Unease

It has been another pair of uneasy days for me. I feel my depression threatening to overwhelm me once again, as if I were in deep waters and an incessent number of waves were threatening to submerge me. It is difficult to think clearly in these circumstances, although I try to go through the motions.

Although my mood is in no way connected to this film, I thought I would mention that I recently saw "Village of Dreams", a Japanese film that was released a few years ago. It details the upbringing of a set of twin boys who were growing up in a rural region of Japan in the immediate post-war period. It is an idyllic evocation of life and early experiences, with Seizo and his brother who are entirely irripresible and open to life in its stunning novelty.

They boys fish repeatedly, they pull pranks, they are impulsive and mischievous and innocent the way we imagine all children are. It is true that they were not easily accepted in this small village, but they had an upbringing that, as one of the brothers confesses in an audio overlay at the beginning, constitutes the core of their spiritual being. It is their center.

What I also found touching was their experiences with another outcast, a poor boy who joins them in the middle of the school year and who is subject to the anger and repudiation of the teacher as well as the entire community of adults. He is a big boy, resourceful, and it becomes apparent that he is homeless and has to fend for himself.

He, the homeless boy, tries to cultivate the twins as friends, and even wrangles an invitation for himself to their home, but he is refused and turned back. He also bears the brunt of the teacher's rage for a prank pulled by the twins at school, and is beaten mercilessly.

The boy leaves shortly afterward, and we are left to wonder about his destiny. It is obviously an episode that impressed the boys deeply. As it was, they already had an artistic temperament, and would grow up to be illustrators of children's books. They have lives that are creatively fulfilling, and they enjoy a close relationship.

I would hope as well to someday reach the sense of peace that they have attained. I'm not sure what my spiritual center is, however. My childhood was not as happy as theirs. Perhaps I would have been more akin to the child who was ostracized and expelled in this movie.

This movie, nonetheless, is a reverie of an idealized time. I think we will never be able to view our past without sentimentality. We are constantly recreating it and the sense of conclusion constributes, as times, to an impulse to fictionalize.

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011