on making anything
Last night I watched one of the most confusing movies I've ever seen in theatre. It was called (Siberia)[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4687856/] and, although I did arrive a couple minutes after it started (I was starving and you weren't allowed to eat popcorn in the theatre. So my friend Sophie and I stood outside eating popcorn until we were fairly certain we weren't going to die.) I don't think that whatever I missed in the first few minutes could have explained what I saw in the next 90.
I was conflicted about what to write about it here because I didn't know what I felt about it. I didn't /like/ it. But there were things that I liked /about/ it. At times the cinematography bordered on genius. There were individual frames in that film that undoubtably belonged in an art gallery.
The film itself wasn't enjoyable. But I'm also fairly certain that the director hadn't intended for it to be. It was probably intentionally hard to watch. It wasn't supposed to be an easy or relaxing experience as an audience. But even knowing that, I still didn't think it was very good.
When I woke up this morning I found myself thinking a lot about the beautiful frames that belonged in an art gallery and very little about the weird story that belonged in a student film exhibition.
When watching the film, I was thinking about how many people worked on it. That there was an editor who cut the footage together in this way that made no sense to me. That there was a cinematographer who poured so much artistry into a film that few people would like. That there were actors who spent hours and hours on set recording a series of weird stilted monologues that belong more on a stage than they do on a screen.
When I was there experiencing it these things seemed like they were a waste. Like an embarrassment. But today I feel differently about it.
I think there's value in creating /anything/. In having an idea and bringing it to life. In labouring over something for your own enjoyment. For your own catharsis. So that you can be the same person in the world that you are in your head.
As somebody who struggles so often to create the things that I dream of making, I now realize that the feeling I felt is actually jealously. It's not "how did this get made?" it's "if this person can make this, why can't I make the things that I want so badly to create?"
I cry a lot in movies. And often in movies that (I'd imagine) aren't trying to elicit that emotional response. I cried in La La Land. I cried in The Last Black Man in San Francisco. And, although they're very different films, I cried in them for the same reason. It was so moving to me that somebody /made/ this thing that wasn't for everyone. But that obviously was for them. I cry because I know how much they would have had to believe in themselves so much, for so long, in order to make it happen. I cry because I know there's probably a lot of times where they wanted to give up but didn't. I cry because this person who made this thing exists. And so does the thing they were brave enough to make.
So should you watch Siberia? Fuck no. But does that mean it shouldn't have been made? No. But it does mean that you should make the things that speak to you. That are begging to get out of you. Because there is space for it in the world. There are people that will cry watching it. The people that it's for. Even if that person isn't me.