The pandemic has given me the space to rediscover what I had
forgotten to remember. I have focused on
writing and painting since street photography is at halt now: how can one take
photos of people when the streets are empty?
In some ways, walking back on the streets of time can have
similar challenges. What if you walk back and over the past half a century
there are few people you meet again on those streets? What if they seem now
different, strangers, and you do not find anything to talk about?
Walking back is also surrounded by goodbyes. You see faces,
you recall names, but you mostly find yourself in buildings, in various
countries, in train stations, in airports. You hear the crowd, or you hear
nothing. You smell tobacco and tea in a remote countryside, or your senses
become sterile and unassuming.
.. When I am not writing or walking the desert away from
masked and unmasked people, I like to watch a movie. In fact this is a new
experience since before the pandemic I never had the luxury of personal time so
frequently. I like Scandinavian TV series
and movies. Somehow the minimalist action and the thoughtful content are
fresh escapes from car chases, violence, drugs and gratuitous sex. It also
makes it comforting to see that actors do not have perfectly white implanted
teeth! It makes the watch more compatible with daily life.
But this time as I was moving through the movies on Netflix,
I stopped on a Spanish 2016 movie titled “The Reconquest” or “La Reconquista”.
I knew nothing about it so decided to start watching it.
…As a street photographer I am not keen on studying context
or frame of where a shot may take place. Rather, I have learned to anticipate
(people are mostly predictable…) what can happen when this or that are in the
moment. So I stay ready to click just before it happens. So I did not read
about the movie, just thought the title fit in my present mood of returning and
rediscovering.
… A few seconds after the movie started, I had the funny
feeling of watching the 1995 cultish movie ”Before Sunrise” by Richard Linklater. Like thousands of viewers, I
thought Julie Delpy was someone many have met at some point. She was fresh,
spontaneous and real. Of course Linklater built on the success to proceed with
a Trilogy as “Before Sunset” (2004)
and “Before Midnight” (2013).
The central theme is goodbyes and retrouvailles between a young
couple. It was perhaps that aspect of life that attracted me most. After all,
since the modern Homo sapiens walked this earth 50,000 years ago, it is
estimated that 108 billion humans have so far come and gone. I think it would
be impossible not to have 108 billion goodbyes having happened, with or without
retrouvailles.
The simple statements, and underlying down-to-earth
philosophy of “Before Sunrise” may be when Céline (Delpy) said:
“It's depressing, no?
That the... the only thing we're gonna think of is when we're gonna have to say
goodbye tomorrow”
And Jesse (Hawke) proposed:
“ Well, we could say goodbye now. Then we
wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.”
There you have it – instead of rejecting what is bound to
happen, finding harmony with reality.
… La Reconquista
has a similar theme. Manuela (Itasaso Arana) and Olmo (Francesco Carril),
childhood sweethearts, meet in Madrid for one evening to relive the past and
think about the future. The movie is fresh as Manuela’s smile and delightfully
conversant eyes. It is as comforting as Olmo’s silent smile. There is no
violence, no sex, not even a single kiss. It is all about walking that street
back and celebrating the walk they separately took 15 years before that evening
in Madrid.
While Céline and Jesse shared existential philosophy in
there conversations through 3 movies, La
Reconquista lets the Spanish
troubadour/poet Rafael Berrio sing the philosophy of expectations, wasted time
and goodbyes. It is pure poetry sung by Berrio and embodied by Itsaso and
Carril.
Here are a few translated lines from Berrio’s songs:
If everything in it is
an improvised and stuffed part
I am afraid I have
spent my life gathering the courage I lack
And declaring solemn
intentions in front of the mirror
Leaving things for a
better time that never arrives
… That time might have happened early in life but we always
think there is more to come., That is why we live a life of postponing things
instead of recognizing that the best moments of our lives can be early on.
Hence we need to celebrate and hold on to these. Not bypass them as mere
building stones toward something bigger. In some way, that is the message of La
Reconquista – not goodbyes, not retrouvailles and Hollywood endings. Just now
30 year old Manuela ad Olmo who meet for one evening in Madrid to recognize and
celebrate that the best moment of their lives happened when they were
teenagers, 15 years ago. There is no reconquest in the sense of getting back
together. No. The reconquest is of the times 15 years ago when they experienced
the magic of being together, unconditionally. And in order to keep that feeling
unaltered, Manuela wrote a goodbye note to Olmo. Not because she wanted to
leave him, but because she wanted to keep the moment in its grandeur.
And these are reflected upon in other lines from Berrio as:
I have always been
distracted with my mind so far away
I am afraid I am badly
wounded
I am afraid I have
used myself up
To live
And now it is late
Quite late
I am afraid I am badly
wounded
I am afraid I have
used myself up
As if I
Had the talent
To live
Twice
… We do not sleep in the same bed twice. We do not step in
the same river twice. And surely we do not live twice. But if, like a street
photographer, we are ready to click when a story unfolds for us, we may have
captured that magic moment that does not need the rest of our lives to wait
for. It is now part of our rediscovery to love, celebrate and remember.
PS/ By
coincidence, this morning I read a January 22, 2020 Vanity Fair interview
with Richard Linklater where he does not seem to dismiss the possibility of a 4th
“Before” movie… Well, I do hope that he keeps it to the trilogy as they
represent a specific time capsule of a genre.
July 18, 2020
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2020
