"i want a love like the movies…" the (unrealistic? destructive?) yearnings for a different life watching films has given me
"i always wish i was loving and suffering the way they are"
Star Wars made me wish I was born into its galaxy of empires and Jedis when I was a child. Moonrise Kingdom made me wish I could submerge myself into its warm pastels and stay there forever. Dead Poets Society made me wish I could experience a friendship as joyful and tragic as Todd and Neil’s. Wild Reeds made me wish I was living in countryside France in the 90’s.
Yearning for a life different from my own, living in these worlds of 24 frames per second instead of the present, is something I’m cursed with. Or blessed with?
See, that’s the thing. This yearning stems from the fundamental element of escapism that makes me feel a multitude of emotions while watching movies, and in a way I appreciate it immensely. Escapism is fun. Escapism is entertaining. Even the most relatable of movies – for example the holy grail of all coming-of-age movies Lady Bird – throw me into a world that I start missing when the credits roll.
And what would movies be if they don’t make you feel everything at once? But there’s also a dark side to yearning which I’ve noticed more and more over the months and have tried in so many ways to vocalise.
I guess one of them is the fact that it distracts you from the present. If you’re constantly longing for a different life, you’re never going to fully enjoy what you have, right here right now, even if everything’s going smoothly for you. That’s something I struggle with a lot; sometimes after finishing a really good movie or show, I get sad that I don’t have an Elio or a Neil, or that I’m not staring at the European sunlight glimmering in the waters of a creek, and after a day or two I wake up and go “well that sulking was for nothing. Life can be good without mimicking the movies, c’mon now.”
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the yearning comes despite the fact that most of these movies end badly. (This also works as a dissection of why I love sad movies so much).
you know, no matter how shitty a situation these people are in i always wish i was loving and suffering the way they are
This quote is by yours truly, from a review I wrote for a movie called Get Real, and I think it pretty much sums up the potentially destructive side of yearning. I want to suffer the way they’re suffering. Like, let me sit by the fireplace and cry for five minutes straight while reminiscing a predatory relationship. Let me cause my mother so much pain and trouble from the love she has for me that she dreams up the saddest scene in the history of film.
If I went through what these characters went through in real life, I 100% bet I wouldn’t enjoy it. And it’s definitely not healthy. But movies have a way of romanticising things, and I fall for it every single time.
For me, there’s not much I can, or more accurately want to do about it. Yearning is a messy thing, but there’s beauty in it, I think. It’s a representation of the impact movies can have on the most elementary of levels, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let me indulge in this cannibalistic relationship with film, for even when I’m getting devoured, bones and all, at least I got to feel what I felt along the way.