The Grinch

 I am here with yet another very personal post. Since it's almost Halloween, I thought it would be apt to write about a Christmas movie. Well, okay, maybe it's not exactly apt but who said I was a conformist? In my defence, it already snowed where I live and we already saw -19 degrees Celsius, so I already put my Christmas decorations up---there now you know one more thing about me: I like Christmas (mostly because of the decorations).

Not only I like Christmas, but also I like The Grinch. I mean, the character Grinch. I somehow empathized with him a lot in the movie---I am not sure if this is the experience of most audiences. I think that most people who like Grinch like him because most of the time we, humans, like seeing salvation. It reminds us that one day we could be saved too if we were to go down on a wrong path. Well, this is not exactly why I liked Grinch but in general I do like it when a bad character becomes a good one in the next season of a tv series.

Grinch is shown as an "evil" character but you see how and why he became such a person. It is a little bit like how Darth Vader was a villain but the little Anakin Skywalker was good and even cute. Grinch was isolated and lonely. He only decided to reject lovely situations because he wasn't getting any. When approached with love and kindness, the people of the town were able to win him back. This sounds too simple perhaps, and somehow this kind of thing happens only in movies. I think it should happen in real life too, and if you think "no, it does happen in real life too", I will say, at least, it should happen more often. Often, it is hard for us to forgive someone who did a bad thing to us because our arrogance may take over and it is especially difficult because, in our society, this is labelled as weakness. I think it really depends and it is not necessarily weakness. I had mentioned in a previous post something about people who served jail time (and I plan to mention him again in the future because he is actually a very cool person, or he was). There are lots of people who are extremely prejudiced towards those who have been to jail and in practice they think "once bad, always bad", but the same people, when they see a character turn good, they like it. Of course, the plot and the editing should be done well to keep the audience in the loop while this is happening and for it to be convincing. Of course, in quality films, there is always character development at some level, but when it is as drastic as turning from evil to good, more people in the audience are likely to notice this development.

The Grinch's story starts by stating that his heart is two-sizes too small and this is mostly what I will talk about in this post. A heart inside a body, two-sizes too small. Somehow this resonates with me, although it physically doesn't make sense. I don't know you, dear reader, but I do feel like when I feel hate my heart is getting smaller. When I feel love, it doesn't necessarily get larger, but this also depends on what kind of love and the degree of it. There are indeed different kinds of love. I won't list the obvious ones but I will try to make a distinction between some subtle ones. 

A number of years ago, I happened to meet someone at an event I participated. Later, we became friends (although, not close/best friends) and I had started to like him. Of course, since I am a very shy person, I didn't tell him anything. One day, he had an additional ring, it was on a ring finger, and of course, I wasn't exactly happy to see that. Of course (again), I was shy enough not to ask about it at first, but later I asked about it and found out that he got engaged. I had a couple of days with nausea for some reason after learning that and then nothing really changed, except I was a bit sad that he was in love with someone else, all the while he didn't know anything about my feelings. As a friend, of course, I had to hear about his plans about getting married, which wasn't quite nice to listen to but I did it anyways. One day, he went to get married (the wedding wasn't in town), and again, I wasn't exactly happy about that. I still remember the scene when I thought about this situation: I was sitting on the bus, next to the window, the bus didn't leave the stop yet, I was just watching outside. At that moment, I felt my heart getting larger. What does that even mean? Well, I can't explain it physically but that was exactly how it felt.

Being only friends with someone who you secretly like and who doesn't like you back is nothing to worry about, in my opinion, because you don't even have anything to lose. Well, it probably is not desirable but it is really easy to get over the situation and you can just be friends with them. Secretly liking someone who is engaged (to someone else) but staying friends with them is not that much of a big deal either because "liking" is something only at the level of "being attracted to" and strictly different than "having fallen in love". However, seeing that person getting married (to someone else) might be a whole another level. It could be a big thing and you sort of have to decide how much you actually liked the person (or if it was love) to be able to understand your own perspective on this. So at that moment, when I was on the bus, sitting by the window, I was asking myself: am I really in love with this person, and if so, what should that even mean? In any case, I had decided on something else. What was that something else?

One day, years after those events, I asked a group of friends the following. If you are in love with someone but they are in love with someone else (or they just don't love you back), would you still be able to wish the best for them or would you be sad/jealous because they are not "yours"? Well, everyone said it should be the latter. Unfortunately, I disagreed, I think it can be both, if not the first, but it just takes effort and a bit of less selfishness. At the end, perhaps the question is "what is true love anyway?", it is completely subjective. So this is what I was trying to decide on, what kind of "love" I was feeling towards this person---did I feel love that was completely selfish, or did I "truly" love him to be able to wish happiness to him? To do the latter, you do have to let your ego go, I think, and try to be a truly very good person, at least that's how it felt, and so, sitting on the window seat, I felt my heart enlarge as my love extended and became void of any selfish desires. At that point, I had decided to love him as a person before anything else and I wasn't really sad anymore about "losing" him. Now, when I discuss this with friends, they say, "that only means you weren't truly in love with him because if you were you wouldn't be able to do that"---I guess these people define "real love" by craziness, I don't know. 

