The greater the complication, the richer the tale
Adventurer and filmmaker Thor F. Jensen’s ingredients for a rich tale – namely, great complication – are on display as one looks at a number of world events. This week, I found myself musing about making a movie out of the current year and the coronavirus pandemic.
With its tales of separation, isolation, loneliness, and the sense of vulnerability, the year 2020 has been reduced to pure rage. Regular routines have been severely curtailed, often replaced by dramatic and seesaw emotional shifts. Not even the agreement that the pandemic was unforeseen and thus unplanned for, can stop the barbs that are exchanged by leaders, the medical fraternity, public health officers and citizens.
Commentators have agreed that the current health situation is both a wake-up call and a cruel, impatient teacher. The weight of the pandemic’s hurried lessons is perhaps summarized by history professor Margaret MacMillan who observes that, “government surveillance of the public is likely to increase, certainly in dictatorships. In democracies, we may well decide that the loss of privacy is worthwhile if we can control the spread of the disease.
Borders will become thicker and we will not be able to afford to travel as much; we might not even want to.”
According to film critics, horror movies and documentaries continue to hold a strong place in preferred viewing. There is also a sprinkling of romance and crime stories, and the industrious comedies.
This week, David Edelstein, joined by Alison Wilmore, Bilge Ebiri and Angelica Jade Bastien, wrote an engaging piece entitled “the best movies of the year (so far).” Among the films, which all had their official release this year, is Weathering with You. While this is a teen-fantasy-romance, my attention is drawn to the bigger story it shares about young people “refusing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of decisions made by previous generations.”
The theme of accountability and responsibility is also the subject of the drama film, Our Mothers (Nuestras Madres), by director Cesar Diaz. The film recounts events of the 1960-1996 Guatemala Civil War. It dramatizes the apprehension and punishment of the soldiers and paramilitary units who oversaw the torture, rape and extrajudicial killings of targeted populations during the insurgency.
One of its principal characters is a forensic archaeologist who helps aged survivors in bringing closure to years of unresolved grief. Quite poignantly, the archaeologist presents boxes of bones to families who want to give decent burials to their loved ones.
As I looked through the long list of films, I deliberately focused on themes which I believe will resonate with audiences. For example, the film critics say Sea Fever will find meaning in an audience “newly obsessed with the anxious mechanics of infection and exposure and quarantine.” Other notable films explore the themes of redemption and reconnecting with life; in many ways, a psychological revolution.
The World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, recently exclaimed that, “Europe is at the epicentre of this pandemic once again.” With the inevitability of second lockdowns looming large for some countries, the world, once more, ponders over strategies that can successfully stop the virus from flaring up.
It is tempting to only focus on the burden of a scenario that is characterised by “exhausting, economy-shuddering repeated closures while hoping for a vaccine.” As I consulted with friends on the type of film that the year 2020 could make, they were emphatic that it is more than a horror or disaster.
They argue that it can only be an apocalypse, designed to fully convey the sense of complete and final destruction; something that the Merriam-Webster dictionary says would be a “prophetic revelation” of imminent cataclysm.
But I still remember that the cofounder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, has counselled that, “if you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.”
Amanpreet Kraur of India Today notes that Ma’s encouragement is both powerful and bewildering that some people have even tried to corrupt his words to read, “if you get out of 2020 with your life, that would be the best profit you ever made.” Still, food for thought.