A Profoudn Movie about Modern Love

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2009)

I don't understand the movie very well until I have seen it three times. It is one of the most difficult movies I have ever seen.
The plot device that there are several months between almost every scene leaves the audience much imagination about the development of the relationships among the characters, but it confused me a little at the beginning, because things in it moves so fast and suddenly.
Another reason for my difficulty in understanding it is that there are hidden deep meanings about love behind all the scenes. I have to try to figure them out.
The name of the movie, 'Closer', has something deeper behind it. Through the movie we can see that as people have desires they get closer to each other and fall in love with each other, just like Dan and Alice, Dan and Anna, Anna and Larry do in the movie. And once they are in love, they want to be even closer to each other. They think they should know more about the one they are in love with, especially his or her very private things. They think that it is a kind of faithfulness. But what turns up is that the more they get closer, the more easily they will get hurt. 'Being closer' may mean making each other far from each other. Being closer brings them together, and at the same time they break up due to the 'closer' and become strangers to each other. Isn't it an irony about love? We may learn from the movie a little bit that distance is needed in love. Distance makes things seem good in appearance and will prevent people from being hurt by the true reality.
The movie to some extent shows the differences in men's and women's values on love. Physical love is more important to men while women believe more in spiritual love. To men a betrayal is far more physical than spiritual. In the movie, when Dan knew Anna had slept with Larry before she came to him, he got wildly angry and deserted her, whereas Anna did so only in order to be together with Dan. She thought spiritual love is more important. This movie is mainly about modern love itself. At the end, both men have sex with both women; occasionally as a round trip back to the woman they started with. There is no constancy in this crowd: When they're not with the one they love, they love the one they're with. Modern love seems to be more about sex than true love. Perhaps betrayal is becoming (or already has become) a custom in modern times. Maybe none of them are ever in love at all, although they are always saying they are. Love in the movie isn't like a warm fire, but just cold water. They are just what we need after we have read too many beautiful love tales. We can get ourselves something cruel and real about modern love through this movie. Maybe they all know they love each other, but this is just the reason why they get hurt from each other, so till the end they can't find out they are lovers or just strangers. Isn't it an irony when Dan finds he even doesn't know Alice's real name? Were they lovers or just strangers? In the name of 'Love', they all became liars and actors and actresses. What a pity! what love in Modern times it is!