Beautiful to the Eye

Girl with a Pearl Earring (ca. 1665) - Johannes Vermeer

In an effort to rise above the fray, let us rest our eyes for a moment. Ah. There, that's better, isn't it? No talk of lipstick or any other such absurd drivel.

May I recommend that besides not letting the turkeys get you down, you find a DVD copy of Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) to view; not for the opportunity feel inordinate passions toward Scarlett Johansson, who plays Griet, Vermeer's servant and model; nor for the melodrama that made Tracy Chevalier's book by that title a minor bestseller. But because director Peter Webber makes nearly every scene exquisitely beautiful in and of itself.

Films like this come along once in a blue moon, like, say, Diva (1981). You cherish it not for the plot, the characters, the dialog, or the cleverness; you love it because it is beautiful to the eye.