Well, I think they might probably be right, and that might have been why I was able to let him go, but that's not how it felt to me back then. I guess one might argue that love is an illusion anyways and you just have to come out of the simulation. In any case, the whole point of the story is to illustrate how one can feel their heart getting larger. If you truly value someone, you might prefer having them in your life (even if it may not be with the "title" you want) to not having them in your life at all. It might take a bit of mental effort but it is doable (it requires heart enlargement but after that all is good). I guess, now the question is, did the guy get married and/or did anything ever happened between him and me? Well, I am afraid that is classified information (although if anyone dares to ask me personally I might opt to answer as it is kind of interesting), but the rest of the story is not relevant to the point here, so I'll leave the ending of that story to the imagination of the reader---I can only say that it was a happy ending. A fun fact is his name is actually in this movie but of course I won't tell which character it is. Okay, I will tell you this much: It is not Cindy Lou.

I don't remember any of my other heart enlargements as vividly as this one, unfortunately. But they were mostly in similar situations to what I described above, and definitely not when I "loved" someone and they "loved" me back. Maybe my heart gets larger when I make new friends too (like Grinch) but I bet the enlargement is not that big so it is hard to notice it. How about my heart shrinking? Like I said at the beginning, it does temporarily happen when I feel hate, but I don't actively hate anyone as a philosophy in life (mostly because I don't think they are worth it), so the shrinking doesn't last more than 10 seconds. With this rate, I guess my heart will be huge until I get to old age. It is actually a disease to have an enlarged heart. Oh well.

Back to Grinch. The ways Grinch's heart got larger were much more different, of course. But even when he was evil and mean, he has style. It is hard not to like him with all those gadgets. Being alone made him self-dependent and actually guided him towards invention. You see on his schedule he has booked dinner with himself. This sounds way too familiar in the modern day, doesn't it? All those self-care/meditation guru posts say things like this nowadays. Well, one might say Grinch would pass all those modern era self-care checklists on social media. He also has a dog and so perhaps that's why he didn't lose his heart but only had a small one. I guess the story version says he was born with a small heart, but I think the main reason he became mean is his childhood experiences (and he was an orphan too). I remember that one day I was reading some articles in psychology and then suddenly thought "If Hitler wasn't bullied so much as a child, none of what happened would happen". Well, this is definitely a deep subject that's open to a lot of discussion and I am not saying my sentence necessarily holds true, but it is hard not to think of it. 

I am happy for Grinch at the end of the movie, but I must confess, I liked his mean version a lot too. I guess nobody would like a person like him in real life but I actually know such people. I am specifically thinking of someone I know with similar behaviour. He doesn't really talk to anyone and he is definitely grumpy. He can be pretty mean too. He doesn't exactly have a bad heart. One day, I noticed something he liked and tried to talk to him about that subject, and he was quite happy and nice. But normally, when you see such an old man, you probably want to stay away. Well, this person is a relative of mine and not a stranger, so it was okay to try to talk to him. Sometimes I deeply empathize with grumpy old men and strongly agree with them too, like Ove from A Man Called Ove (which is the film that's good enough to have made me come back to writing on my blog after almost 2 years of break). One might think there might be a grumpy-old-man part of me that's just asleep nowadays. I think I used to be more grumpy and actually straight mean in the past. Well, perhaps I am like a saved Grinch. In the end, I can say openly that I definitely envy the gadgets (for example the one for breakfast) Grinch has, as a person who also loved The Jetsons as a kid.

Speaking of kids, a good discussion point would be if this movie is good for kids or not. I don't really know, but I think it is a good movie for adults. Some parents dwell too much on what they show to their children, like I had briefly mentioned in my Peter Rabbit and Peter Rabbit 2 post. When we consider this movie, there is definitely a cheerful tone, even in the "mean" things, after all it is a Christmas movie so it is supposed to be jolly. I don't know if I would be okay with my kid watching it, but I think I wouldn't care about it too much so I'd show it anyways. When I think back and consider the films/tv shows (or even cartoons) that I watched as a kid, I don't really recall the storyline. For example, The Nanny. I know that I only looked at the clothes of the nanny and just thought how cute they were and I didn't get any of the sexual references in that show (I get them now when I watch as an adult). The point is at that age my brain wasn't developed enough to comprehend everything anyways so I don't think it was "bad" for me to watch it. Now, would a kid start doing mean things just because they watched The Grinch do mean things? I am not really sure, I guess it is definitely possible. But at the same time, there are good things your kid could learn from this movie too, and it is possible that your kid (if exists) will only be occupied with looking at the town and how magical the decorations and the lights are. So, as we are nearing(?) Christmas, perhaps you can (re-)watch this movie. I definitely will watch it (again) soon. 

I am not going to go into comparing the live action and the animated versions of this story. Since the title is not "How Grinch Stole Christmas", we can see that this post is about the animated version. I must add that I definitely liked Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as a voice actor in this movie. I am not a huge fan of him and I don't think he is necessarily handsome, but I do think he is talented. 

