Tales from the Cinema 1: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

SPOILER ALERT: If you want to watch the movie above, steer clear!

I, along with a couple of friends, are thinking about watching a movie at Robinsons Galleria once a week. Call it movie mondays or thursdays or whatever. The point is: we watch a movie and destress. To make things more interesting I’m thinking about writing about every movie we watch and making a little reflection paper on it. No matter how nonsensical or heavy the movie, there would always be something to take from it. And first one on the list is just gold:

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (c/o IMDB)

Thanks to Marcy we ended up watching this beautiful film about love, adventure, and courage. A story about fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and children. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a movie narrated by Oscar Schell, a nine-year old who’s trying to cope with the death of his father, having died in the 9/11 attack. After finding a mysterious key in a shattered blue vase, Oscar sets off to find out what this could mean. He devises a scheme to scour the five boroughs of New York in order to find the lock that the key would be able to open. It starts off as a search for an almost impossible goal and already it spirals outward with parallels of the philosophers search for truth and even brings into the fore the age old question of what truth really is. As Oscar searches, however, he takes special care to take pictures and record the events of his quest. He brings with him a camera and photographs the people he comes in contact with. But in his search, as he pushes on with it, he shows a very familiar side of human relationships. Eventually Oscar’s search gives one a subtle glimpse of our possessive tendencies, and also the dire consequences if we allow to ourselves be possessed by our fears.

Throughout the movie Oscar goes many places and meets a number of people. He discovers an old camera left behind by his father and uses it to take pictures of people. He meticulously records in a journal the events that transpire in his quest for meaning. The way Oscar takes pictures and stores them reveals a very developed sense of organization and at the same time the possessive drive to capture moments. It stands in striking contrast with how Oscar’s father told him he never used the camera. I’m inclined to say that this contrast enriches the differences between Oscar and his dad with respect to the drive to possess moments and people. In a way the camera symbolizes our drive to possess the moment and freeze time, to rebel against the flow of time and memory, to make something now always. How many times have we wished that we could live in a certain moment forever? How many times did we wish to go back to “the good ol’ days”? Only to realize that they are gone, we can never go back. It is with the aid of photographs and cameras that we capture these moments and call them ours, and gives us that little feeling that we own them.

While Oscar struggles to possess the individual moments in his quest, he is inevitably possessed by the very quest itself. At various points in the movie we see how his search blocks out all other activities of Oscar and affects himself and the people around him: a movie with a friend, a father at a shop rushing to go back to his family, and eventually even his peace of mind. The inspiration of the quest is indeed that of possession when Oscar says that he just wants to make his dad’s eight minutes longer (a reference to the Sun, that if it goes out, it will take us eight minutes to realize it’s gone). In Oscar’s struggle to keep the memory of his father alive through the quest, he allows himself to be consumed by it. When Oscar has that dramatic exchange with his mother and she tells him that his father is gone and not coming back, Oscar almost seems to breakdown, covering his ears from what his mother is saying. For a while he seems to express that it’s something he just cannot accept. But when we place things and people we love in a relationship of having, like how we do with a pen or a cellphone, and try to possess it, Oscar shows the conflict and pain at the consequences of having it lost and that relationship broken.

And as we go deeper into the movie, Oscar tells us the one thing he “hasn’t told anyone.” He reveals that his dad had attempted to call him the day he died but he, because he was afraid, couldn’t answer the phone. It was this that troubled him the most, and slowly he starts to realize that fear, if we allow it to possess us and capture us, will deprive us of all that we love and cherish in the world. It was this first possession from fear that became the springboard for Oscar’s first drive to possess. Shortly after the death of his father he walked out and bought an answering machine to replace the one at home. His father left six messages that day: something which he hid from his mom. Later, he replaced the machine in order to hide it from the world. It was in taking the answering machine and keeping it hidden and secret that we see the start of Oscar’s movement toward possession.

The pain that we eventually lead ourselves to when we cling and try to possess people is unavoidable. For Oscar, we see it in the self-inflicted wounds at his side and how he almost loses his mind searching for what seems like an impossible answer. I might rip off Star Wars a bit when I bring it the fear of loss is a path to the darkside, and yet that was what drove Oscar so passionately in his search. But what starts out in passion eventually leads to our own ruin, if we don’t get over that initial fear. “Sometimes we have to face our fears,” read the note by Oscar’s grandfather. And as soon as Oscar faces his fears in little steps and finally decides to ride the swing (one of his biggest fears), he breaks free of fear’s embrace and discovers the world and becomes at peace. He finds a message under the swing left behind by his father and then finally he gets his closure.

***

It was a super emotional movie and even got my eyes sweating really bad at the end. It was a movie full of meaning and lessons we can take with us after. I must read the book next since Marcy says it’s really good too. Highly recommended to watch!!

Graduation Day +340

I stare out the window of a taxi and onto the white hot pavement at noontime. A bunch of leaves swirls around in the wind, dancing to some hidden melody. It’s beautiful for a while. And for a while it distracts me from this burning hate I have for work and “careers” right now. How did everything get so messed up?

340 sunsets have flown by since I graduated college. I’m probably misleading you into thinking I’m that overly sentimental person who counts the days after every significant event. Luckily for people like me, we have MS Excel to do that for us. I’ve always had this romantic idea to travel for a year after college. In my notebook I’d draw plans on where to go and what to do, but after every entry the bottom line was that I was pretty much broke and the whole thing seemed (well to most people) pretty unproductive. What will companies think? What will you do after? You better make it back before the next batch graduates or else it’ll be hard to come by a job. What a downer! I thought, and yet not without some truth. With all the jive about work, a familiar statement flashes through my head: "you have to stay competitive!” “Get out of the pile!” as Jack Welch said.

