The end of the year or New Year is one of the most interesting holidays on the calendar. It is not celebrated on the same day for all cultures, but for most of them it symbolizes the same thing. This means that the last day of the chronological cycle is devoted to more or less similar ideas. From reviewing what happened in the previous months to big plans to start over. The truth is that it is the end of one stage and the beginning of another, with all the allegory that the idea can entail, no matter where it is celebrated.
Cinema is not indifferent to this point of view. Thus, for most of its history, the last night of the year became an important element in the telling of touching stories. Be it great encounters, impossible love that ultimately leads to the enjoyment of several hours of passion, or even a promising journey through time. Nothing was missing in the way Hollywood presented New Year’s Eve. And the way this feeling of completion and happy beginning, He gave the cinematic world some of the best scenes.
We leave you with five films with unexpected turns of events, set on New Year’s Eve or the first day of January. From a miracle that freed a woman from eternal condemnation, to a dance that concluded a painful contract between two lovers. Nothing is missed on this journey as the seventh art raises its glass to celebrate the end of the year.
Adalina’s Secret
The story, both a romantic drama and a revealing recreation of the possibility of eternal life, begins and ends on New Year’s Eve. Adaline (Blake Lively) fought all night to come alive, resulting in her becoming the first baby born in San Francisco on New Year’s Day 1908.An extraordinary journey through the meaning of life, love and of course time.
Years later, after a serious car accident, Adaline stops aging. But what seems like a miracle ends up becoming a nightmare as she realizes that the world around her is changing, but she remains the same. Gradually the meaning of everything you hold dear will change, and your ability to delve deeper into what you love will be tested as the only sure thing in a very long life. Moreover, the path of love can be reflection on a person’s personality, like any other limit, disappears.
Finally, Adaline’s cycle appears to come to an end when, nearly half a century later, while about to celebrate her birthday as well as New Year’s Eve, she begins to age. What frees her from the loneliness of eternity, which she never asked for and which became a sentence. Lee Toland Krieger’s film doesn’t end with a hopeful message. Yes, with confidence that the end of the year is a symbol of hope. Even the end (whatever it may be) of great suffering.
Bridget Jones’s Diary
No one doubts this: Sharon Maguire’s film, based on the book of the same name by Helen Fielding, has not had time to age at all. But despite criticism of the subtext of messages about the aesthetic pressure that women must feel, there is something more.. Bridget (Renée Zellweger) could say that love came into her life just before the New Year. After all, her first meeting with Darcy (Colin Firth) took place at a New Year’s party. and their great reconciliation on the same day, a year later.
The plot ingeniously uses the passage of months to tell the story of Bridget’s evolution. Not only in love – let’s not forget that this is a romantic comedy – but also to mark the pace of the character’s spiritual evolution. This is not an epiphany but a slow awareness of your life and everything that awaits you in the future.
Including an affair with the most expected man at the moment when he needs him most. In their big final scene—which, of course, takes place on New Year’s Eve—Bridget and Darcy discover what appears to be the secret to adult love. This is nothing more than starting a new page of the diary together, there is a whole new year ahead.
snowmobile
This list could not help but include a parable about destruction and the end of times associated with the end of the year. South Korean director Bong Joon Ho analyzes snowmobile not only the fear of final destruction. As well as class struggle and social inequality. And all this in the setting of a train trying to escape a climate apocalypse with few and rich survivors on board.
Among the carts that travel around the world in an endless New Year’s celebration, there are the poorest survivors. They all struggle to hold on to life among the crumbs of the decadent exuberance of the powerful. The cultural and political message is clear. Much more symbolic. The end of times is at the same time an opportunity for a new rebirth. But for something like this to happen, there must be a transition to the next day – or the New Year with all its questions.
Of course, the moral of the film becomes increasingly poignant as it becomes apparent that tragedy awaits the travelers. However, amid the potential for disaster, one thing remains clear. The revival of the few survivors will be the equivalent of a new cycle. with all the attendant opportunities and dangers.
Apartment
In 1960, director Billy Wilder made one of the most beautiful romantic comedies with dramatic overtones in cinema. Which also includes an entire well-intentioned ode about new beginnings and the sure possibility of love. “The Apartment” is not just a work that celebrates the best of the romantic genre with some sour undertones. At the same time, this is a New Year’s film that celebrates hope as the main force behind every action in the future.
CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon) deeply in love with Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). The latter is the mistress of Baxter’s boss. Mr Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). Relationships are a kind of impassable bridge that Lemmon’s character must cross, even at the cost of his moral prejudices and even fears. But ultimately it’s about love, as the character loudly insists. And with this conviction, we risk taking risks to preserve the deepest feeling of all.
And it’s within this premise that the film reaches its best moment on New Year’s Eve, when Fran discovers what she really wants. Not only for your life, but also for your future. The big scene of the plot shows her running down the street with a bottle of champagne in her hands, convinced that Baxter is the man she loves. An ending that isn’t much of an ending, ending a long line of disagreements.
Invisible thread
Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is considered one of the greatest films of recent years. And it also has a central scene during New Year’s celebrations, which gives it a sense of bittersweet menace. One of the most memorable elements of this story is about power, influence, obsession and painful love.
Fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants his life to be perfect. But also that everything around him is a scene of the need for precise control that he exercises over his clothes and workers. With romance it couldn’t be any other way.
The film’s big emotional scene—or whatever this dark narrative might be—takes place on New Year’s Eve. During the sequence Soul (Vicky Crieps), the object of Woodcock’s desire, dances with the designer in an empty room. Outside the year ends, inside a connection is created between them. A subtle conclusion to a story full of symbolism and darkness that fascinates with its beauty.
Source: Hiper Textual
