25 days to go: The Fall (March, 14)

In another shared time with movies, Flavia and her dear boy came to keep company while watching The Fall, a film that Joe left with me a long time ago. He even told me that, as I was adventuring in another movie dare, I should see it for good. On this day, I could keep my promise. 

So many emotion in amazing images. 

Tarsem Singh is a master of filming the images of the dreams and imagination (as Terence Malick is a genius with picturing thoughts). It is so mesmerizing. Thanks, Joe, for lending me your blue ray, it is truly a film worthy of the technology. 

There are moments in this that we don't know what to do with ourselves, so overwhelming it is. The amazing little Alexandria, with all the wisdom her name implies, despite the young age, take us by the hand that is not in a cast, with a sweet smile that lacks many teeth, showing us why sometimes stories are the realm of childhood. Children take them seriously, as we all should. They let themselves be permeated by all the knowledge and enchantment of what we, so wise adults, passed to attribute as silliness.

It is usual (less and less, fortunately) the thought that entertainment, fiction, fantasy are a matter of escaping reality. How many times we hear someone saying just that referring to a movie, a book that they cannot let go, a song that is on repeat during a certain time of our lives. I always thought that instead of escaping reality, drowning myself in fictional narratives, specially movies, meant just the opposite: to stare our own reality and others (very important) straight in the eye. This way, in times of extreme difficult, we tend to resort to what is at hand in order to make a sense of all the craziness. 

The advent of cinema in the late 19th century, early '1900s, gave to the world a massive form of confronting reality thought an art known above all for its entertainment features. During the '1920s, the cinema was passing through a crazy phase, an extraordinary time of experimentalist and adventures, while consolidating movies as a narrative. And so, side by side with new camera angles, creative shots, fading out, special effects, stories were told, and the human race was forever lost to this new kind of storyteller. 

Joseph Campbell told us about the power of stories in a beautiful and assertive way:

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shaw slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world. Joseph Campbell

And so, folks, that's it. Stories are not something to escape, but our true company in life, among all the people and things we love. We don't slay monsters, but ourselves. Stories' primary reason of existence is life itself. They don't refer to anything else than the human journey of living. So, whether for entertainment or because of all that "serious" reasons we're are so fond to brag about, stories are essentially life. The human race living day after day, century after century, looking for the meaning of his existence. 

Thanks, beloved Joe, with all my heart (and happy birthday, beautiful friend!). 

The Fall. Directed by Tarsem Singh (as Tarsem). Cast: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru,
Justine Waddel. Writers: Dan Gilroy at all (based on the screeplay Yo Ho Ho, by
Valery Petrov). USA/South Africa/India, 2006, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS, Black
and White/Color, 117min.

PS: Have you've  read my call for books two posts ago? So, at the exact moment I was writing it, without a clue about my desperate call, Flavia was buying me the most amazing gift: Norse Mythology, by the greatest storyteller of our times, Neil Gaiman (I'm not over doing it, I promise. He is the greatest nowadays, among other amazing bards). I'm in heaven. Fla, eternal gratitude, flor!