Saturday 6 February 2010

Oscar 2010 and Pluto in Capricorn

What I have noticed in the last couple of years regarding the film industry is that a new film genre is gaining popularity, at least in award ceremonies, if not in ticket sales. That of the film/documentary feature. While this kind of film cannot be called a documentary, it is still quite a long way from the type of film we are used to. The emphasis is on real-life events or events that resemble real-life as much as possible, which means that there is a trend in Hollywood to de-glamourize story-telling and present the story in a more factual sort of way. Last year, we had Frost/Nixon and Milk, two films nominated for the Academy Award, and this year we have The Hurt Locker, District 9 (partly) or even Precious, whose overly dramatic story is presented in a more matter-of-fact way, in an effort to shy away from intense melodrama. Is there an astrological explanation for this?
I believe Pluto in Capricorn has a lot to do with this. All the above films are trying to show the dark side of society and what life is really like if you strip away the melodrama and the happy endings. Even Precious doesn't really have a happy ending, but instead the girl has simply succeeded in coming to terms with her dark reality and moving on. All these films are trying to do is show how sick society really is and what it does to the people who live in it. In Frost/Nixon we witnessed the dark side of politics, in Milk and in District 9 we saw how minorities are treated, in The Hurt Locker we saw what war is like on an everyday basis and in Precious we saw how cruel and abusive families can be.
All this is very well, but I fear that this is not a direction the film industry should go to. What most of these films lack (with the exception of Precious), is a plot, a story with characters that could get you emotionally involved in what you are watching, because films and documentaries are two completely different genres and it is very difficult to blend them successfully. The fact that Saturn is strong in Libra and Neptune is still in Aquarius, another Saturn-ruled sign, doesn't help much either. There's too much Saturn in the heavens. I believe that things will gradually begin to change when Neptune moves into Pisces. At least, I hope so.




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