Picked this up 6 months ago from a Poundshop!
“A brilliant, brilliant film” i read from one enthusiast. I remember in the 1980’s indulging in deep and meaningfuls about the deep and meaningfuls that Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory get up to in the film. Stream of consciousness dialogues sprouting inspiration all over the place. It moved and meant something i needed to be meaning – then.
And now – over 25 years later? Not quite the same impact. Altho i still feel fondness. I can still see aspects of my younger idealistic self: the earnest yearning for personal transformation. But maybe less earnest these days. And less a yearning for. Because most of my life has happened already
Andre generates most of the energy of the interaction, sets the revelatory mood and insistent tone: “It was very very”…”She really….” – his urgent earnestness compels Wally Shawn to mug up a kind of rapt, complicit attention – “Gosh”, “Wow!”, “Really amazing” – which is meant to be mimicking the rapt attention we as listeners are experiencing as watchers.
“I experienced for the first time in my life what it is to be truly alive. Now that is frightening because with that comes an immediate awareness of death, being connected to everything means also to be connected to death” gasps Andre. “That’s really amazing” chortles Wally.
Andre gets on a roll and he’s off; unraveling his whole shebang of spiritual transformation re meaningful serendipity’s, eating sand in the Sahara with a devilish Japanese monk, seeing minotaurs, seeing fauns, the power of flags (Tibetan swastika) meditating with cauliflowers in Findhorn, being buried alive in a dug grave.
He’s perceptive enough to know that his story of transformation hasn’t sorted him tho – he’s still vulnerable and neurotically judgmental. Still doing complaint about how awful life is, how much like zombies we all are.
There’s alarm expressed at electric blanket comfort complacency, how the seasons don’t affect us anymore, how out of touch with direct reality we are, how we ought to breaking through habituated role-playing and experiencing each moment anew; how every action should be a prayer (according to Martin Buber)
Eventually, Wally has to butt in with some objections to all this earnest piousness, stick up for electric blankets:
“Do you want to know my actual response to all of this? I’m just trying to survive. I’m reading Charlton Hestons biography. I keep a list of errands to do in a notebook…. I enjoy having a delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake – why is it necessary to have any more than this?”
“If you’re really alive inside there’s no problem. If you’re living with someone in a little room and there’s a life going on between you – a whole adventure can be going on right there in that room” says Andre graciously.
Wally does a little bit more token objecting re how doing nothing and merely “being” is absurd….”It’s our nature to do things, be purposeful” – but Andre has got all the trump cards really, the whole point and purpose of the film is with him:
“I can imagine a life when each day could be an incredible monumental creative task – a life of such feeling; quickly falling into enthusiasms, joy celebration, wonder, abandon, tenderness – could we stand to live like that?” he’s saying softly, tenderly.
Wally’s resistance is broken. They end their dinner, go their separate ways. Wally fondly reminisces about places where his life has been – all those little significances – on his journey back home.
We feel his tender glow. And maybe like him we feel our souls enhanced, our life’s feel suitably affirmed – we’ve woken up (a little) to our little selves.
That life affirming woken up juicy feeling is what i experienced seeing this film back in the 1980’s. Now tho the impact isn’t quite there. Life has moved on since then. There’s just so much more of this transformation stuff in the public domain. We’re stuffed to the gills – through the Internet, self-help manuals, inspirational weekend workshops etc – on how we should be self-actualising our full potential, realising our better happier more real selves….
I think the core message of the film is still sound, worthwhile, relevant. But maybe i look at the messengers a bit more critically. Why is Andre having to talk to Wally at all? A need to indulge and show his Ego towards somebody who would passively reflect it perhaps? I mean i’m seeing Wally as a bit of a wally – so why isn’t he?
And Wally Shawn i find vaguely irritating now; his high pitched squeaky whine of a voice, his odd head, squinty eyes, ingratiating look, his obsequious but faintly mocking manner – he comes across as a ridiculous character – like a caricature of a perpetual loser, yer ordinary averagely neurotic Wally.
I’ll keep this film tho. And will always watch it again. But watching it as stimulating entertainment – rather than as the bewitching provocation it once was.
Dir: Andre Malle, USA
8.5/10