Lastly, I will close with one of my favourite videos (it's only 17 seconds). I have come across this video during the pandemic and at the time it described my mental state really well (I was just working too much which caused me feel that way). Here is the video.

I give 7/10.

All About My Mother

 This film was mentioned by someone (although I can't remember who) relatively recently and was on my (imaginary) list since then. When I saw that there was a screening of this film somewhere near me, I decided to go see it. Now, for some reason, I thought this movie is about a daughter/mother relationship where the film explores the many aspects of a mother's role in a woman's life considering all the traumas the mother might have caused and hence shaped the woman's life. Hence, I also thought this film was going to be quite intense---the poster somehow made me think the film was a psychological thriller. Well, I was wrong on all accounts. The plot was very much different than what I thought and the film was much more entertaining rather than being intense. I hadn't really read about the film before seeing it, hence the surprise on my end, but I am glad that my experience was the way it was---I had also thought this film was in English but it turns out that it's in Spanish. 

Given my history with Spanish (learning it on and off for about 3 years now, on Duolingo), seeing this film carried a special importance for me, that is, once I figured it was in Spanish. The main reason I am learning Spanish is that I find it very much fun. It is like each and every word has a positive connotation when I hear it. Throughout my journey of learning Spanish, there are also many moments where things make sense. I don't know how to state it better but somehow it comes very natural to me. I also think that I hadn't seen a Spanish film before (I had only watched a Spanish TV series called La Casa de Papel---Money Heist). So exposing myself to Spanish for about a 100 minutes felt nice. Of course, the film was screened with subtitles, but I couldn't stop myself from understanding some of the Spanish and I was glad that I was able to get at least some of the things that were being said by the characters in the film. 

I feel deeply that when one does not watch a (good quality) film in its original language, there is always things that one misses out on. Every language has its own structure and style, hence its own sayings that don't necessarily translate to every other language, especially to a language like English which I find quite simple and lacks emotion in the letters in its words. Now, what I said may not make sense but I won't dwell on it because we have a lot to go through about this film in hand. As it turns out, I am really good at listening to something while reading something else (even in another language). Of course, I knew this because when I was a student in university, I was, well, a little bit high-functioning in the classroom in the sense that I would read what's written (or being written) on the board while listening to the instructor (who was not necessarily saying exactly what they are writing) and make up my own sentences in the notes, that is, write a yet different thing, all at the same time. I find that students nowadays cannot do this at all, at least most of them can't, but then I believe in my time not everybody was able to do this---I am not despising anyone here as it can simply be because of their lack of motivation as well. So when I was watching this film and understanding (some of the Spanish) and reading the subtitles, I found it quite funny that when a nurse mentioned someone's weight in kilograms, the subtitles wrote it in pounds. They really craft these subtitles for true American audiences (who apparently cannot comprehend kg as if this number was important to the story at all(!)). So, okay, let's say this is understandable, why would you convert '15 days' to '2 weeks'? 2 weeks equals 14 days. The doctor says 15 days in Spanish, the subtitles said "2 weeks". One might argue here that "the art" of translation is not simply translating word by word, and I normally agree, but here this is literally distorting facts! Now, this number also does not play a very important role in the story, so I will move on. 

As I mentioned what can be lost in translation above, the filmmaker (director and screenwriter Almodóvar) mentioned this at the very beginning of the film. While the characters are watching All About Eve, the screenwriter made one of the characters (the teenage son) comment on the Spanish title for that show, that "Eva al desnudo" means "Eva naked" but that it should really be "Todo Sobre Eva" for it to mean "All about Eve". Now, this is a nice touch---I really like it when the filmmakers can have some transparency and can somehow make connections/references to the real world that the audience lives in. Moreover, the point that's made is so valid and also funny at the same time. I know many American movies whose titles drastically change when they are released in another country whose language is not English. Now, of course, sometimes it makes sense because something catchy in English may not look as catchy in another language, so according to the story/theme of the movie, they have to come up with a new name. It looks like Almodóvar made sure the title of his movie stayed true to its original meaning when it was translated to English. Well done. 

I will continue to praise Almodóvar in this paragraph. It looked like he sort of referred to himself in the lines of the teenage boy character a few times. Not explicitly but in a way that implied there were resemblances between him and the teenage boy, which was cleverly done and amused me. It is sad though he identified himself with a character who dies early in the film (this is not exactly a spoiler, this is really okay to know---the events of the film starts only after this point). Now, the boy dies in a car accident, and it is probably my favourite scene in this film. Not because someone dies, obviously, but because of how it was shot. I think it is the best car accident scene I have ever seen. I must add that this film was made in 1999 (which I will get back to in another paragraph). I really liked the decision on the camera angle in the shooting of the car accident scene. But then, when I thought about it more, I noticed that the decision carried a deeper meaning too---so it wasn't only for visually artistic reasons. After the boy dies, he 'stays' in the film as a narrator for a bit, and it is such a smooth transition because of the way his accident was shot. Once he is hit, we see it through his eyes, and in a sense he moves to outside of the film world as it is dying in it, and sort of joins our world because he becomes a narrator.

