I was pretty satisfied with how my Film Story Narrative turned out. I got to talk about what, in the grand scheme of things, amounted to an exciting and memorable moment with my sister (whom I often clash with), and it was certainly a moment that's fun to share. I love telling stories about my life, especially when things get crazy and go off the rails. And boy, let me tell you, sometimes they really do.
And that's actually what I wanted to talk about in this post. I really kind of "settled" when it came to the moment I chose. I didn't tell any of the stories I thought I would tell for the assignment. That was why I originally didn't want to share with anyone in the first place, because of the kinds of stories I had to tell. I love telling these stories when I know the audience will be sympathetic, but I fear to tell them to anyone who might not understand. All of the stories I really wanted to tell had something in them that I was truly regretful of or otherwise didn't think was appropriate to bring up in an academic setting. Some of them were moments of danger, others were moments of great wrongdoing. Some of them I can even remember almost innocently or fondly due to the amount of time that has passed, but still they were tinged with horrible decisions, if not the ugly consequences as well.
But that was what made them so CINEMATIC to me. That was what brought the life out of the brain inside of my body and put it in the room.... or parking lot.... or random field in the middle of nowhere. These were the moments that placed me firmly in the soil I stood on, the moments that made me hyperaware of exactly where and when I was on planet earth, and yet at the same time like I was nowhere at all. Nowhere, except "the moment." I don't regret the story I chose, but I do know that these other stories were far more impactful to me in the long run.
As I write this, I'm actually going through one of the hardest phases I've gone through in my whole life. A little while ago, I lost a certain person and it threw me through a complete loop that I'm still navigating. I realized that what I had/have been going through parallels my favorite series of cinematic moments, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I couldn't find the exact moment I was looking for on YouTube but this clip from the same scene actually does a better job of explaining why I love this character moment so much.
In the context of this clip, Zuko is becoming physically ill because he is transforming from a bad person into a good person. He is starting to make moral decisions rather than selfish ones, and the inner conflict is eating him alive. For some reason, I picked up a certain "badassery" from the fact that he was suffering so much for the sake of being good. He's even resisting the goodness, insisting upon being evil. My favorite thing about this moment is actually that he ends up doing the MOST EVIL THING YET right after he recovers from his sickness. Yet you know that deeper down in his heart the good is winning, and he is truly growing, and when he comes back in the next season, he is a truly good man who has fully metamorphized, and from then on he is a great man.
The events that took place at the end of my summer shook me mentally and then it similarly hit me physically, like Zuko is going through in these clips. I got sick. All of the sudden, I had found myself laying in bed, trying to stay fed and hydrated and not just waste away. And much like Zuko below, you stop caring if you spill some water. All you can focus on is yourself, getting through your hardships, and continuing your journey, even if that journey only looks to be suffering for the time being. I didn't realize until recently that I had suddenly been in all of the same positions that Zuko had been, as pictured below.
Not all stories are happy, or easy to tell. Sometimes, the best stories are the ones where we fall the hardest. To us filmmakers, it's all about expression, and sometimes we have to remember it's just as important to express the bad things and the hard times as it is to express the good ones.
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