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| Gertrud says goodbye. |
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| Axel's exit. |
I've been meaning to post this for a while. In the meantime the intention of what was written has been overridden by other intentions and interests. So this entry is long and a little outdated... but here goes.
2012. There was something less foreboding about the numbers of 2011, the anti-climatic follow up to the well deformed and imposing '2010'. This new year begins and ends with the number 2, the sharp curve and pointed tips really give this years numerals advantage over last years svelte and delicate 1's. I can feel a sharpness in the air. All the students are back on campus. When I walked in the back and quieter entrance to the film building there was a young woman sitting on a bench, hunched over clutching a freshly opened box of tissue, tears streaming down her face. Later, I came across a loud and very pissed off student yelling in her cell phone giving her friend serious hell for "constantly crying and then getting back together with that loser!" She reminded me of me when I was around 21 and how good it felt to get that angry (of course to only to feel very bad later). And then only a few minutes later walking across the commons, another young student with blood shot and puffy eyes, tears falling in solid streams, clutching her cell quietly murmuring soft words to it. These personal moments exposed in public are reminders that we share pain, that simple things can cause outrage or sorrow, regret. Its the New Year and it's not all fresh starts and fireworks.
I've been meaning to write more. But in fact I have written more in my life this past year than in many. Most recently I have written many emails to friends and family, however, to my surprise I only heard back from my brother. He is well but overworked running a successful landscaping business with his wife (and father of two). He rarely ever writes me personally and I was very happy to hear from him. However, there is a lingering odd feeling of disappointment that others have not taken the time to write me back. I manifest reasons, mostly, I imagine because all my friends have children or full time jobs or really, possibly, do not have or want to say anything. Perhaps it was my overly contrived and upbeat account of my lovely trip to Mexico that I just returned from. How did I expect my friends to follow up on that? Polite "good for you's" or "fuck you's"? I would gladly take either but this leaves me curious about how and why we try to stay connected, what are the best things to say, should we really bother at all? Why do so many take comfort in Facebook when its really just a forum for pandering, self promotion and posturing. Although, I do enjoy the rare self loathing one liners from a small handful of 'friends'.
Over the past several days I have continued to check myself for unwanted anxieties (which have become my specialty - although I blame my addiction to very strong coffee and often feel like Shannon Wheelers Too Much Coffee Man!) But I am taking on the new year with determination. I feel like I have a lot riding on my thesis film and the serious amount of time and choices I've made to be here.Today it was humorously highlighted in a lecture screening of Agnes Varda's The Gleaners & I, when in one scene she follows a former Teaching Assistant and Masters student as he lives out his unemployed life, selling magazines on the street corner, living in a homeless shelter and gleaning vegetables at outdoor markets for leftovers. I was sitting next to my fellow TA and we both had to repress nervous laughter but a 'knowing-look'. Few things can compete with a shared-known-look. This form of wordless communication is abject in its precision. It lacks for nothing and only lasts an instant, but those experiencing 'it', know all. I'd like to experience more of them.
The looks in Carl Dreyer's Gertrud are not shared but precise. In fact for most of the film, the lengthy monologues are spoken by deeply pained characters facing away from each other. I found the contrite framing and lengthy monologues both intriguing and exasperating. The lead character Gertrud suffers constantly. She is convinced that she will never acquire shared passionate love, even by former lovers who have returned and profess their devotion to her - they also suffer greatly because of her constant but tender rejections. Everyone is in pain! But Gertrud's pain is most consuming and in one stunning moment, she is framed in the icy glare of a gilded mirror, her body disconnected from the frame of the room only to be held captive by her self absorbed reflection. I wonder if that may have been part of Dreyer's point, or implied meaning behind this famous shot. The whole film has her constantly reflecting on her life and it seems solves nothing.
I can't say that I liked this film. But the very final scene was so interesting for its design and effectiveness. The final goodbye's between now aged Gertrud and old friend Axel are tender in its soft focus lighting and quiet gestures. But when Axel finally leaves and the camera cuts to his departure, the set and framing for this shot is unlike anything else in the film. The whole frame is like a gutted skeleton and detritus of time - the remains of faded youth and love lost. I was captivated by this brief sequence. It visually captured the feelings I have had when I know I am saying a final goodbye to someone I love. This feeling has only happened to me a few times. It is a searing and lonely feeling. Space seems to narrow and objects become undefined shapes as you focus on the physical body of the one you love. And in Gertrud, Dreyer has done it without tears and sentimentality. He has done it with careful design and framing, which like any memorable passing, is at once simple and complex.