was also a new experience...but a Japanese Antinous would have been too much.
It was hard to tell, but I think they used a non-Japanese as the actor.
So, while I do not recommend the movie for the movie's sake,
you are all going to have to just watch and endure it,
Because for like three seconds...there's Antinous!
In any case, it was a powerful end to a power pilgrimage,
I don't want to go on and on about what it meant to me,
But I'm sure you can all imagine.
~SVBIA
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