Bernatk - Heatherfield Citizen

Tarsem’s The Fall #1 - Resonating

The Fall is my favorite movie, so on many occasions I was confronted with the question, ”What do you like about it?” In this series that I’m starting right here and right now I’d like to investigate the reasons behind my connection to the movie. I want to start by the most personal tie.

When I first saw the movie I had no more than a vague idea what it would be about and a brief sample that I had watched just to know if it’s as beautiful as promised. As the story unfolded I was, of course, swept away by the beautiful imagery and the generous and unpretentious way a child’s imagination is translated to film but of course this wasn’t my first time seeing gripping visuals.

At the bottom of my experience there lay a powerful component: Much like Alexandria uses an avatar in the form of nurse Evelyn at one point of the story, I too have found a character to embody me. Prior to my first viewing I had had a very unpleasant happening with my heart and I was still far from having a ready medical report, so I was compressed into a two-dimensional state, consisting of uncertainty and fear, these very efficiently feeding each other. Later I turned out to have a manageable condition but at that time I was thoroughly afraid of dying. As a twenty-one-year-old this was my first time of facing mortality in its reality and eventuality. To me the way Roy took the defeatist standpoint was a familiar attitude, as I was also regarding my state very grimly.

Roy: “ It was the natural order of things... all things must die.”

The catharsis at the end of the movie, with the idiosyncratic added heartbeat-sound, could really move me. Although I saw no analogy there with my life, I still felt lifted up and hopeful, which was something I craved.

Months later, when I revisited The Fall, I had had new developments and I finally knew considerably more about my health. I was in no imminent danger but I was ordered to keep away from a very long list of kinds of physical exercise, which made me morose. I, a young person, had known the world most profoundly through times spent with the thumping in my ear, signalling that I was at my top speed or at the limits of my strength. Sports have been to me, what I’m sure is easily relatable, the place to feel very clearly that I was alive.

Deprived of this physical but pure joy I felt, and to a certain extent still do, that I had been handicapped, robbed of my physical future. I saw that I was restrained to the bounds of moderate movement and I was filled with the hateful expectation that my life, however distant from actual danger now, would undoubtedly be deemed to be shorter than what I had originally hoped for.

Over time my fears had somewhat dissipated but whenever I watch poor Roy struggle with his very physical inadequacy and his hopelessness I also see myself. The Fall is a story, in which people use a story to shape reality (had I no medical issue I’d probably love this movie most for being so meta) because stories, however escapist, have actual impact on the audience’s reality. I had always been invested in fiction because I understood that it has the potential to be almost supernaturally powerful, however, no story had cut deeper than this and none had treated me with more care than this.

a wonderful event in the life of a truly wonderful YouTuber :)

I’ve been a Christian my entire life, but wasn’t baptized as a child. That changed last night, and I feel incredibly blessed and humbled.

I like being reminded of love.

Battle of tastes

What book (Out of ALL!) has the best opening lines?

Man, I envy you quite honestly and proudly

Optimism, Pessimism, Perspective and the Question of Society and Art

Recently I experienced an emotional antinomy in regards of how current technology and social media affect art.

My first observation was that it multiplies the art outlets and creates a vast stock of memorabilia about artists for the ages to come. How nice would it be to read Fitzgerald’s tumblr posts.

The second observation was that the increased outlets and the conservation of everything brings about a horrific picture about our age. As cheap horror flicks went down the sewers a hundred years ago and then disintegrated from human remembering, we cannot anticipate today’s trash to just disappear because it will haunt the internet forever.

But just today I woke up with a realization that alleviated my passionate opinions. I remembered that people read and watch and touch what they choose to. The internet does not change the people fundamentally, it is exactly the other way around. However the current society wishes to shape the world of art, it is not a danger on the bigger arc of things. The case has never been changed, not even slightly, dumb people have always been into dumb things and smart people have always been into smart things. Any alternation that has ever happened happened in the individual’s life. We, as persons, and not as society, move forward. It is because of each individual’s limited time on earth: we start from nil and run as fast as we can to get the farthest possible but it does not affect society, as it survives the individual. Unless people can somehow learn to give birth to children with a refined sense of society in their heads, society will not become smarter or dumber, just a mass of us.

You: I'd say it's complicated but then...

Breaking the Ice

For about half a year I've been stuck. I haven't written a single word worth mentioning. And that's a problem if you're trying to write something. I had a conflict that I had to rewrite before the climax of my story and nothing worked. I resolved I would not progress with he whole novel as long as this problem is not solved and today, with pride I say, I have solved it. It's possibly the sweetest, neatest, greatest, most dynamic, most intense part of the whole thing.

But why couldn't I write it? I've been in a bittersweet relationship with the Creator of everything. Last time in church, the scripture said that what the Lord requires of me is:

to try to live in love,

to live according to His laws,

and to be humble toward Him.

None of the above has been fulfilled lately. But He reached down to me and, so openly, he set the rules for me. I was finally told exactly where I'm lacking. Everywhere, apparently. But it's good, it's really the best. I finally know that I should do these three. And I'm so thankful! Knowing this is salvation. I'm saved... once more. This is the biggest thing of my life and now that it's done--not for the first time, sadly--life can/must move on for me. Move forward ;)