I will continue to rave about Almodóvar in this paragraph too. If you have been reading my blog, perhaps you know that I complain how Nolan cannot possibly write woman characters. You can see that he has no idea or insight. In fact, I was feeling quite a suffocation by the male dominated film industry situation. Now, this film was made in 1999, so it's not nowadays, so it doesn't really count, but I saw it nowadays so it helped me relieve my suffocation. (In fact, the fact that it was made in 1999 shows that the film was ahead of its time, but I will get back to this later). Now, Almodóvar's film is all about women (and about all women). I can testify that this male man can indeed write about women, so I was glad to see that. This is a film in which even the actors became women in playing the characters. The only men you see in the film are 1) an old father who has Alzheimer's and hence basically is back to his babyhood and needs care, 2) the men who go to prostitutes, 3) the son(s). Okay, I guess there were a few others that were assistants in the theatre play or something but they didn't really play an important role and the one who had the most lines among them were really saying things that manifested a man's fixated mind on cocks. The sons already represent motherhood, so that one ties back to women. So what we see is "the world is women's world" and this point of view makes sense to me because it is true that in some sense all is about mothers---the reason why humanity continues is because a woman becomes a mother. 

Now, the film being ahead of its time is also about its EDI statement. Nowadays, EDI statements are everywhere. This film included a transgender sex worker, a nun (who helps sex workers), and a lesbian actress. While having motherhood in its centre, it actually talks about the identity quests of several women in the film and the struggles any of these women have in their lives throughout their personal stories. The film is so well-written that it can make you laugh a second before you know what's going to be a death announcement scene. In a similar way, when some of the struggles transgender people have are presented, it is teased in a way that even the character herself is so transparent about these problems, and is able to laugh about it. This way the writer is definitely not mocking LGBT people but stands with them through the successful and considerate comedy in his film. I think that comedy is also an agent that brings people together. If the story of this film were the same but the comedy parts were taken out, being a serious one just like that, I don't think it would achieve its objectives and I don't think it would be very well-received by different types of audiences. At least, I know that some homophobic people cannot stand the existence of transgender people in serious/formal contexts but when there is comedy involved somehow they don't realize its reality and don't object to anything. It's quite funny (and simple brain), if you think about it.

The main character, Manuela, is played by Cecilia Roth in this film and I must say, I liked her performance a lot. I won't go through each actor/actress but I will mention that I looked up each of them and saw how they look like today. This film was made in 1999, so some of them are already dead, and some are much much older now. It is quite fascinating, the effect of timelessness a film can give to a person. Lastly about the film being a 1999 film: it was technically "the 90s" but maybe because it was the end of it, the hair or the fashion, nor the clothes bothered me. Maybe the 90s of Spain was not bad at all! Who knows? 

I also really liked the solidarity and interdependence themes imprinted in the women's stories. I guess helping others and/or being able to think about others' wellness (and not only your own) is part of motherhood, so it makes sense that it was there in the film. No matter what wrong thing you do/did, these women are able to accept you, love you and help you. Because, I believe, at the end of the day, they know that all they have is each other. Well, I don't know, but I think I am pretty good at accepting people too, allowing them to be who they are. I really think this is very important as a person, you may remember, whose "voice" was tried to be turned off for a long while, and hence, I felt very excluded/isolated for a long time. So I am all for inclusivity and that includes many contexts. For example, if I learned that a friend (or an acquaintance) of mine had been to jail in the past, well, that wouldn't really change my opinions about him at the moment I learned about it. (I wrote 'him' because this is actually a real story and it is a 'he'). Why didn't anything change? Because, technically, the person who he was before telling me that was already the person who went to jail, so he didn't change, he is still the same person I know (and trust, or not trust). I think the only thing that changed for me was that I respected him more (for having been through jail time) and thought that he was more interesting now (because he might have interesting stories from jail time). I didn't even ask him if he had really committed a crime (because it is a fact that sometimes people are sent to jail for the things they didn't do). Now, this person is dead, so I can never ask him, but it's okay. I can tell you that I never felt threatened near him.

While I took myself to my past and had a flashback (about my old friend) in the previous paragraph, it makes sense to continue with the flashback scene from the film. There is a scene where one of the characters remembers the car accident. Well, I forgot to mention but, the car accident happened under very heavy rain. So when the character started remembering, we first heard the heavy rain, and then the visual came. Definitely a nice trick and in general the sound (for its time) and the editing of the film was great. It looks like Almodóvar received the Best Director Award in Cannes (among others he received elsewhere). You may have noticed I don't generally agree with these juries who give these awards, but this time, I think I would definitely give Almodóvar the Best Director Award. 

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, I strongly believe that the English subtitles are seriously causing some loss of depth in the meaning (okay the kg/pound thing was a joke but seriously). So when I evaluate this film, I will evaluate it according to how much I would appreciate it if I watched it in Spanish and understood it all. 

I give 8.5/10

Note: Almodóvar sounds like a stage name for a magician, doesn't it?

