Rent!

I'm gonna talk about a film I have loved since the first time that I saw it.

It's called "Rent", directed by Chris Columbus in 2005, but based on an amazing musical written by Jonathan Larson, a talented artist and composer who died the night before his masterpiece was staged at Nederlander Theatre in 1996, because of an aneurysm from Marfan Syndrom. It was ten days before his 36th birthday. Jonathan Larson never got to see his masterpiece on Broadway.

All of his soul and feelings are reflected in the lyrics of the songs, which are full of love, hope, and the idea of life as a rent, that could lasts just for one day.

The plot of Rent is largely inspired by "La Bohème", the opera by Giacomo Puccini, set in New York in the 80s, a kind of rock opera; also the names of the characters are referred to those of the Italian model: Mimì becomes Mimi Marquez, the latinoamerican lapdancer of the Cat Scratch Club, Rodolfo is Roger Davis, a boy who was a famous rockstar but he has lost himself in drugs, Marcello is Mark, a guy who longs to be a director and loves films, Colline is Collins, a philosopher fired because of his theory of Actual Reality instead of Virtual Reality, and so on...

Mimi, Roger, Mark, Collins, Angel, Maureen, Joanne, Benny: these are the characters of Rent. They (quite) all are bohemian artists that are trying to live on their own art, pay the rent of their flats, they have the courage to be theirselves, special human beings, gays, lesbians, dreamers, and the courage to fight AIDS, with AZT.

In a year, from a Christmas Eve to the following, they learn to know, accept, love each other, not without fights and pain. They have to live like that day could be their last on Earth. They live the Seasons of Love: "525.600 minutes, how do you mesure, mesure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. 525.000 minutes, how do you mesure a year in the life? How about Love?"

My favourite character is Mimi, who, even if she suffers for disease and because of her love, never loses hope and faith in life, and says to a discouraged Roger the most beautiful words spoken ever: "There's only us, there's only this, forget regret, or life is yours to miss, no other road, no other way, no day but today!"