No, the conversation didn’t have the urgency or desperation of our first, nor the celebratory airs of the second. But I like to think that’s what made it special: in its relative mundanity it represented the completed nature of her hurdles. Now, finally, we could sit around chatting about nothing. She was dresssed as before: a black khimar with a niqab over her face, a brightly colored pink dress beneath, and a walker.
“Hey, you,” I said. “Hey!” I noticed her shopping bags and said in a winking voice, “Did you find everything you needed at Target?” “Well, let me tell you,” she began. I’ve got the luckiest job in the world. I can ask people with genuine interest how they’re doing, because, well, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got time to listen to whatever their answer is. I settled into my chair as we continued down the road, ready for a story. “I was with my friend. She's American. We went to Target, I got my stuff, and I paid for my stuff in line.” “Sure, sounds good so far.” “Yes so far so good. But I didn't know she was trying to steal stuff from the store. She stole makeup, soap, hairbrushes. And the security came out and stopped both of us. And I explained.” “Yeah, you didn’t know, you didn’t do anything!” “They said even if you didn't do anything, if you were with her, you can be charged too.” “Yeah as an accomplice. Oh no.” “But I explained this has nothing to do with me. Look at my receipts. I didn't know anything. I'm going home now.” “Perfect.” And here she was now, at the positive end of the story. A tall, thin gentleman approached her, speaking in her language. He was trying to tell me something and wanted her to interpret. I knew him primarily as a benign but contrarian soul who drank too much in the evenings. She turned to me, translating his words. “‘You are perfect bus driver.’” “What? Thank you! Thank you!” I was surprised to hear it from anyone, but especially him, who is usually on the awnrier side. She continued. “‘You very polite, drive really well.’” He repeated as much as he departed. I nodded gratefully. “I’ve seen him around a while now,” I said to her after he’d left. “I've known him for nine years,” she said. “But ten years ago he had sex with a woman on the street, and he got HIV.” “Oh no!” “Yeah. His family find out, his wife left him, his kids gone, he has nothing.” “Oh no. You know, they have medicine for that now.” “Yeah he takes it. Now he's so much better. He can live. His doctor tell him it's not even in his bloodstream anymore.” “Wow. I didn't know the medicine was that good!” “Yeah, ninety-nine percent. Maybe one percent you will catch it.” “Okay.” “But even so, I not going to have sex with someone who has HIV. I say, Baby, I'm not feeling it!” “Ha!” I felt such warmth from both of them. In their different ways they each have been dealt crushing blows by life, and come out the other end survivors. I was humbled that in their hardships they went out of their way to extend gratitude my way, I who am surely such an insignificant figure in their lives. But as we all know, sometimes one smile can turn the day around.
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As in several of the posts in this series (see below), I’m sprawled out on a bus home after a long day working. I’m exhausted and happy, sitting near the front, chatting up the operator. Tonight we were talking about what drivers always talk about: schedules.
“This one actually has pretty good breaks on it, right?” “You know, I haven't had any problems,” he replied. “And it's what, ten hours and change.” “Oh wow. Last shakeup this used to be a bonus time piece. They must've tacked on another round.” “Must have. Speaking of breaks though, I've been doing that 65–” Say no more, I thought. “Oh my gosh–” “Yeah!” “Isn't it terrible?” “They don't give you squat at either end!” Lots of drivers complain about schedules; I tend not to. I know it’s something I can’t control, like fare, so I let go of it. I just drive the route. But the 65/67 gets to even me– and him, for I knew the gent I was chatting with was similarly laid back– because that route’s murder on the body. It’s one thing to run late, but to be so late you’re seeing passengers on the other side of the street who are waiting for your bus, and you want to use the restroom… doing that for eight hours every day isn’t fun. No to mention a 70-block stretch where there's a zone about every two blocks. “It's just so weirdly timed,” I said. “They give you all this time to get from Northgate Transit to 75th, and then if it's peak they give you a bunch of time to get down to Light Rail, but once you get down there you're completely screwed going north on 35th. Completely!” “Completely! I actually filled out one of those forms and stapled the run card to it because I said, this is ridiculous.” “It's ridiculous! You can't get to QFC without being at least 8 minutes late, and it takes 8 minutes just to walk to QFC, plus walking back, plus actually using the comfort station–” “And you know they're not giving you 25-30 minutes up there!” “And with all