Folded Prayers

Rating: Null/10 (26 June 2004)

Spoilers herein.
There's a lovely Shinto tradition of folding prayers and leaving them on trees. The more clever, careful and perfect the fold, the more whole the message will be.
I am in the midst of writing a book about `folding' in film. Folding in this context refers to layers of some kind that carry double meaning. The simplest and easiest to describe is the kind of folding in this little movie.
A movie is a message sent to us and sugared enough in some way that we will receive it. One of the most effective flavorings is the `love story' which though invented by books is now exclusively owned by cinema. The message we send to ourselves and our loved ones about what love IS is a message that comes from films, each of which is a lower order of message.
Sparks understands this, so he devises stories about messages. With `Message in a Bottle,' he did it simply with one layer. Here, he employs three, which added to the two above makes five folds in this slick film, five origami birds approaching our window.
Sparks' three messages are:

the one from Noah to Allie every day

the notebook of the title that Allie wrote, effectively to herself to use her love to bring herself back to her love

the letters that Noah wrote, one per day for a year.

Now whether you find the gauzy valentine haze too sweet, or the notion of the world (not just the world of love) too smooth and safe, you have to admire how this film was conceived. These sorts of things don't happen by accident, they are engineered by people who study the deep cognitive mechanics of this business. Oddly, the plot suggests that happy unengineered accidents are what are more real.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.