27TH DECEMBER 2021
JUST RECORD 1
JUST RECORD 1
Hello! And Merry Christmas, and happy new year! I’m delighted to share my writing with you.
My plan for the 25th this year was to binge watch Emily in Paris, and zone out by looking at the passing through images of pretty clothing and smoothly transgressing into delicious Christmas lunch. But I did watch it the night it came out so I was lucky to remember of WandaVision that I missed on when it came out. So while knitting a scarf thinking about beloved ones, I went through episodes 1 to 6, and only on episode 6 it struck me - it is about a loss, and how engaging I find it. I tried (as many) to google why Aaron Taylor-Johnson is not involved as her brother anymore, replaced with Evan Peters. When I decided to peep through the Age of Ultron (since I got a Disneyplus subscription anyway). Action scene, action scene, strong white men fighting, more fit white men, explosion, action scenes essentially. It was lacking empathy, the film was rolling but you can’t just even stop your eyes dwelling. It felt it lacked authentic emotions, anything really that divided smooth puppetry-to-observe (like a rhymed storytelling of an ancient battle from some ancient books) and independent authenticity (if coming back to the authors of the ancient books to demand from people who have either a social media account or a family album to relate to their grand narrative). The melody flows through time, and the audience doesn’t not hear the meaning of the text. Naturally, I turned it off and went back to my episode 7 of WandaVision.
Besides the series' very relatable desires and moving cinematography, I was hooked as I was already drawn to the subject of how you cope with loss dealing with my own demons and emotions as a result of the pandemic. (If you’d ask me to share) my journey started from afar, observing female pop singers from the old TV concerts performing lyrical personal semi-fictional stories. Sad and frantic figures that are left all alone in the spot of the stage lights and soothed with theatrical darkness. That is when I came across Guy Cool’s Performing Mourning (2021) that focused on the Greek tradition of mourning via singing. He mentioned as well this extinct Australian performance of local music and generally an extinction of any memory of its sound. I guess in 2021 an absence of a record of some sound is an insane thesis which is hard to grasp as everyone is being tracked these days, even me typing these words as I type. So a fact based on a loss of a voice, which in the moment I got obsessed with, as this idea of being locked in a frame of what all other people might suggest for you to go alone with. How does it marry with the authenticity of a person? That is what being brought up in a terrifying journey of a family secret and a family loss that keeps you tensed from the beginning, the underrated French movie Don’t Look Back (2009) with Sophie Marceau and Monica Belucci. Being alive, as a sound, is very much anticipated for me with voice in any sort of way (not necessarily with sound directly). How do you have this voice? How do you restore it? My next film to watch is Silent Voice (2020) directed by Reka Valerik, a documentary on a fighter from Russia who literally lost his voice in preserving his authenticity and life. Then, when talking on a “what if” and themes of “afterlives”, and our aliveness in that afterlife (besides, The Mummy Returns (2001) - joking, yeh the Ancient Egyptian reference joke lol) I’d refer to a piece of modern classics Stepmom (1998), Oscar-nominated drama Room (2015) with stunning Jacob Tremblay and Brie Larson as his mom, Jennifer Lawrence’s breakthrough Winter’s Bone (2010) and Soviet Palm d’Or awarded Cranes Are Flying (1957), as many others, just like after the opening scene with the funerals in Doctor Zhivago, these movies tell a story about what happens after and what if it takes a different but authentic route to the character after a ground shaking event. I think a movie about a loss essentially represents a life and facets of being alive - meaning to break a frame.
Not so much a Christmas topic but I think that is what Wanda’s character is. If Captain America teaches you very ultimate American positive dignity, Black Widow is your shadow side that is not in retrograde, then Wanda is just asking to be in touch with your emotions and be authentic to them, especially if that is asking of you to break your box (in short, what are many lament rituals are consistent of).
This way, thinking about movies, I asked myself why does it always have to be about letting go? Why movies about going through a loss of a beloved have to be about forgiveness (as some religions teach us precisely), why a movie that tells a different story gets to be boxed into being an art film, an exception to the rule? Why can’t polarity be a norm?
Movie to watch → Silent Voice (2020) dir. by Reka Valerik
Next writing → Tuesday 4th January
Yours,
CallMBYFilm