Sunday, March 18, 2018

Some recommendations: a book--The Journal Keeper: A Memoir; a TV series--The Sinner; and a film--Thelma

Winter is a season that keeps me indoors a lot of the time. I miss my garden and being outdoors, so it ends up being a good opportunity to catch up on my reading, movie watching, and TV watching. The latter two have tended to merge into each other since the movie theaters here have reduced their offerings considerably. Going to the movies is not what it once was, sadly. I keep hoping that movie theaters will not disappear altogether, but you never know given the ease of streaming films on nearly any device you wish to use.

I am reading Phyllis Theroux’s The Journal Keeper: A Memoir at present; I am only a fourth of the way through it, but can wholeheartedly recommend it. This memoir is a collection of her reflections on: her life as a writer, writing, the joys and difficulties of being a writer, finances, life, love, friendship, and her mistakes, strengths, dreams and desires. They are all things to which I can relate. She lived with (and took care of) her nearly-blind mother until she passed away, so she understands the passage of time and the importance of living now and doing what it is we must do. She understands the idea of trying to be the best version of herself. She is honest, unflinching and clear about her progress, successes and failures, about her relationships with her mother, children, neighbors and friends. It is rare that I come across a voice that resonates with me, or better-put, resonates with that part of me that is facing many of the same challenges. I look forward to picking up her book again in the evening before I sleep; I look forward to hearing what she has to say. She could be a friend; she is at the very least someone I would truly enjoy getting to know.

I have also discovered The Sinner, a 2017 TV series starring Jessica Biel. She plays a young married woman with a child, and her life seems to be ordinary and reasonably happy. She and her husband seem to have a good relationship. They both work together at the same company run by her husband’s father. And then one day when she and her family are relaxing on the beach at a nearby lake, she suddenly and inexplicably stands up, knife in hand, and proceeds to stab to death the young man sitting at a distance in front of her. And then the story really begins, because we know she has murdered him. The question is why. And that why is a journey into her psyche, her family life before she married, her relationship with her terminally-ill sister, and her relationship with her parents (especially an over-religious mother). The policeman assigned to her case tries to dig into her past in an effort to find answers as to why she would murder someone for apparently no reason. We know of course that he will find out many things, and many of them are not pleasant. I’ll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that Jessica Biel owns the role of The Sinner—a woman whose present life is suddenly and without warning, ripped unmercifully apart by her past. It’s a gripping crime drama, but not one for those under sixteen, due to the often lurid subject matter and the sexual situations.  

And in the same vein (repressed young woman whose life takes a bizarre turn), we have Thelma, a 2017 film by the Norwegian director Joachim Trier. After seeing this film, I ask--what scares you? As a former horror movie aficionado, I find that as I get older, it’s not the blood and guts horror films that really scare me. The films that have the greatest impact on me, the ones that linger in my mind long after they’re over, the ones that scare me when I think back on them--are the films that create the suggestion of terror, of horror, of the supernatural. They’re the films that have an ominous cloud hanging over them, a cloud that creates paranoia and murkiness. They’re the films where nearly everything that happens has some sort of darker meaning. In Thelma, crows have a special meaning. Panic attacks similar to epileptic seizures have a special meaning. Thelma’s father and mother understand this. Is Thelma a witch? Has she inherited her grandmother's psychological disorder involving the ability to use psychokinesis to change situations that upset or anger her (think of the main protagonist in the 1976 film Carrie). Or is she just a disturbed young woman whose meeting with first love just happens to be a lesbian relationship, which throws her psyche into direct conflict with her repressive religious upbringing that both her parents have foisted upon her. What horrific secrets lie in her past to explain her present life? There are secrets, and there are unpleasant revelations that can only lead to one outcome—again, that the past rears its ugly head to upset the present, because the past cannot be repressed forever. Repressed feelings, if they cannot be normally expressed, find their way out in other ways. What will it take to free Thelma from her past? And what happens if she is freed from it? Eventually, she finds out, and the outcome is disturbing. Thelma is worth seeing; it’s a hard-to-define movie. Is it a psychological thriller or is it a horror film? I'd say it's both. It gives viewers chills down the spine, a sense of foreboding, an uncomfortable feeling, and a feeling of dread concerning (knowing) what comes next. Both Thelma and The Sinner excel in this regard.  

   

The surreal world we live in

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