Sound of Metal

 This is yet another film I have seen not by choice. If this movie was recommended to me by a friend (true friend), I would definitely put it on my list but who knows when I would get to watch it. So it is good that some films are chosen for me to watch and I just have to be present to watch it. So I saw this film as part of the film theory class that I completely unofficially am sitting in. One day, once this class is over, I will probably go back to my "old ways" and start writing about other films, but for now, since I only post once per week, there is not much room for writing about other films that I want to write about. Actually, I don't write about every film I see in that class either, so I might very soon already pick something else to write about. But I saw Sound of Metal and I felt I do want to write about it, so here we are. 

The main character in this film is played by Riz Ahmed. I knew that this was his name because I looked it up but the name did not seem familiar to me at all. But then, once I saw the character in the movie, the face seemed really familiar. Unfortunately, I am really bad with faces (I mentioned this in at least one of the previous posts). So I couldn't figure out who he is, that is, where I knew him from. Of course, it was quietly eating me inside, but I let it go. For about an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie, I had convinced myself that he probably just looks like someone I know in real life (not a famous person but a distant relative or so) and that that's why I felt like the face was familiar because the name Riz Ahmed did not ring a bell for me. Then I couldn't resist it and looked it up. I was extremely surprised to see he was in Venom but it made a lot of sense. Apparently he was also in Jason Bourne and Rogue One. So I had seen him in at least three other movies and I still had no idea who he was when I saw him in this one. Now, dear reader, if you are one of my closest friends who also happened to have watched many many movies with me, I know that your reaction would be "that's so you!". If not, you're just going to have to believe me that that's just so me. Now that I buried myself under the ground by making a great confession about my face-recognition abilities, we can continue. (I do still think that he resembles to someone I know but I can't quite point it out)

The title of the film is Sound of Metal and the main character is in a metal music band, however, the word "metal" in the title is used in two different ways, which is a bit cool but a bit lame at the same time. I don't know if I liked the main character, or maybe I just didn't like the acting of Riz Ahmed. It was good but it wasn't spectacular. I really liked the performance of Paul Raci (supporting actor). 

When I was looking Riz Ahmed up, I saw that he is also a rapper. I am guessing that the tattoos we see on his character's body do actually belong to the actor, maybe at least some of them. From the way his character talks, I could guess this person has a past with rap. Then it occurred to me, up to some extent, how the fashion style of a rapper and a metalhead could be similar. This made me think of my high school years where I spent half of it as a metalhead and half of it by listening to underground rap music (and while doing that still listening to metal music). I just wore oversized clothes for both of them and it worked. 

The outfit and speaking style of Ruben (Riz Ahmed's character) was not the only thing that took me to my high school years during the movie. In fact, there were many things in the content of the film that resonated in my personal life. To put it in context, if you look at the poster, you see a man sitting in front of his drums. First thing that comes to mind is Whiplash (another film with a drummer in it). Now, Whiplash is an older movie than this one (and I must add it is a great one too if you haven't seen it before). I still remember (somehow) when and where I went to see Whiplash, so the poster had already taken me back in my timeline. This drummer, Ruben, loses his ability to hear at some point (early in the movie). I guess people can react to this (seeing a character go deaf) in various different ways. It made me remember the times when I wanted to go deaf. I don't feel that way anymore but to be continually confessional I did genuinely want that in the past. This was mostly in my teenage years which include my high school years. 

Why would anyone want to go deaf, especially at such a young age? Well, it wasn't that I didn't appreciate sound. I actually loved music and I still do, so even if I am not a musician, if I had lost my hearing, it would definitely dry out my soul because of not being able to hear music. When so many people talk around you, I don't know if it ever happened to you, but you may want to close your ears. Maybe because of loudness, maybe something else. So I was at a point where I was sick of hearing people's voices but it wasn't the sound the problem it was what they were saying. So here I refer to the second meaning of the word voice. No matter how much I tried to close my ears to their "voices", I just kept hearing them (because I know their opinions in general so it's almost always there in my mind). You can even imagine a character in a film who is hearing voices out of nowhere and then she is trying to get them out of her head and then starts closing her ears but then it's not enough so she tries to rip her ears or something. Now, this is what would happen in a movie, in real life, it didn't happen like that, that is, I wasn't going crazy---at least not necessarily. But the voices I "heard" in my mind were just originating from what people actually told me and I couldn't stop thinking what they would say to anything I do next---you can see this as a case of "caring too much what other people think about you". So I would often sit down and imagine how peaceful my life would be if I stopped hearing. Of course, I didn't do anything to achieve that, but to a mind like that, it seemed like a solution (although not exact), and to imagine it was a relief. 

