Watching this film sixty-two times
So today I am watching a certain film for the sixty-second time. This is probably a weird thing. Another weird thing: I watch it on the same day every month. For a while, around watches fifteen to fifty-six, every single month I thought, "Maybe I shouldn't do this, it's a bit odd." Not that really anyone knows. I've decided I don't care any more.
There was a lot of stuff going on when I saw this film for the first time. Including but not limited to: three weeks earlier, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer; less than two weeks later we were in lockdown. It was a moment, for sure. I was not in a great place and hanging on to it by bleeding fingertips as life threw stones at me. Not the worst place I've ever been but a good vantage point on it - within falling distance.
I watched this film and I stumbled out of the cinema into the car park and a whole new world.
It is impossible to convey how completely my brain rewired itself.
How? Why? Well, after sixty-one and a half watches you'd think I'd have figured that out. I have not. Everyone who loves this film loves it for different reasons. There's a famous line that is on all the posters and stuff... which I don't resonate with at all. For me, it's a film about loss. Being able to carry on and find beauty in the world in the face of impending loss. Living after that loss. Because, you know, my dad was dying. The world was dying.
It's also a film about pretty ladies in pretty frocks kissing and we cannot discount the importance of this.
Some highlights of my watches.
- Watch 1. Full polarity shift. Spent the next week crying in the shower every morning.
- Watch 2. Found it on streaming. Cried for three hours.
- Watch 3. The dvd arrived. This just so happened to be exactly three months since Watch 1. The same-day-of-the-month viewing begins.
- Watch 18. The day of my dad's funeral.
- Watch 29. Six o'clock in the morning on my phone because that was the only two-hour block of time I had. Would not recommend.
- Watch 40. Drank Pepsi out a massive gin glass and counted how many minutes they get to be any sort of happy: sixteen.
- Watch 52. With covid.
That's 124 hours spent watching this film. At least twice as many crying about it. Half a million words writing about it. I've got a telescope because of this film. (Is there a telescope in the film? No! The logic is convoluted but I assure you, it's there.)
Then the joke is, would I recommend this film? Absolutely not. Save yourself. I have many times referred to it as The Worst Film. It's just awful. Haunting. Heartbreaking. Every month my wife (who likes it a normal human amount) says, "Did they run off together this time?" No! They did not! Do not talk to me! (Maybe next time they will.)
Also, I should say, it is utterly breathtaking. Groundbreaking, revelatory, and so on.
Why do I watch it every month? Because it changed everything and I owe it that. I can spend two hours remembering.