Being There -

Peter Sellers mystique only would have grown with this beautiful movie in the late 1970's when he genuinely seems to embody the gentle, simple, holy-fool style character Chance the gardener.

Our hero is addicted to television, and somehow has stayed on his own tending a small garden for his landlord, without having any direct experience with the world at large apart from through his remote-controlled window. (The 'tube)

When he is forced to leave the house he actually takes the remote control with him, and tries to use it on other TV's he sees, and also on a person. He seems surprised the person annoying him does not go away and change into another show.

It reminded me of mr wagners' Parsifal actually, the naivete of that character killing one of the royal geese, and having no guilt or fear of consequence, and bumping up against other snooty people who expected him to feel the same way they did. This is the sort of space Chance the gardener inhabits.

And it's a lovely, enviable space - i can relate to the "space of content" at times, and the content radiated at a time like this can really be picked up by those around, it's contagious to be in the presence of someone radiating calm, even if their mind is as empty as space.

It's because of his vacuum-brain that Chance is undaunted by meeting the President of the USA, telling him he looks smaller on TV, and then passing on his simple plants and seasons wisdom which ends up influencing the President in matters of state! This movie is played so seriously - there are few obvious laughs handed out but many subtle and perfect moments.

As for what has put Chance in this space, there is no clue. We know he is childlike at the age of sixty, but having the grace of simplicity gets him through every single situation. He is completely unperturbed by death, and similarly unmoved by sex (preferring to imitate yoga postures on his TV while brushing aside glamourpuss Shirley Maclaine's heated advances.) Actually Ms M looks pretty good in this flick, I must admit... Now I see what Andrew Peacock was thinking...

A surreal touch in this movie is the background of television noise in many scenes. So often it seems to voice something unspoken in the scene in a blatant or tangential way. It's a masterpiece, and I can say I have experienced this synchronicity at times too, it's quite weird.

Two thumbs up for a wonderful rainy night movie.