So when I was watching a man go deaf and his struggles about it, I remembered a time when I wanted to go deaf voluntarily. Did this make me regret anything? No. There is really nothing to regret about as I didn't try to go deaf, I just had wanted it and thought about it. One might think that I should feel bad about myself but I really don't. I think one should take a moment and think how much a teenager must have been psychologically terrorized to have come to a conclusion like wanting a disability. Now, a spoiler, not about the film, but about this teenage girl's story. In the end, she solved the problem by not going deaf but by going away. Obviously, this sounds a bit superficial because I didn't tell the whole story but when I said "caring too much what other people think of you", 1) these people are not strangers, 2) you are a kid (so you don't have freedom and you have no way of avoiding these people; plus, they are the ones who give you shelter and food, so you are already conditioned to follow their rules but you almost never agree with their lifestyle). What bothered me the most in these people's voices was that they were telling me how to live and how to be, to the point where I had felt like I needed to ask for permission before breathing. Yes. breathing. So I had to shut them up and I did so at some point. In the end, I am glad I am not deaf. 

The person in the film who goes deaf is a musician, so losing hearing ability means more to him than to a non-musician. I guess if he lost an arm or something, his music would again be affected but somehow hearing sounds more crucial for his line of work. I used to often think what would happen if I lost my left hand (that's what's crucial in my line of work). The answer is I would write with my right hand. Next, what if I lost that too? Then I thought I would get someone to write for me while I tell them what to write. Next is, what if I lost my ability to speak at the same time? Well, I am guessing that this is very low probability to happen---losing all three. I should also note that these questions are really questions, i.e. it is not like the deafness story---I definitely did not want to lose my hands or speech. Although, coincidentally, the years I thought about these questions are the same years I wanted to go deaf. 

Back to the film. You see this musician man losing his hearing and having great difficulty in accepting his situation. I think people who did not witness a person in a similar situation in real life might judge the film in a different way. I think the events of the film were pretty realistic. I have witnessed a man at the age of 45 suddenly lose ability to walk and speak. After spending so many years in life fully functioning, one day, you think, you want to open your mouth and say what you think, but your muscles don't listen to you. Perhaps if it is after an accident, it would make more sense, but what I am saying is just happening, say, when you were sitting. Imagine you are a successful middle-aged person who has at least one university degree and who is considered very smart and active, and who is the owner/founder and the director of a company such that at least 20 people work for you. Now, all of a sudden, you don't have a voice. I think this is more or less equivalent to what happened to Ruben. Well, maybe not, but my point is when I was watching the film, I was already watching as a person who witnessed what I described above happen to someone in real life. So I feel like I can decide if the film's events were realistic or not. I also want to point out that Ruben went deaf, but he still had his voice to complain about it.

Now, this is going to be repetitive but, "a musician losing the ability to hear". These filmmakers cannot be the first people in the history of cinema to have come up with this idea. I mean it is not that difficult. I didn't search it but I cannot believe it if there are no other films which had the same setting. Why did humanity had to wait until 2019 to make such a film? It really doesn't make sense to me. 

It looks like this film received several awards including a best editing award. I think the editing of the film is good but it really looks to me like they earned this award only because they were just better than the other ones' that year. 

In the end, I am glad this film was made and that I have seen it. It definitely was not a loss of time to watch it. 

I give 7.5/10.

Persona

 I had a very long journey with this film (even though it doesn't know about it) even before I saw it. At some point in time, I heard of this film and I wanted to look it up. I looked it up---I only found its trailer (the film wasn't available on any of the platforms I have subscription to). I was quite impressed by the trailer. So I decided: I want to watch this film. Everything seems normal until this point. This was the start of the journey I had with the film, but the adventurous(!) part is yet to begin. Since, as it turns out, I am a believer in borrowing where I can (rather than renting or purchasing digital copies), I tried to find Persona's DVD at the library of the university I work at (you may wonder "who uses DVDs anymore?"---you're right, I didn't either and I didn't even have anything to put the CD in, but more about that later). Now, since this film is a bit old (1966), it was in what's called a "High Density Library" part of the library. Okay, I understand. But the catch is that you can't just go and borrow stuff from the high density library. Okay, I understand---I will just be a good citizen and follow the rules, which is to fill out a form to request it. So I did. Then I received an email that said my request was rejected. After reading that email, you know, I was sad, and everything seemed grey and somber. It sounds like a joke but it really somehow was like that---my guess is that it just coincided with some cloudy-weather days. So the days went with my long lost hope. 

But then, one day, I received 5 (five) emails telling me that the Ingmar Bergman collection is ready for pick up. I was quite puzzled and actually ignored those emails for a while. Then, one day, which was before the last pick-up day, I decided to go to the library and ask if they actually had them ready for pick-up (because I found it hard to believe after the rejection). Now, some background info: when you search Persona on the library's website it only lists the collection as one item but the description tells you about which films are in the collection. So the receptionist at the library told me that I could indeed pick them up (this them has nothing to do with not assuming gender for the DVD). So I went to this pick-up vending machine (yes, it looks like a vending machine) only to find out that they gave me 5 out of 6 CDs in the collection, and, the one they didn't give me was Persona. Now, at this point, this is like a joke, an irony of fate---I had lost hope already, they gave me hope, and then they didn't give me Persona. So, there I was, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. More days passed by and, I don't even know from where I got the willpower, I decided to search it on the Public Library of the city I live in. So I went online, registered, and put a hold on the DVD which was listed as available. Then the website told me that I was the second on the waitlist. Yet another joke. Why would you show it as available if somebody else has a hold on the item? More awkwardly, what it the probability that another person wanted this 1966 black and white Swedish film right at the same time as I did? 

