Dear reader,
It was International Film Festival near me this past weekend and I could not have seen two more dissimilar films.
My dear friends and I kicked off the weekend with Georgia Oakley and team’s Sense And Sensibility. Set in the countryside of England, you are immediately transported to what I imagine the past was like.
Candlelight, everywhere.
Time to dwell in a dense forest’s rain and rolling hills’ expanse.
Conversations that sustain one across Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Food experienced as feast.
Cottages without next-door neighbors, but people make the trip.
People who give their full attention to one another.
Functional dresses that carry one through the activities of a full day.
People raised in the same place/by the same people can emerge with character laced in sense, sensibility, a bit of both, or neither at all.
As a fan of Ang Lee’s 1995 Sense And Sensibility, I also thoroughly enjoyed this year’s adaptation of my favorite Jane Austen novel. There was so much good about this film that instead of listing out every reason I believe it is excellent, I urge you to go see the film, film festival or not. So much of love goes unspoken, unwritten, undeclared, unsung. Whenever you get the chance, speak of love, write of it, declare love, sing of it.
Later in the weekend, I saw Musk, the razor-sharp documentary by Alex Gibney and team. Immediately, it transports you to what the future could be like.
Simulations, at least more explicitly.
Gamified takeover with no real checks or balances.
Everyone’s data in the hands of one man.
Oh, and colonizing Mars.
While the obvious contrast between these two films is that one is narrative and one is documentary, one is fiction and one is supposed real life (the truth can be madder than fiction), I think the deeper distinction is that one is about hearts conditioned to yearn and one is about a mind conditioned to win. The pursuit of love (of all kinds) vs. the pursuit of power (of all kinds). The surrender vs. the control.
I believe that yearning teaches us something that constant winning never does:
patience.
And to live in this world well, among varying personalities and levels of neuroplasticity, neurodivergence, competing realities, and power struggles, I find that a virtue that matters so very much
is patience.
Patience builds empathy. I find that films do too, making them and participating with them.
To stand between the past and the future is a daunting and glorious experience. To be frank, I yearn for the past, one I never got to experience, as it looked like it extended communal peace in a way that I don’t know if we’ll ever have again. At times, I fear for the future, but then I remember we’re all here (Earth, or anywhere else) for a brief time.
And that is the whole point.
I’m committed to keeping the warmth, delight, and heart of the bygone era alive in the present, the only thing I can really control.
Wishing you love & to going beyond the surface,
Anjali
P.S. Early voting for midterm elections is here. I voted this morning, and you can too. Election Day is November 3rd.