Julian Po

Julian Po is a film that I hadn't heard of until a casual channel surf stumbled me onto HBO. I was hooked immediately. The characters in this town are so unbelievably strange and almost creepy. Julian (Christian Slater) is a wanderer, narrating his own story, who goes to a small town in order to end his life. When the townspeople find out, it becomes a sort of obsession with them. The children follow him through the streets, he's offered gifts from shop owners, and a beautiful, intense woman, Sarah, (Robin Tunney) falls in love with him, creating a very karmic bond between the two of them. Ironically, in the course of his procrastinating his death, he changes the lives of everyone around him. They ask him for advice in life matters. A man "comes out of the closet", a Priest denounces God, etc..

Julian Po left me sad. It doesn't end the way anyone would think, but it left me with one recurrent theme running through my head. Life is a beautiful thing, not to be taken for granted. Never make life or death decisions when you haven't even experienced life. And maybe one more thing... a real man sticks to his obligations... :-)