Buttercup and Westley's kisses melt our hearts in different ways. The first kiss is against the sunset, which is symbolic for endings and separations. This kiss is their first since Buttercup realizes when Westley says As You Wish, he really means I love you. This kiss occurs when they part.
Westley is off to seek his fortune in order to return to Buttercup with the financial means to marry her. Buttercup must stay behind. This is a tender and poignant, heart-squeezing kiss of true love.
The next kiss follows a minute later. This is the kiss that seals their pact that he will return, and she will wait for him. We needed these kisses to sustain us (and Buttercup and Westley) until they’re together again.
The first kiss happens in this clip at 1:56.
Then Buttercup gets word that Westley is dead.
Our lip
quivers. All hope seems lost.
But TA DA!
Westley returns five years later in the guise of The Dread Pirates Roberts aka The Man in Black, and we just know there HAS to be a reunion kiss. We wait. We watch. And then it happens after Westley and Buttercup tumble down the steep ravine that leads into the Fire Swamp. We breathe a sigh of relief. Love is still strong between them. For a few moments, our movie world is at peace.
The reunion kiss begins at 0:38 in this clip.
Still,
we cling to a thread of hope for a happy ever after ending, and Miracle Max helps
us hang on to hope when he determines that Westley is only mostly dead, which means he's slightly alive. Then we recall that Westley promised Buttercup that Death
cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while. This is means it's inconceivable to give up all hope just yet.
Then,
whew! Love conquers all, and we learn that we don’t mind kissing parts at all,
especially since the invention of the kiss. There have been five kisses rated
the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.
*****
*****
January Movie Kiss - The
Phantom of the Opera (2004)
See you next month for more
kisses from the big screen.
Kaye Spencer
www.kayespencer.com
The perfect movie, and series of kisses to pick for Valentine's Day. Isn't this all so wonderful? I definitely want to watch this again now.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's a perfect movie. It's one of my family's handful of "we can recite every line" movies. ;-)
DeleteSIGH...I agree with Christine...I need to watch this now...what a wonderful choice for Valentine's Day!
ReplyDeleteI just love this movie so much. The book is wildly bizarre, and it fills in places the movie left out.
DeleteAlthough I was frustrated with Buttercups lack of daring, I did love those kisses. Of course, Grandpa (the late great Peter Faulk) was my favorite in the whole movie. Doris
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the author wrote Buttercup as a "DiD" - Damsel in Distress in order for the other characters to feed from her character. I think of her as the hub of a wheel with the other characters as the individual spokes. Buttercup as the center made he story go 'round. Yes, her lack of daring is evident, but perhaps she was written in the fashion of the time. *shrug*
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