1. Recently, in a blog post, I listed documentary movies I had heard discussed on the podcast Pure Nonfiction. I forgot to mention the interview I heard with Syrian filmmaker, Talal Derki. Recently, he has made two documentaries examining life in war-torn Syria, Return to Homs (2013) and Of Fathers and Sons (2017). The first movie documents the early years of the civil war in Syria; in the second, Derki gained the trust of a radical Islamist family and chronicles the experience of the two children growing up under the tutelage of their Jihadist father. To gain this family's trust, Derki had to pretend he was sympathetic to the idea of establishing an Islamic caliphate. In discussing his movie, Derki jokingly claims that he should have been nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.
I haven't watched either movie, yet, but I know I have access to both of them via my smarty pants television. If you'd like to listen to this podcast featuring Talal Derki, it's here.
Listening to Talal Derki moved me to think about how I wish I were still a part of the Films of the Middle East project I participated in back at LCC 6-7 years ago, a several week project that ran, I think, for two years, in consecutive spring terms. Either or both of these movies would have worked beautifully in our modest, but invigorating film festival.
2. I spent much of my day today doing what I enjoy as much as anything: watching two disturbing documentary movies, pondering their content, and recovering from their emotional impact on me.
First, I watched Sandi Tan's autobiographical movie, Shirkers (2018). As a Singaporean teenager, in the summer of 1992, Tan and two friends made a road movie entitled, Shirkers. Tan enlisted the help of a middle-aged man, Georges Cardona, to direct and film the movie. After the shooting wrapped, Cardona betrayed his teen age collaborators, shattering Sandi Tan.
The documentary Shirkers tells the story of the making of the 1992 film Shirkers, examines the unsettling story of Georges Cardona, and features interviews with Sandi Tan's two peers and two main collaborators, Jasmine Ng and Sophia Siddique, and others involved in the 1992 making of the film.
As it should have, the story of Georges Cardona, a chronic liar and master manipulator, occupies a good part of Shirkers. The deeper the movie goes into his story, the more troubling Tan's documentary becomes as we learn more about his self-aggrandizing stories and his history of relationships with several people he mentored and betrayed.
Second, I watched Three Identical Strangers (2018), the story of a set of boy triplets, born in 1961 and placed by the Louise Wise Adoption Agency into separate homes. None of the families knew that the son they adopted had two identical brothers.
The movie opens with the miraculous events that led to the brothers discovering one another in 1982. The boys became a media sensation. They appeared on Phil Donahue, The Today Show, among others, and were featured in national magazines. The were raised in the New York state and the New York City newspapers went beserk covering the story of their reunion and their lives afterward.
The movie darkens, becomes complicated and very unsettling, as it begins to examine why this set of triplets was separated and as it develops the story of the brothers' relationships with one another and their individual stories.
I would love to reveal why these boys were separated at birth and I would love to discuss the questions this movie raises about the effect of nature and nurture upon human development, from childhood to adulthood.
But, I am going to keep those things to myself. I would have loved to have seen this movie knowing nothing about what was coming -- but, I admit, although I knew a little bit about why they were separated, I was dizzied by experiencing the whole story and, as the movie ended, I felt even more unsettled by the uncertainty of our world than the already pretty high degree of perplexity I feel day to day.
Shirkers had a similar impact, as it explores the shattering impact of Georges Cardona's lies, self-aggrandizement, and betrayal.
Both movies, in their own way, examine betrayal and the eroding effects of withheld truths, dark secrets, and manufactured falsehoods, as well as the shock of learning that things in their lives were not what the people in these movies understandably thought they were.
3. For the past thirty to forty years, I've relied on movie viewing, mostly by myself, for a substantial measure of happiness in my life. I miss that last period of time living in Eugene when the Broadway Metro theater opened. It was a short stroll from where I lived on Madison Street and the theater featured weekday matinees and I saw a bunch of movies I loved. I miss the even earlier days in Eugene when I lived a short stroll from Cinema 7, located in the Atrium, and watched countless off the beaten track documentaries and feature films, art films, and movies from other countries. I also miss going to the Bijou in Eugene. When living in Maryland, many of my most memorable days were when I rode the train into D. C. just to go to movies or when I went to the American Film Institute Center in Silver Spring to watch some of their stellar offerings of movies from the past and contemporary independent and foreign movies.
I'm grateful that I have access to so many movies at home on television. Yes, I admit, watching movies at home is not as thrilling as watching them in a movie theater, but there are no movie theaters in the Silver Valley and I just haven't motivated myself to drive to Coeur d'Alene or Spokane to see movies. Watching the movies I most enjoy challenges and activates my mind and rouses my feelings. I'm not much for recommending movies, but I enjoy writing about what I experience when I see a movie.
Nearly as invigorating for me is watching college basketball on television.
I missed several games today while watching documentaries, but at 5 o'clock I flipped on the St. John's Red Storm game with the Seton Hall Pirates, a contest I expected to be a struggle for the Johnnies. But, the ever unpredictable Johnnies raced to a 38-20 half time lead and weathered several Seton Hall comebacks and hung on for a 78-70 victory. Every time I watch St. John's, it's like riding the Timber Terror roller coaster at Silverwood. The Johnnies are a wild squad prone to ecstatic peaks and sudden drops into deep trenches.
I watched the Zags establish an early lead over BYU in the first half and then went over to Christy and Everett's to watch the second half. Gonzaga crushed BYU, 102-68, a rout made more compelling than usual because it was Senior Night and I enjoyed seeing each of the seniors leave the game to thunderous ovations and emotional embraces from their coaches and teammates.
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