As it turns out I started working right after I graduated as a part-time instructor at the school of management. For around six weeks I talked about computers and MS Office in front of two classes. I had a henna from Boracay on my arm in the first week which, I think, gave the class the wrong first impression. There were great students, brilliant ones, and there were the typical douchebags who sucks up for every point. There was this batchmate of mine, a girl, who decided to sit in one of my classes one day. I had been crushing on her for some time already, so to give us some time to talk I gave a pop quiz…like a boss. It was relatively easy so the class didn’t complain. We whispered while the class worked on the quiz, she telling me every now and then that one of them had a raised hand for a question. It was in that summer when I asked her out and would you know it? She said yes. It was the first time I drove through SLEX where it almost felt like the Skyway above would just crash down on you. That was the summer when everything felt right, that everything was where it should be.

June rolls around the corner and I, along with my some of my batchmates, am in a meeting with ex-Sen. Gordon inviting us for a job at the Philippine Red Cross. He said a lot of things and in the end I was the only one taking the bait. Just a typical gullible, idealistic twenty-something. It took me two weeks before I realized I wanted out.

Resigning was tough. The weeks after, tougher. Where the hell am I going to go now? I sent some resumés out, wondering if any one out there would take the bait too. I got an interview with a bank for a management trainee position. A Management Trainee position. It’s the fabled prize of management engineers, the one everybody’s looking for. So take me, damn it, take me! I thought. I tried to make the desperation a little bit subtle.

Well whaddya know, I got the job! The next few months flew by like a breeze. The corporate world is really something. Working hours from 830-530, lunch break in the middle. The incessant, almost compulsive, need to quantify and evaluate your skills and personality. Evaluation forms upon evaluation forms upon evaluation forms. Report cards are out, performance appraisals are in. It’s funny how similar things are now to grade school. We wake up early, change clothes, and sit behind a desk for a whole day. Oh, irony! I stare outside sometimes and see the sun shining and a beautiful day outside while I’m stuck inside breathing recycled air and pushing papers along my desk. Is this what the “real world” can offer me? The reality of working 45 hours a week in an office is hard to swallow. I could think of all the things I could do in 45 hours. Learning the keyboard, writing my heart out, reading till my eyes hurt so much that I have to wash my face, watching good and thoughtful movies, exploring the area, cooking, exercising. Hmp. But what’s new? Work is work, and it sucks…and I know it. 

It’s funny how some of the things our parents tell us about life and work could, for all we know it, be outdated software. What the “good” courses are, what the right jobs are, or what is right in general. People thought nursing was right a few years ago but look at the state now.  Nevertheless, the damage is done, for better or worse. I’m stuck in a bank, which right now kind of feels like a prison cutting me off from all the things I like doing. A tad bit dramatic but what’s the difference between jail cell and a desk if you don’t feel like you’re free in either? Something’s got to change in the near future. Something will.

Saturday happenings.

#1: I’m moving out!

Having nothing to do and nowhere to go I figured it was a good time to start packing up. I had been living with my parents since I graduated college and with my brother’s graduation just around the corner, the unit has been getting smaller and smaller. The idea of “independence” and having your own place has not appealed to me that much. It seems much too American and I would regret terribly parting with my mom’s cooking and my dad’s coffee in the morning. The current condo unit, however, is getting smaller and smaller and more so when my brother graduates. So with that it was pretty simple: we move out. We won’t be too far though (the unit we’re moving into is just 14 floors down haha). However, I’ll still be back for my mom’s monggo soup, vegetable lumpia, and homemade pork and beans.

But first, I had to get all my books out!

They’ve been stacking up in random spots in the condo for the longest time, being the cause of some headaches when it comes to making it look clutter-free. Laying them all out on the floor, it was fun and kind of surprising to see all those impulse purchases finally piled up!

Whew! I should really account for all these. I can’t wait though for the time to fix them all up on the shelves!

***

#2: A new shop. A new hope!

I’ve written before of the closing of my trusty coffee shop, and how anxious I was on what the next store would be. A few weeks ago I was intrigued at some construction going on: tearing down some tiles and changing the whole face of the shop. What store could it be? Another coffee shop?

It turns out that a new milk tea place was rising, and it finally opened today! On my way back from Shang Plaza I remembered that today was its opening so I hurried over there to grab a drink with my brother. The store’s called MilkyWayTea and they serve milk tea, frozen yogurt, and…waffles! The waffles really sparked my curiosity since I love them and I stole a glance from one who was just eating them and they looked heavenly. The wintermelon tea was great! But with all the Milk Tea places around now, it’s pretty much the same level with ChaTime and Serenitea. If it’s just a short walk from where you live, though, I guess that’s the tipping point.

Oh I also got a loyalty card!

Here’s the menu for the frozen yogurt, waffles, and buttered bread *drool*

I’ll be back for them waffles!

#3: thinking in pencil

I wondered if I could sketch with a mechanical pencil. I usually get results (decent ones at least) when I’m terribly bored and with a wooden pencil in hand but ever since I started using mechanical pencils, I wondered if the shading would be all right. I tried it out a few days ago while I was at some training talk.

Contemplative. Shy and yet longing for something she’s not quite sure of yet. Curious. Haha beats me, I can hardly remember even what I was thinking about when I started this.

Adieu!