Film

Went and saw the film Atlantic, by director Jan-Willem van Ewijks last night.  About a wind-surfer from a small village in Morocco that decides to cross the Atlantic to Europe.  It left me with a lot of mixed feelings.  On the one hand, there's the excess of the first world, where relatively wealthy citizens vacation in impoverished third-world countries, bringing along with them a vision of a different life, one unavailable to those whose country they visit.  Leaving behind a longing for something more out of life as well as anything they no longer need, i.e., discarding (out of sight out of mind) their trash for someone else to deal with.  The director talking about how he had found this particular village because the wind and waves were good, and how when they left, they left behind their broken wind-surfing gear.  How the locals repaired it and taught themselves how to use it (and on a bright note, how one of those locals is now one of the top wind-surfers in the world.)  It brings back memories of living in Central America in college.  We (my class) were having an argument about bringing "modernity" (for lack of a better term) to those villages.  The argument was actually about a can opener.  On the one side was "who are we to deny something that makes life easier," on the other, the bringing of trash and of changing a culture.  Plastic bags had recently been introduced, and that was somewhat of a bane.  There was no garbage service, so pits were dug, and everything was burned.  Plastic is rather toxic to burn.  But things like indoor plumbing, and electricity, and appliances can also be seen as a good thing.  Or the idea of education to give people a choice, a way out of poverty.  Anyway, I think once you let the genie out of the bottle, it's not possible to put it back.

As far as the film itself goes, it was probably too long, and could've done without the director inserting himself into the middle of it, and all the wind-surfing tricks, which while interesting, kinda drew the focus away from the journey.  I would've liked more of the journey.  The parts that worked the best were his struggle on the journey, and the flashbacks of his relationships with the people in his life.

That said, the director did an amazing job of creating a sense of longing and loss, moving between the actual journey and flashbacks to his life in the village.  The village itself being run-down.  The family fishing and coming up short while in the distance we see a commercial fishing vessel, it's massive nets loaded with fish.  What was the future going to be if he stayed?

But how does one choose to leave?  It was ostensibly about a woman, but more about wanting more from life, that which was denied because of where he was born.  So he decides to leave, to cross the ocean on his board, at one point when he finally leaves behind the coastline of Africa, 300 kms of open water.  In the flashbacks there is a sense of finality.  Of essentially choosing death over staying.  Of everything one leaves behind, knowing you can't return.  Of not really even saying goodbye, but leaving, and in that moment of choice, being separated from everyone and everything you knew.  Already homesick.  Already lost.  No luxury of second chances.

So in that sense, the saddest movie I've ever seen.  Empathy for loss.  It's not an easy choice.