Starting with Four Eyed Monsters....two people meet and decide to communicate only through artistic mediums. No talking (between them). True story. Written/directed/starring/funded by the couple (and their Mastercard/Visa/Amex). Between the Podcasts and "Episodes" you almost have your pick of watching the true-true story or the recreation of the true story. Made for 50,000 with a brilliant grassroots campaign that sets new standards for grassroots campaigns.
Then "The Hottest State" a seductive story of unrequited love at it's highest and lowest, filmed with remarkable composition. Frames often showing characters from the nose down creating this generic torso by leaving out the identifying eyes. Not letting you make eye contact with the characters makes it easy to respond and forces you to think a little outside the box since the typical things we get information from aren't given to the audience.
Then, thenthenthen! there is "Once." Beautiful, Irish, song-filled, tactual and real and Christalmightywow. I don't know what to tell you about "Once", really, except you need to go see it. And then you will need to rush home and you will need to download the soundtrack. And if you don't love it, well, then I think it's plausible that the state of your soul is in jeopardy.I don't know what to tell you about any of these movies, really. "Authentic" is the word that comes to mind.
And, the real beauty is that, that, okay, I know it's a movie. Carefully edited to give me all the right parts, to make me feel all the right things with the swelling of violins here and there and a nice, purposeful close up on an expression. And, just maybe, life is not as romantic as the movies make it out to be. And I know my pollyannaism is rampant but, i think life is almost this perfect. Reality is full of all these parts where we smile uncontrollably, where we just almost cry and then we don't, and then we do, and then we laugh and it is so automatic we don't take time to notice our own life. We do take time to see who's seeing the same.
The state and source of my contentment has always been a subject of debate. My optimism is unfathomably high. It was after watching "Once" I realized that the "swelling violin" part of a good movie makes me feel hope. Hope and a lump in my throat. I needed a vocabulary word because the long drawn out sighs weren't really communicating it for me. When I look around me, I feel hope. When you tell me your story and when I see certain Truths I feel hope. My head is full of consistent, self-sustaining uncontrollable hope.
And when I look around, I hear music.
