An Enamoured Question
When did you fall in love with movies?
Truth be told, I can’t exactly remember. I’ve been asked this exact question countless times and have given countless different answers. Some of them false, but most of them true. Trying to pin down a moment in time when your life changed, when you felt a sense of purpose, where you saw what you were going to be should be an easy thing – at least according to everyone else who’s answered this question. What most people fail to say though is how their answer is intertwined with a series of events and emotions.
… An example of such a person who doesn’t fail at this is someone who loves Audrey Hepburn, Bogart, Billy Wilder, Hitchcock and the contemporary cinema. Loves the sketchy musicals of the golden age, and of course the classics of the new studio systems, but also loves the films that have shaped generations in ways that other forms of art have only done so in recent memory. In other words, in this case, films are not only bridges between generations but are ways to communicate—to understand… how we shape ourselves and how we are shaped by others and just how beautiful that unpronounced meaning is. I’ll stop there though, as this isn’t my story to tell.
I find it hard to truly travel back in time and explore every detail for my own artistic sake. It could bring up wounds that’ve been ignored in an attempt to heal for those closest to me; it could ensure that relationships I’ve sought my entire life go back to being frivolous; it could very well mean that I simply seek to craft a narrative of my life that favours me as it’s flawless protagonist. I wish I had the courage to ignore those thoughts and carry on—I typically do—it’s just that this isn’t the same. My relationship to film isn’t like my relationship to heartbreak, depression or even suicidal intention—if anything my relationship to film is ethereal. At least seemingly so. I’m afraid that if given an ounce of truth, a soluble moment of decency, the backlash that would stem from the truth would tarnish that delicate intricate relationship with cinema I have.
I’m someone who’s been told they’re fragile their whole life. Whatever, I’m not here to discuss those emotions, I’m here to discuss the fact that my relationship to film is one that is strong and has found its way into my cellular structure and metastasize. However, no matter how essential that relationship is to my being, it is built on the foundations of domestic abuse, divorce, neglect, and so much more. It’s built on a foundation that I’m told to move on from no matter the lack of validity it is given by those who sought to sew those threads in my life. To a certain extent I’m thankful that the pillars in my life can’t cope with the past in order to be better in the present, but on the other hand I’m left confused and ridden with guilt. I think what I’m saying can be summarized by this: for children, to survive things children should never have to go through, they better have a very fucking active imagination.
My imagination was fueled by films such as King Kong, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Scream, Batman Returns, the Star Wars Saga, Halloween, E.T, Indiana Jones, the original Don with Amitabh Bachchan, a Voyage to the Moon, Spider-man 2, Double Indemnity, Terminator, Alien, Bend it Like Beckham, Grease and so much more. There are too many moments to where I think back and ponder if this is when I fell in love with movies… From what I can remember, I have always loved movies. Whether they loved me back is up for debate, but no matter what they did protect me. They helped me to colour my imagination, they alienated me a tad bit, they gave me a vocabulary, a way to think, a mind of my own—a refuge.
Answering the predominant question here is truly difficult and probably not one I can answer to your satisfaction… What I will say for a final thought is this: movies saved me, they gave me a way to understand the world around and within me. They opened up doors to where I relate to my family through storytelling and not in their genetic make-up—where I do not have to be the sum of their worst selves, rather their best selves. Movies gave me a chance to find a voice, to keep finding a voice. Movies give me the opportunity to find solace in moments where I question if I am ever doing the right thing, because it often feels like I’m doing the total worst thing. Movies are my everything, and they have brought me to people who feel like they too can also be just as cherished as cherish me equally. I think I fell in love with movies when I realized that my dad isn’t Superman, that my family isn’t ideal/normal, that I am not the best and that feeling something and not having answers for it is sometimes better than being able to put words to it. Words show us something final, something beautiful yet preordained, making you feel but feel religiously. Movies show us what we miss and what we need, they make us feel but feel spiritually… movies are my real life and I love it.