Aww - good question. Thanks for calling me on it! *is pleased*
Hmm...I guess I don't see films just to escape reality, but that's because my reality isn't that bad - I've had some really fabulous partners in my life and several great loves (which is probably several more than I deserve). I've been terribly hurt but I don't regret that - love is messy, and painful, and oh, so wonderful, but it's not a neat little package of snappy dialogue and trite situations.
In that sense I've been very lucky - I've experienced deep passion, even at its most obsessive and debilitating. I've had light crushes, too, and they're a darn site more exciting and fun than I've seen in most chick flicks - the flirting is just that much edgier, the looks that much more intense - and it's not because it's real life (although I'm sure that's part of it), but because it includes everything - warts and all, which can be such a rich, vibrant experience.
Don't get me wrong - I've also had truly devastating things happen in my life (I'm a multiple trauma survivor including surviving rape and being stalked). But I didn't read romantic novels or watch chick flicks to deal with all of that - I got a good therapist, who helped me work through it (although I suppose one's never fully healed - the scars are there).
That being said, why do people feel the need to escape? I think it has so much to do with the unhappiness of, and dissatisfaction with, their own lives (which is why I feel so sorry for people who like these films - I presume that they must be miserable to find solace in them).
I see films that I want to be deeply involved with, even if the situation doesn't relate to my life on a personal level, but that's not the same thing as looking for an escape to reality. I see them as an art form - I don't know if you know this but I'm a classically trained art historian (studied it in grad school, did the curatorial thing for a few years, interned at the Met, taught community college) - all art history related. I come to any movie experience from that perspective. It's hard for me not to see a film and not immediately disect it, even if unconsciously, so I prefer films that have something to offer as far as challenging my brain and psyche (and I don't mean they have to be intellectual).
Actually, a good example would be something like
Chasing Amy - a movie with what I grant you is not necessarily a realistic relationship, but the development of the "couple" really hit on a certain reality. I could name several people, myself included, who's story that film could have been taken from - from the unsupportive friends on both side, the odd development of the attachment for both people, the revelations, the dialogue (the dialogue, especially - I've had so many conversations like those!).
That would be an excellent example.
And of course
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they don't get together in the end. Sure, the possibility exists, but it's left to you to decide what happens to them after all the time that's passed and all the things that happened before their separation. In the end I don't think they do get together, but that's just my personal POV 'cause I'm bitter.
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Other examples would be any of the four (of my five, which includes
Apocalypse Now) of my top all time favorite movies -
Wings of Desire, The Rapture, Bliss, Pillow Book. These movies deal with obsession, existence, and relationships on a level I can personally relate to (which I can get into much more detail, if you'd like).
Even the most beautiful kissing scenes I've ever seen come from two movies which verge on romance, but which definitely don't fit into the genre in any strict sense -
Last Night and
Cinema Paradiso. Both of the kissing scenes I refer to occur at the end of the two films, both can bring me to absolute tears every single time I watch them, both are moving, and both say so much about the way humans relate to each other, not just romantically but familially, primally, humanely.
I don't want my romance sanitized and made two-dimensional...that's all.
Hope that makes sense.