So I had nothing to do other than to wait. So I waited. One day, I received an email from the public library saying that it was ready for pick up. After receiving this email, the first time I was in downtown (that's where the central public library is) I had a suitcase, so I didn't want to walk to the library to pick it up. In the meantime, I had actually borrowed (from the university library) an external USB DVD drive so that I could play the film once I got it, but until I could get the DVD, of course the loan expired. Actually, I missed the deadline to return it by about 20 minutes but thankfully they didn't charge me. So I returned the drive and borrowed it back right away. A few days later, on a Saturday, I went to downtown, to a café. Then I thought well, before I go home I can go to the public library to pick this DVD up finally. Of course, it felt unreal that finally I was going to have it. Was the longing finally going to end? Then, I pulled up Google Maps to look for directions. Can you guess what happened? Apparently, the library is closed on Saturdays. So, there I was, let down by cosmic forces once again, thinking will I ever get my hands on this DVD? 

Now, dear reader, I had given up at that point, and started thinking is a DVD worth all of this effort and time? The money I had to spend to go to the public library twice for this already exceeded the amount I would pay for renting the film. Unfortunately, I am a person who really likes efficiency. So this was almost like offending myself still going after this DVD. So, there I was, once the one with a passion now surrendering---I decided I won't go to pick it up on another day either, I decided to leave the subject completely. Well, gentle reader, you might guess that the journey didn't end there because apparently I did watch this film since I am writing a post about it now. So a few days later, this time the university library emailed me and said the CD is ready. Of course, this was a move I didn't expect. But since I am a very nice person, I usually give out second chances. So I decided to give Persona another chance, which was not ignoring the email and deciding that I will indeed go to pick it up. The next day in the evening, there I was, who had been walking around with a guitar in a hard and heavy case for a total of about 25 minutes deciding to pass by the library on the way to finally pick this DVD up. So I went to the pick-up vending machine. Put down the guitar case. Scanned my card. Can you guess what happened? The DVD wasn't there! Why would anyone say it's ready for pick-up if it is not? So, there I was, looking around with my questioning eyes thinking are you kidding me? Since this was in the evening, I couldn't go ask at the front desk either. 

The next day, I wanted to go and ask, at least to complain. And, there it was, finally ready, waiting for me. At long last, I was able to touch it. After being committed to something for so long, I felt accomplished---finally getting done this task of "picking up the DVD from the library". After not being able to lay my hands on this DVD for so long, I finally could see our future together---I was going to put it in the USB drive and watch it. So just like a bride who was about to get married for the first time, I started preparing for the "wedding night" (I am joking, obviously). I put the film on and I didn't even start it right away---I waited for a bit listening to the music that plays on the main title screen as foreplay (as if we didn't have enough of it). 

The timing of when I acquired this DVD (and hence the seeing date) makes this film more special in my life than an ordinary film. If I was able to get this film the first time when I got the other 5 Ingmar Bergman DVDs, and watched it then, my perspective would have been a lot different and so my perception of the movie and my comments too. Well, I am a person who believes in Heraclitus' doctrine of flux anyways, so I claim that we are never the same person ever again, technically, but what I meant above is that the difference/change/flux was a bit greater than normal, I think. Not only I was a different person on the day I watched the film than the day I requested it from the library, but also this long wait had immensely increased my expectations about it. Now, with expectations that high, it would be very hard to satisfy me. Why am I saying all this? It is because the film succeeded in doing so, and by saying exactly this, now I may have increased your expectations---well, maybe now this is too much and your expectations might have crossed a hypothetical threshold so please do not blame me if you don't like this film, dear reader.

Now, dear reader, even if you made it this far in reading this post, it is possible you thought "why is this person talking so long about getting the DVD?" at some point. Well, I definitely wrote all that with a purpose and hopefully you won't be disappointed if you keep reading. I strongly believe that acquiring a film shouldn't have been that hard and what I experienced really was a story. A story I had which romanticized my relationship with this film through the little games of fate that I had to endure. What is the take away from this adventurous journey? I don't think I will ever try again to borrow a DVD so insistently and I definitely did not know I could be so persistent to pursue something like this for so long (maybe I was a more persistent person when I was younger but now my resilience is fading away). In my journey with the physical DVD, there was a duality---the two libraries, and it wasn't clear which copy of the DVD would be the one that I would finally be watching. In this film, Persona, there are two main characters and there is a duality there in the following sense. The two women (main characters) often will get mixed---not by the audience but---one of these two women will start confusing her own identity with the other. Moreover, there is this sexual tension between them---you can tell I romanticized my journey with the DVD through my storytelling and made sexual references through joking. There is indeed an eroticism in this film which received a lot of criticism---more about this later. 

