The severe cut-backs on media intake continue to be painful and are not yielding any improvement in mental capacities or creative output. Perhaps this is like that period smokers go through when they reduce the number of cigarettes a day hoping to gain the best of both worlds. I am merely prolonging the worst aspects.
On saturday I went to the cinemas again with The Jugger, and of his list of proposed films 3 were on war, 1 a surrealist montage and 1 about running marathons. The only one in english was "The Hunger", and I know enough about Bobby Sands to know I didn't want to experience any of that so I chose war: Waltz with Bashir. Partly because I had heard a little about the production and it sounded interesting. They used a similar animation process to 'Through a Scanner Darkly' and I find this blending of techniques interesting. Apart from that, I knew it was set in the Lebannon war of 82 via flashback. But I ask you - what's wrong with a romantic comedy for a second/first date? (I must mention the protocols of internet dating - first date is a coffee date. I can be over as quickly as it takes to say "Soy?! Decaff?! I'm outta here" and part of this arrangement is there's no hard feelings. It was just a coffee - no biggie. If that goes well, one may progress to the next stage - what used to be the first date - where as a couple you might tackle the challenge of formally dining together, or perhaps enjoying the air-conditioning of a cinema, perhaps seeing if that 'GSOH' actually translates into the both of you laughing at anywhere near the same things, people, lines, ideas and so on). Or even, what's wrong with seeing a film you've already seen if you know it's good? I've done that, I think it's polite, after all, the function is to spend some time together not to critique David Stratton's interpretation!
I've always been someone who easily suspends disbelief and enters into the world of a film. Sometimes this results in a wonderful journey into a time and place I would never have access to otherwise, sometimes I get lost in that world and have trouble coming back (LOTR) and sometimes, it just really hurts because the story isn't a fantasy or an escape, or a comedy, it's a freaking documentary about a genocide. Heightened by my withdrawal from the world of moving pictures this was an arduous, painful 90minutes for me, and I was glad of my nana instincts to always travel with tissues, because I needed them. It's a great film, a well told story, visually interesting, political from a personal point of view and so on. I'm sure David probably gave it a great round up. He should have anyway, and there's some great humour in it, and some dream sequences, and a bit of german porn and I really loved the visual impact of the way they'd done the animation, it's just that I wept. It was sad, it was horrible and it was distressing because despite the animation and the other tricks, it was real. This man we get to know, he unearthed this memory, and it was his memory because he was there when this atrocity occurred. It. Was. Real. Bodies. Death. Blood. Everywhere.
BAM.
No getting around it. This is what bearing witness is all about isn't it?! To listen and feel with an open heart a story, a memory, a confession and hold it. Just hold it. I can't change it, I can't fix it, heal it or wipe it away. I can honour the memory of the people who died, and the pain of those who survived by acknowledging it.
So hours later when I got home and sat in the quiet room, I'm sorry memory of the people who died and pain of those who survived, but I really wanted to escape your reality and wash it away. So I used fire against fire. I watched another movie. The Fifth Element which is possibly the only intentionally positive, feel good, happy ending SF film.... oh maybe also Galaxy Quest. as distinct to SF films one laughs at (Starship Troopers!!). So much for giving up movies - two in one day!!
Maybe I should have chosen the marathon one afterall.
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