ok so i just got through watching "Cashback," which is a British based movie about an artist played by Sean Biggerstaff who at the beginning breaks up with his old girlfriend and then spends a total of 4 weeks straight without sleep because of the break up. Sean narates the whole movie and you really get to know what is going on in the Ben's (the main character) mind. Ben states that some people can speed up time by not looking at the clock while others keep busy so that time seems to fly by but instead of trying both of those he pauses time in his head. So to illustrate Ben pausing the real world during the movie the film developers actually pause what is going and allow Ben to move through the other characters as if they were statues.
Movie description (copies from IMDB.com): Cashback
When art student Ben Willis is dumped by his girlfriend Suzy, he develops insomnia. To pass the long hours of the night, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket. There he meets a colorful cast of characters, all of whom have their own 'art' in dealing with the boredom of an eight-hour-shift. Ben's art is that he imagines himself stopping time. This way, he can appreciate the artistic beauty of the frozen world and the people inside it - especially Sharon, the quiet checkout girl, who perhaps holds the answer to solving the problem of Ben's insomnia.
throughout the movie I got an extreme feeling of Bens emotions during each part of what happens and it also made me reflect on things that have happened to me. In short a lot of the things that he deals with are foreign to any of us which makes the movie real in a metaphorical sense. Also it brings to mind the many times that i have thought about other stuff to pass the long hours of the day just to survive the times that make life boring and tiring. During the movie I really felt a true sympathetic pull for what Ben had to go through further turn my mind away from the movie and what Ben is going through but towards myself and the few meager things that i have gone through and how i dealt with them, how they affect me, and how i reacted to thost moments. Over and over again i have felt like Ben even though i have been treated more like Ben's best friend, Sean, who in the movie gets slapped in the face by every girl he has ever tried to date. Yes i know his pain but to those that i know be glad i did do what he did (watch the movie so you know what he did ^_^).
I leave you with these 2 small questions:
How have you treated those around you and how do you think they have felt toward you?
and
If you could stop time only to move through it and see every detail how would you use that time?
