The Yellow Tie
At first I honestly thought it was going to be some mix between The Pianist and Whiplash. I was even getting a little bored, like nothing felt new. But once we got into the real meat of it, once he started chasing perfection and it began bleeding into his entire life, I started questioning everything that had happened up to that point.
When I saw him return to Romania, I had this huge hope that he would meet his father again. And when I realized his father had died, it just crushed me. It felt so heartbreaking that he never got to hear the words “I’m proud of you” from the one person he needed it from. And then, when we go back to that scene of him as an old man finally opening the package… god, I thought I would never stop crying. Sergiu Celibidache finally found out that his father was proud of him, even if he couldn’t say it while he was alive. That was too much for me. It was the perfect ending, seeing him finally stop chasing perfection, because the one thing he’d been running from all his life was actually love.
Besides that, I didn’t like that Ortancia was never mentioned again. I loved that his wife ended up being Ioana, because it felt like a reference to his beginnings, his ballet days, his roots. But I truly think the person he should’ve met again was Ortancia, because without her, he wouldn’t have become who he was. I also really liked his teacher, he believed in him, he stood by him, and I feel like he should’ve been included a bit more.
But this film did something to me. I don’t even know why, but when I walked out of the cinema I couldn’t shake the thought that every person lives their own film. And in that film, it doesn’t matter how many great things you achieve, or how impressive your life looks from the outside. You could be the greatest mathematician in the world, with all your accomplishments, and still only see the things you yourself have done. It’s not important to be the richest person, or to have money, what matters is being rich within yourself. Even if you sleep on a bench somewhere, at least live by your own rules and accept yourself. Because nothing, and no one, is truly ugly. If you say that, it just means you never took the time to really look.