There is only so much you can do on your own. You see clouds as white until someone puts a pure white shroud in front of your eyes, and only then do you realise how blind you have been all this time. So you decide to follow them, to learn from the master about the sky in fire and the earth in the grip of ice, only to learn that all you can get is discomfort sold as fear—everything else you have to do on your own.
I like watching trailers for the films I have already seen. They are like old photographs in a family album—photographs of places I once visited but neglected to return to, sounds still familiar yet distant, feelings kept in the shadows since ever. I like watching trailers because they allow me to fill in the rest of the story in my own tone, especially when the film wasn’t all that good in the first place and I only remember it for the perfect moments, like diamonds in the ashes. I like watching trailers for films I don’t know because they are a promise of something more to come—unlike every day of my life.
Getting on the scale has been a bit stressful lately. It’s not that I have a distorted self-image. I simply indulged in sweets (damn dried figs; they were so tasty), and with my sedentary lifestyle, it didn’t take long to see the results. And since obesity is not healthy in general and can even be fatal, given my pre-existing health problems, I try to pay attention to maintaining a healthy weight-to-height ratio.
Since I usually weigh myself after waking up and naked to ensure the accuracy of the data, I have the opportunity to take a good look at myself in the mirror, and generally, I have nothing to complain about in this matter. But this reminds me how often I encountered texts complaining about the negative impact of pop culture, and especially women’s glossy magazines, on our perception of the body, especially when it concerns women. It’s true that I’m not a reader of this type of periodical, but when I happened to pick one up on some occasion, I never found the photos of these anorexic-looking models in strange poses and unpleasant facial expressions attractive. The question is, who attracts me? I think the simplest way would be to have a look at actors, since everyone knows them, and if not, they are easy to find using an internet search engine. So here is my random list of actors I find beautiful: For each name, I add the title of the film in which they made this impression on me.
Elena Saorin in Pictures of Lily
Zoe Kazan in In Your Eyes
Franka Potente in Run Lola Run
Natalia Tena in You Instead
Jessie Buckley in Men
Kelly Macdonald in Puzzle
Aubrey Plaza in Life After Beth
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger than Fiction
Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment
Cristin Milioti in Palm Springs
Natalie Morales in Language Lessons
Anaïs Demoustier in The New Girlfriend
This list could go on for a long time, so maybe I’ll end it here, because it’s probably enough to give an idea of my taste when it comes to female beauty. None of them are the Barbie type, but they are all rather slim. I don’t know if it’s biologically determined or a matter of the culture in which I grew up, but I’ve never been attracted by Rubensian shapes. Does this make me a bad person?
What if your life is only enough for a mere autobiography—perhaps written under a pen name so you could sign it twice—and maybe a footnote in someone else’s? Would you simply accept it or rather bother every poor bastard who happened to sit next to you on the bus with your tarradiddles as you cooked them up in hope of finding your very own charming little spot to survive eternity? I asked myself these exact questions while watching Peter O’Toole in Wings of Fame. There is only a lifetime to find the answer.
Montaigne said that “in all republics, a good share of the government has ever been referred to chance. Plato, in the civil regimen that he models according to his own fancy, leaves to it the decision of several things of very great importance, and will, amongst other things, that marriages should be appointed by lot;” (Montaigne, 2004).
Let’s think about that last part for a moment. Apart from the fact that these were supposed to be temporary marriages made at festivals to orchestrate eugenic breeding (Brake, 2021), the whole idea is not without some merit. Our Western culture embraces the idea of marriage for love, but keeping in mind that there is a good chance that it ends in divorce or makes couples unhappy over time (DePaulo, 2013), I’m not convinced that it actually works very well. There is a saying in my native language that perfectly fits that hunch: love is blind, and marriage is the best ophthalmologist.
So why not leave the whole affair in the hands of fate for a change? Who knows, maybe we’ll have better luck in this case than with choices made under the influence of the hormonal storm in our brains. Of course, I realise that this is not actually feasible outside of a thought experiment, and I can see many things that could and most likely would go wrong—I’m not that naive—but I also have a feeling that there is a chance for something good in this as well. Besides, we already use dating app algorithms for matching, so is this really that much of a difference?
Because what is the alternative? Suffer in silence with this stranger whom we call our spouse out of habit, or finally come to terms with the idea that marriage is only a temporary matter and establish this state of affairs legally by creating fixed-term marriage contracts, for example, for a decade, with the possibility of extending them for another period if both parties wish so.
References:
Brake, Elizabeth, “Marriage and Domestic Partnership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/marriage/
DePaulo, Bella, “Marriage and Happiness: 18 Long-Term Studies”, Psychology Today (15 May 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201303/marriage-and-happiness-18-long-term-studies
Montaigne, Michel de, “Essays of Michel de Montaigne—Complete”, Project Gutenberg (2004), W.C. Hazlitt (ed.), C. Cotton (transl.), https://gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm
Once again, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep. I know it well, and since there is no point in tossing and turning in bed, I got up. Anyway, I’m aware that there are things I need to write about, and this is probably what prevents me from falling asleep again.
First of all, who is this journal written for? This is important because it determines the style and content of all its entries. If the answer is the readers of my blog, where I publish fragments of it, then yesterday’s entry is fully justified. But I don’t think that is the case. I was supposed to be the main focus—my thoughts, ideas, feelings, and dilemmas—all written with myself as the main audience in mind. After all, that is what a journal is all about, isn’t it? With all due respect to the external readers, they are just complementary characters that blend into the background.
