epiphany: movies

for the first time in a long time, i went to the movies yesterday. i walked alone, on an overcast day down the dreary streets of rain soaked st. louis to my favorite artsy and overpriced movie theatre, the tivoli. i bought a ticket to the first movie coming up, bought my large popcorn with real butter and cherry coke and made my way to the front row. i was excited. the film was titled 'sin nombre'. i picked through my thoughts to remember what that meant, i knew nombre was 'name' and just deduced that 'sin' was the equivalent of sans. So no name, rather nameless. This is not a critique of the film, i will not go into its details. however, to me, it was brilliant.

it shook me. it shocked me, it made me wanna cry but i managed not to somehow, probably because my tears seemed to be worthless in this hellish third world as i sat there with my overpriced food, in cushy seats.

the images of a movie stay with me forever. from sitting there, my brain began to reel and contemplate the world i was just brought into. i realized through this that movies have taught me everything. i don't read as much as one would suspect, but since i am so visual, in love with narratives and language,and my parents got satellite when i was growing up, movies have been my teachers. i have seen tons now, half of which i have forgotten the names of but the images still come to me. for example, there was a film once about these latin criminals that had something to do with burning money, they may have been lovers, and i know for sure it was in spanish. but thats all i can conjure up now. but the imagery of their final standoff with the police is still playing in my head.

movies are how i learned about the world outside of my humdrum existence. i am the welcomed, invited voyeur being let into these worlds, real or imaginary, that could be related to mine somehow. oh the humanity of it. being connected without truly being connected through similar narratives and experiences. and me being rather introverted, but booming with curiosity, this allowed me to live through those on screen. all of sudden i felt as if i had knowledge of all these foreign things: sex, drugs, romance, death, killing, homosexuality, famine, disease, violence, war, abusive relationships..... the list goes on and on.

i never had the brain to create my own worlds but i could make the connections. my sensitivity could relate to the victims, the heroes, the lovers, the villains. somehow being completely insular like i was, i found the means to connect with others, even if they were characters. from this i believe came this empathy to relate to people now.

not much can shock me at this point. movies can still catch me off guard mainly in the terms of what they choose to show. how realistic they chose to be, how deep the stories goes unlike ones before it. there is always a new spin because there are millions of people living with millions of perspectives on this world, thus the same script would look different if every last one of us put on individual productions. movies are a way to look through someone else's point of view as best as possible, while also relating it to your own perspective and experiences.

don't want to ramble but this all hit me like a ton of bricks.

yeah, it was a good movie!

watch a good movie. it will do you some good to escape into another world for awhile.