Quote from: Kradan on Jun 26, 2020, 05:33:18 AM
Quote from: SM on Jun 25, 2020, 11:25:12 PM
If you are a parent plagued with feelings of inadequacy - Survival is definitely pretty horrific.
I'm not the first but I agree with the second
I don't object to the quality of
Survival, only the inscrutability of it. The Unreliable Narrator trope gone amok.
It's a fine technique to make a reader/watcher feel unsettled, and they've been doing it in
this franchise since Ripley first woke up in Gateway. But when there's no clear breakthrough into reality, it makes reliable placement on a timeline or a map nigh impossible (this is admittedly a personal problem). When the trope is employed well, you get masterpieces like
Jacob's Ladder, or
Fallen, or the
Usual Suspects (just to take 3 examples from 90's cinema, apparently. Also, sorry,
spoilers). But when a narrative is
completely untethered from any frame of reference, like the most recent TZ's "
Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" with Adam Scott, then everything's just an aimless dream floating in the stygian abyss, and thus completely interpretive and inconsequential. Arguably, the jar scene could be viewed as the foundational reality, but it's still hazier and more ambiguous than the final bit from
Brazil. (<which I love still, no hate implied)
Ranty personal annoyance aside,
Survival is pretty interesting for a number of reasons and, despite my personal problem of not having a clue what's truly happening, I can only imagine what a deeply personal kick in the feels it might be for a parent. (The 15 years of parenthood for my furchild cat doesn't precisely translate, but it might be just enough to let me peek through the door.) Regardless, I'll have to give it another go sometime.
All that aside, on the actual personal front... genuinely poor parents are rarely concerned that they might be bad parents, I humbly submit that you are likely a much better and loving parent than you give yourself credit for, and I take fact that you care enough to be this anxious and/or self-critical of your performance as pretty solid evidence in support of that.