And that brings me back to Karen Cinorre’s film. I’ve already seen it, so there is no problem analysing it with all the details I know. Besides, my blog readers could always find the whole plot on the dedicated Wikipedia page.
So, as I see it, apart from the protagonist, the main characters of the film are personifications of the heroine’s feelings after the sexual assault on her: fear, withdrawal, and anger/hatred, with the last one becoming the main driver of the new reality she has fallen into. The island on which the film takes place symbolises her mind, which becomes both a refuge and a prison, and the camps of women all over the island are mental connections with the women victims of sexual abuse all over the world—she hears their voices in many languages brought by the wind and the sound of sea waves.
What brought her to this place were suicidal thoughts, and while on the island, she has to decide whether she will give in to these thoughts or rather find something that will allow her to continue living after what she went through, as well as what feelings will guide her through this rebuilt life. The fact that the director, being a woman, still gave the protagonist’s male friend the privilege of being the beacon that brought the main character back to life shows that men as a gender are not perceived as evil incarnates and that friendship, love, and the most important—life alongside them—are still possible even after such a horrible experience.
This film is cathartic, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it. I can’t wait for Karen Cinorre’s next work because she has a very distinctive voice that will not leave you indifferent.
I just finished watching a film that made a huge impression on me. It’s Mayday, written and directed by Karen Cinorre in her feature directorial debut. If this is not a one-time lucky shot, I predict a bright future for her in the world of film. I came across this film by accident and was actually inclined to skip it because it had very poor reviews; for example, IMDb only gave it a 4.4 out of 10 with about 1,800 voters, which suggests a solid rating. Luckily, I listened to my gut and watched it anyway.
It’s a film about the emotional healing of a young woman who is a victim of sexual assault. This whole process is shown as a fantasy story taking place in an alternative reality of a world resembling the world of World War II, but in which women fight against men. Every one of the women has been a victim in the real world, and each deals with the pain in a different way, one of which is killing men in any way possible. They use the radio to send a distress call, and when the male soldiers respond, the women send them the coordinates of the place where the rescue ship is sunk upon arrival (the film takes place over the sea), like sirens leading sailors to the rocks. When the protagonist is attacked again by a male soldier on land, they capture him and then let him run just to hunt him down—the predator becomes the prey.
It is a complex story, with twists that surprise and an ending that brings a glimmer of hope. To give a taste, here are three dialogues that have a lot of importance to the film’s narrative, but without context so as not to give too much away.
Ana (protagonist): I’m an easy target.
Marsha (leader of a group of women): Never say that. You need to stop hurting yourself and start hurting others.
Marsha: Can’t sleep?
Ana: I had a bad dream.
Marsha: Don’t worry. All your dreams will die soon enough.
Marsha: I’ve made you into a hero.
Ana: You’ve made me into a psychopath.
Marsha: It’s the same thing!
Reading, generally speaking, is a solitary endeavour, and apart from an occasional marginalia or folded page corner, there is very little that connects you with other readers—nothing beyond the awareness that other lonely souls have also touched these pages. Or so you might think.
Although I love the unique sensation of touching paper, I also appreciate the new opportunities offered by modern technology. For example, my e-book reader displays highlights made by other readers along with information about how many of them found the particular fragment important—the following quote, for instance, has been highlighted fifty-one times: “So it seems that the soul, being transported and discomposed, turns its violence upon itself, if not supplied with something to oppose it, and therefore always requires an object at which to aim, and whereon to act.” (from The Essays of Montaigne—Volume 02 by Michel de Montaigne, in translation of Charles Cotton)
And just like that, I know that there are fifty-one kindred spirits somewhere with whom I can connect in thought. So perhaps when you read, you are alone. But never lonely.
Our modern life is an endless pursuit of new things, but does it really make us happy? Doesn’t the familiar give us a sense of comfort, perhaps even the safety of the mother’s womb? Even when it comes to enemies, the old one is better than the new one, because at least we already know all their tricks. By the way, it reminds me of dialogue from one of the best Polish comedies of all time, Sami swoi (Our Folks), the story of two hostile neighbourly families—the Karguls and the Pawlaks—who meet again in a new place after World War II.
Kazimierz Pawlak (head of the family): Why did you hang your noses like that? If our own people live here, we can live here too.
Leonia Pawlak (his mother): Our own?! Kargul is the worst enemy of all!
Kazimierz Pawlak: Enemy? True, the enemy! But yours, mine, ours—bred on our own blood!
Mania Pawlakowa (his wife): And you couldn’t go anywhere else, ha?
Kazimierz Pawlak: Oh Mania, don’t be nervous; why did we have to look for a new enemy when the old one appeared sideways, ha? Well, that wouldn’t be God’s way.
Of course, I am aware that modern capitalism is based on this endless hunger for the new, and if anything changed, the entire system would collapse like a house of cards. But on the other hand, something has to change because neither we nor our planet will survive the current situation.
My personal life philosophy is based on minimalism in the sphere of needs while using what is given to me to the fullest. Perhaps it is easier for me to live this way because, since I was a child, I have lived in the world of my imagination and the books that nourished it. I don’t feel the need to bask in the sun on the beaches of the Riviera (actually, I would hate it because I don’t tolerate sunny weather very well, and summer has always been the hardest season for me to survive) or touch historic stones (in fact, the sweat from our hands damages them). I don’t have a car because I try to walk everywhere, and when I need to go somewhere further, I use public transport. And there are many other things in my life like this.
It is true that sometimes it’s inconvenient, but it’s a small price to pay for knowing that I’m doing something for the environment. As they say, every little counts.
hidden pilcrow 