Now, there are certain things I want to share about the film and I will try to do so without giving any important spoilers. One of the women is an actress and the other is her nurse. The actress' problem is that she stopped talking. Most of this information could be obtained by watching the trailer of the film, so all is good. The scene in the trailer happens quite early in the film and it is one of my favourite scenes. It made me admire Ingmar Bergman as a scenarist. The nurse says "I am interested in film and theatre but I don't go very often. I have a tremendous admiration for artists. I think that art is of enormous importance in people's lives, especially for those who have problems." I almost completely agree. Perhaps this is quite a simple thing to say but it felt like Ingmar Bergman put it in words really well. Art is of enormous importance indeed and I feel like this is not stated enough in general. Therefore, with the above line of the nurse, the film and/or Ingmar Bergman had already stolen my heart. 

In the film, we see a relationship, the relationship of the nurse with her patient. What was interesting about this was you witness two people getting to know each other (or becoming friends) but since one of them does not talk things are progressing quite one-sided. The actress who doesn't talk represents "the listener" in regular relationships---although she is definitely an exaggerated version of that. You observe how opening up to a person can get easier for the person who is talking/sharing if the other is a good listener. Listening only and not talking also brings nonjudgmentalism. Having someone who listens to you and who is not judging you could make you feel blessed---which is quite understandable. So at that point in the relationship of these two women things are going nice. Soon you see what could go wrong in such a one-sided relationship---having received no judgements at all she starts sharing a bit too much. 

When the nurse starts sharing too much you get to observe her other faces, the darkest parts in her soul, her hypocrisies and secrets. In the meantime, the actress doesn't exactly respond but she smiles at most things the nurse says to her and she does this even if the things that are said are bad (which probably makes her seem like a pretty understanding person and makes it even easier to talk to her). What I liked seeing was the following. The nurse said one night that she was faithful to her fiancé---this made me suspicious already because it's interesting someone would want to bring up the subject like that and feel the need to state being faithful, unless of course if they're talking about faithful functors (insider joke). Later, some other night the nurse told how she cheated on her fiancé---and she told her story with quite a lot of details. Her telling that story (she was describing an orgy) was what received a lot of criticism even though the film itself didn't have any of that story shown on screen. This is quite interesting---how powerful words can be. 

As I saw the nurse getting more mad everyday while living with this actress who did not talk, I realized, well, being a good listener might sound like a good thing but if you just listen you might indeed drive the other person crazy. Perhaps now is a good time to mention this Swedish term lagom which means "not too little, not too much, just right". So when you want to be a good listener, try to be a lagom good listener. I am actually not sure if I used the word grammatically correctly, but hopefully you get what I mean. 

This nurse is not only talking to someone all the time who doesn't talk back but also she doesn't seem to be talking to anyone else at all either. I believe it is expected one might go mad under these circumstances. At certain instances, while watching the film, I definitely questioned this actress (character)---what is she trying to achieve? It's still not completely clear to me but I don't think it matters so much.

What I liked the most about this film was, I think, the fact that the main focus was on women. Two main roles, both female. Lately, I have been complaining a lot about how the film industry is so male dominated these days. So it felt good to see such a film, although who made the film is still a man. The film really explores personal identity but every context is about women. I should also add that this film has an experimental style. For example, it has "random" images shown at the beginning and they do relate to the story as you go, which is something I like because I think there should be meaning to everything that's put in the film, whether it's a scene, or a word in a character's line, or just some object in the set up of a given scene. 

After watching this film, I learned that at some point while filming it Bergman decided to change the ending of the film. I think it was a good decision for the most part. I didn't like the inclusion of vampirism. 

As a closing remark, I want to mention again how much I liked Bergman's writing in this film. However, as I had the DVD, I watched a featurette---an interview with Bergman. Now, this person is Swedish, the film is in Swedish, and I watched it with English subtitles. Bergman spoke English in the interview and he said (and I quote) "I am conscious about myself and everything, and then suddenly or slowly, my conscious fades out, switches itself and it is not existing, and that is a marvellous feeling, that from existing, I may not existing and at that moment, nothing can happen to me". When he said "I may not existing", I thought that it is good that this man wrote the film in Swedish and not in English. It is also not clear to me what he was talking about here in the interview because it sounds to me like he is talking about a time he was getting high.

Now, before I finish, a fun fact. I mentioned already that at some point the nurse (Alma) would confuse her identity with the actress' (Elisabet). Now, the person who plays Alma actually has middle name Elisabet in real life. Perhaps this is not a fun fact for everyone but it is to me because she, as an actress, is kind of becoming "herself" (as Elisabet in real life) while playing someone else who is becoming Elisabet (the character), an actress in the film. 

The film has many good depictions of a lot of matters around what's personal identity. Overall, I found this film meaningful and I am happy with this film (and I am saying this even though my expectations were somewhat high already).

I give 8.5/10.

Note: I should also mention here that this film was the first art media (in film and television) with this title. What I did know of before hearing about this film though was a miniseries called Persona, which is actually a pretty good series whose story revolves around a man with Alzheimer's. Coincidentally, as I am writing about Persona (the 1966 film) today, they announced that Persona (the miniseries) which first aired in 2018 is having its second season soon---and that's great news.