Reflection Paper - Meet me at St. Gallen, Essays (high school) of English

Download Reflection Paper - Meet me at St. Gallen and more Essays (high school) English in PDF only on Docsity! Reflection Paper Meet me in St. Gallen is a movie starring two main characters, Celeste Francisco and Jesse Abaya. The former is an artist who just quit her job while the latter is a medicine student but has a calling to be a musician. They have a chance encounter, and officially meet in a coffee shop. From that moment on, those two strangers have a rare connection that leaves a mark on each other's lives. However, they only meet for a moment, like a drop in the ocean, still part of the deep waters but in the end not the entirety of the ocean. Fast forward to four years, they once again have a chance encounter in a coffee shop. But still, it was not meant to be. Throughout the entirety of the movie, they meet a total of three times spanning the period of eight years. The theme of this movie is basically love, and in my own opinion, a clash of destiny, choices and romantic love. Before watching the movie, I caught a glimpse of their poster in the internet, I thought the editing was great, but it was only by watching the entirety of the movie did I understand the significance. When Celeste and Jesse meet, they follow the logical side of things. Celeste immediately assumes that Jesse is stalking her which is partially true -but not the whole thing- so she threatens the man in her own way that leaves me with the same of feeling as Jesse when he first met Celeste. He thought that Celeste was awe inspiring, a person who was capable of saying her true thoughts without fear and this lead him to secretly following her due to his interest. If the male protagonist was a rich CEO, this would probably turn into a cliché love story where the man would say "You've caught my interest," and then follow the "Rich guy falls in love with the poor girl" plot. Thankfully, that is not the case. While Villamor did insert a lot of common tropes in her movie, she managed to magnify them in the most logical of way, showing a sense of reality and that not every love story ends with a happy ending, or more specifically, not every two main characters end together. Villamor was a genius in showing us this, she used the common tropes by subverting the common misconceptions in love stories. Because in reality, not all love stories end happily. Moving on to Celeste and Jesse's situation, after meeting in the coffee shop, they talk more, hangout and so on and so forth. This is the part where they forge a deep connection, where they feel that they are each other's destinies, and where they can be something akin to a star-crossed lovers. Their first meeting amazes me, it almost makes me believe in soulmates, or something along those lines, because -let me borrow Celeste's words- what are the odds of two strangers meeting, and then getting along as if they have long ago had a deep connection? When they were drinking in the bar and Celeste starts telling Jesse about her aunt, who in summary, had to choose between her former boyfriend in high school and the man whom she married, I already had an inkling that Celeste and Jesse's situation might become parallel to her aunt's encounter, I just didn't know how. Moving on, their first meeting ends with the two kissing but Celeste tells Jesse that they shouldn't destroy the moment and just like that, their first encounter ends. I don't really fault Celeste for her actions, despite many people believing that she should have taken the chance. If one was in her shoes, would you really consider having a relationship with a man you just met? No matter how magical it is, I would be more inclined to being cautious. But this is where I disagree with Celeste's attitude. I don't fault her for leaving at that moment, but if she really felt something special for the man, well they could have just become friends, met up, and get to know each other. Because personally, I think that was just hormones speaking for each other, or maybe, just chemicals in their brains that suddenly got on the same wavelength, I think their emotions were too heightened at that moment, both feeling the same frustration where in they suddenly find someone with the same feelings, and in doing so, suddenly finds a common ground.