This photo is one of the last I took in France. I was standing outside the Lyon airport awaiting my departure for the states four years ago. At the time my friend who was born in France asked me what I thought the structure looked like and I replied, "A butterfly."
It wasn't until I rearranged my schedule that I remembered Lyon was the birthplace of film. The one thing during my trip that I did not do that I wanted to was visit the Museum of Cinema in Lyon. Navigating public transportation while lacking fluency in French prevented this excursion. (Ironically not knowing Dutch my first day in Europe, Amsterdam to be exact, did not keep me from hoping a bus and making my way to the renowned tulip fields at age 23.)
Setting time aside to go to Nashville's 44th film festival was something I knew I was to do so periodically throughout last week, I sped to Green Hills to watch movies. I may not be fluent in French but I am fluent in feeling and I am relearning intuitive trust, something I knew in my early twenties and then forgot or began to ignore.
263 films from 49 countries were shown at the festival. I saw 9 of those films and a half dozen shorts. I started at home with "Nashville 2012" which covered a handful of local folks and events last year not fully covered in the mainstream from "Occupy Nashville" and the locals supporting the Murfreesboro mosque to an area wrestler, a family with racing roots at the fairgrounds speedway to the closing of the Hostess bakery. I concluded in Egypt and Pakistan with "Words of Witness" (Egypt's revolution through the eyes of a courageous 22 year old female journalist Hebe Afify) and "These Birds Walk" (young homeless Pakistani boys who leave home for various reasons and the organization that cares for them only to eventually have to return them home) In between I saw films about pop-clinics serving the rural poor (Remote Area Medical), the unknown ramifications and facets of GMO's (GMO-OMG), the stories of the four remaining American doctors who perform late term abortions and the complex, heartbreaking stories of those they serve (After Tiller) and two unrelated films both connected to the Beatles one more than the other. Good Ol' Freda is the untold story of Freda Kelly the Beatles unassuming, dedicated young fan club manager for ten years. Jim Lauderdale, King of Broken Hearts is the story of Grammy-winning local singer/songwriter/performer Jim Lauderdale (of course). Jim was inspired to make music after his grandfather made him watch Ed Sullivan one Sunday night rather than Disney. That particular night happened to be the Beatles debut. Jim's journey is a testament of dedication and staying true to the Muse. I need to take lessons in commitment and discipline from Jim and Freda. I, someone who seldom watches tv or movies, spent nearly twenty hours in front of a movie screen. I was educated and informed. Like the butterfly I initially saw in the photo above, films free us to fly to other lands to experience if only briefly others lives whether those lands are in Egypt, Pakistan or the Northeast corner of my home state Tennessee.
"These Birds Walk" helped me fathom how extremists groups easily persuade some children to join their ranks and in turn groom suicide bombers (that wasn't an aspect of the movie but it certainly occurred to me as I watched). I experienced a necessary discomfort watching "Remote Area Medical" as nearly 2,000 people were served in one weekend at Tennessee's Bristol Speedway. People in dire need of dental care had their teeth cleaned or pulled. Many had dentures made on the spot. Others who literally could not see, had their vision checked and glasses made.
Film also frees us if we are willing to connect with the inner land, the land of the heart. My heart hurt for women and men in "After Tiller" who were faced with what to do regarding the babies they carried. Some women knew their child would live briefly and others knew their child would live with unimaginable difficulties. And I felt compassion for the four doctors committed to being with these women. Meeting them through film revealed they are not the heartless murderers as many in society see them.
In between the above films I saw several shorts one of which was a brief piece set in England. "The English" contained two words of dialogue, two words uttered twice once as a mother left her son at a boys school and again as the son left his mother decades later at a nursing home.
The phrase?
"No tears"
This briefest of phrases in the briefest of films explains and encompasses so much, so much related to each of the films I saw and our predicament as people.
"No tears" contains and controls our hearts while impacting our minds and lives. "No tears" results in an inability to access not just tears of sorrow but tears of joy as well. "No tears" has ramifications or a ripple effect down through the generations over time. "No tears" has gotten us to this place in which compassion seems lacking for so many and in so many.
Fortunately film too has a ripple effect. Film allows us to be entertained and escape yet films like those presented at the festival also allow us to imagine a life other than ours, to have empathy if we choose. Film educates and empowers us to make a difference.
Yet a different kind of film easily covers our eyes oftentimes unaware. This film prevents sight.
Knowing tears washes away that film so we can see deeply into life's complexities with less judgement and more compassion. Film frees us, when we dare be open, to enter the land of the heart. To be engaged with open hearts and minds allows us to know tears. To be engaged with open hearts and open minds allows us a freedom like that of the butterfly.
To me this is grace, that the movie making process birthed around the world in France in another time and place, now connects us with others half way around the world as well as in our own country, state and community.
Like the butterfly we can be free. We choose every moment of every day.
No tears.
or
No comments:
Post a Comment