Anxiety, Probably Called For

Been having a lot of weird dreams, all of which I am remembering, lately.  A bunch of anxiety dreams that night before the airport shift, the worst of which involved running down a pitch black (and deserted) hallway of a hotel, trying to find someone, and calling out their name, to no avail, though I can feel that some of the doors are open.  It's the "first day on a new job" feeling, the new thing that's out of my routine.  And seeing the reality of how much I have a routine as much as I'd hate to admit it.  (I'd be fine now, since I've gotten through it.  Though I still have anxiety dreams before I have to travel anywhere, even if it's just to my parents' house.)  In reality, the morning started out somewhat chaotic, the driver and I arrived a little after 8 am (I thought we were supposed to show up an hour early at the office) only to find a sign saying the office didn't open up until 9 am, and the flights were coming in before 10.  We did find someone, in the end, and we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  I had to meet people at different baggage claim areas, and the flights came in within 10-15 minutes of each other.  I had pictures, the first person resembled his photo, and once we found each other, we walked to the other baggage claim area.  Waited.  And waited.  I saw two people early on that I thought might be who I was meeting, but they didn't see me holding up their name, and he didn't look much like his photo.  (Though I have since seen the same photo elsewhere, and now see the resemblance.)  They walked away, and the area cleared out for the next incoming flight, and then walked back about 20 minutes later, where we finally connected.

Saturday, woke up to a sodden morning, and more weird dreams, trekked out to see the 3-Minute masters at SIFF, then caught the light rail back to the U District to stop by the Farmer's Market (to find something to make pesto with), checking out the Street Fair, which wasn't overly busy, due to the rain and cold, and only bought a tamale, in the end.  (No more nettles to be had.)  (And I love living in a city that has the equivalent of a "subway" now, though I do sometimes think about earthquakes when I'm on it.)

And between the short films, and the street fair, inspired to create.  To expand the realm of what is available, what is possible, what is interesting, believable, beautiful, thriving, pulsing and exciting in my mind.  Good to get out of my own world.  Good to feel inspired.

Today, I went to go see "How Things Work," an Argentinian film, playing in Ballard.  I saw the filmmaker standing outside, and went over to say "Hi" and "Congratulations! It has pretty much sold out."  (I went over and said "hi" because I felt bad about the airport thing; it was their film.  Hopefully, that's not considered "hounding," not my intention, though in retrospect, I can see how it could be.  And if called on it, I won't defend myself.)  I also traded in a couple of my comps for future tickets, tentatively, because I still haven't heard when we are going to be filming our class thing.  (Really hoping we can see the script beforehand, or meet; it's been a while.)

I liked it, had some magical realism.  I liked the camera angles, the way it was filmed, the use of hand-held, the beauty of the desert light.  It's about a toll-booth worker who takes a job selling encyclopedias (that have the "answers to everything" in them) on the road, after her father dies, in order to earn enough money to go to Italy to find her birth mother.  It ends where she is standing in front of her mother on Christmas morning, trying to sell her an encyclopedia, or rather, her mother making an offer to buy one.

There were tangential stories, which I guess would be the magical realism, and they worked for me.  Made me think of our film class and how there are many different ways of telling a story. Perhaps in class, where I have a vague memory of someone mentioning adding something to a script for the purpose of "magical realism," they get told to cut things so they can keep focus on the main protagonist's journey, because they are learning how to tell a story on film...kinda' like the difference between writing a stage play vs. a screenplay, how many fewer words the latter can have, the idea that you don't say it if you can show it, on film.  And how with both, you don't need to tell the audience everything with words, you can let them make the connections themselves.  Trust that they will.  (And I guess that's a difference between telling a story vs. giving a manifesto.  The beauty of a good story being that it can work on you your whole life; at different junctures of your life, you find new meaning in it.  With no definitive answer or resolution, you can turn it over like a pebble, and wrestle with it over the course of your life, sometimes actively, sometimes doing the work passively, but always an irritant to keep you searching.)

The filmmaker mentioned ending it at the meeting, without closure, because he wanted to leave the audience with something to chew on when they left the theatre.  The story was interspersed with "interviews" with the various characters answering questions to the camera, such as "Do you believe in everlasting love?"  "What is death?"  "How do you carry on?"  Questions the encyclopedia might have the answer to, and a way to see deeper into their stories.

One of the tangential stories had to do with an astronaut dog.  And at the end of the movie, my first thought was, "What happened to the dog?"  Actually, the relaltionship between the two women had enough closure for me, because they did finally meet (though every other storyline was left open to ponder; this was her main objective.  And now I wonder, "How does she get back home?"  "Does she go back home?")

In the Q & A after, he mentioned it had taken him nine years to make this film, from when he started to write it.  It won Best Director (Argentinian) and Best Screen Play (Argentinian) at the 2015 Mar de Plata Festival in Argentina.  ("Embrace the Serpent" won the top prize for best feature film.  That played here a couple months back.)  Guess it's okay that I'm still stewing over the thing I started writing last summer, but can't figure out where to go with.