those zones they have on 35th, there's no way you can– you just can't get up to speed.” “You can't.” He sighed. “Yeah, that one's a bear. I used to, last shakeup I did the very first 65, it's like at 4:30 or something. Four o'clock in the morning, and I'm already running late! I'd be going reverse peak at Five AM, five minutes down, it's still dark outside.” “You know, there was this one time where I pulled out, and managed, miraculously, to get no passengers and no red lights even, all greens, everything, from the terminal to one of the early timepoints. And I was already two minutes late! And of course after that it just snowballed. All greens and no people!” “Oh my gosh. Because under those circumstances you'd think you oughta be early.” “Yeah.” Enough complaining. I tried to remind both of us of a healthier way to look at all this. “You know, there was this senior guy told me once, way back before we had any of this, once he got late, he'd put the runcard back in his pocket and just drive the route safely.” My companion nodded, understanding. “Because why kill yourself.” “You know, I do the same thing! Once I know I'm gonna run hot, I change the DDU screen to something else, like the text messages or something, so I can't see the lateness. It works wonders.” “Because then you're just being safe.” “Instead of sort of, 'seeing red'–” “Yeah–” “–And getting pissed off at everything that holds you up. Else you're just gonna have a heart attack.” “You know,” he said, “I decided to change my focus. I decided to change my focus to, I'm gonna drive it legal.” “Yeah.” “If I get a yellow, I stop for it. I'm gonna take the turns at five, I'm gonna do this and that, not gonna try and cut all these corners. ‘Course I get really behind. But I just press that Late Beyond Recovery button. When I get to the terminal, of course there's no break, but I press the thing, I'm taking my union break just like it says on the runcard. Now, course I got totally slammed all night–” “Ha–” “But I felt great! I felt refreshed!” I knew just what he meant. “And you know, that's the best feedback you can give them upstairs.” “Exactly. All they see are the pie charts of look, these are running mostly on time. They don't know that you're busting your ass to get there. They think oh look, they're on time. And what we're doing to get there is just not safe. I was talking to Kevin about this, he said we are our own worst enemy.” “Totally.” “And I've been telling all the other operators, just drive it legally. Or else scheduling's gonna think everything's okay." "It's the best feedback you can give. Just run it safely. Which in the case of the 65/67 means being horrendously late all night!” “Ha!” “And, okay I love your focus on let's do it legal. Because I mean okay sure, you get slammed–” “Uh huh–” “But I think you feel better, more relaxed, paradoxically, if you’re full but not rushing, as opposed to having a half empty bus but you're killing yourself to stay on schedule.” “Yeah. You're in a healthier frame of mind if you're full but taking it easy, instead of being half full while going crazy driving.” “And it's better for your body. You're not all tensed up.” “Yeah.” “And you know how sometimes, you end up catching up when you're not trying to? Like you're having a conversation with somebody, all of a sudden you're hot?” We laughed. You do what you can. You find a strategy. Some are healthier than others. --- Nathan Converses With His Colleagues: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 My favorite part of the 5 is the slight right onto northbound Fremont Avenue. You’ve just come all the way from West Seattle, through town, up Aurora, and now you’re coming down Fremont Way preparing for that dip and right, getting onto the uphill.
Do it slowly, relishing how this moment represents the sheer size of everything you’re doing, majestically piloting this beast all over the intersection, a vehicle whose origin point is over an hour south of here, and you’ve still got the whole trip to Shoreline ahead of you. I love long routes, and something about this turn embodies the rich satisfaction of moving so many people such a distance. Maybe it’s the fact that you have to take the turn slowly, due to the angle of the roadway. The slowness reveals the massive, the significant. The 5. I wonder if the fellow standing next to me on this cram-packed coach could sense my enthusiasm. “I'll be taking your next stop,” he said. A midtown office worker headed home to North Seattle. “Oh sure thing,” I replied. “Thanks for stopping in!” “Ha!” “Keepin’ tabs on me!” He got my humor, deadpanning, “You know, it’s a hard life. Going around making sure everyone's…” “I was starting to feel lonely up in here!” “Yeah,” he remarked, surveying the overloaded space. Must’ve been a hundred souls in here, easy. “You didn't seem like you had quite enough people.” “We were missing the crucial ingredient!” “Gosh, what a crowd.” “I know,” I said. “We got such a great turnout today.” “You're just so…” “I feel loved!” “They had so many options to pick from…” “And they chose me!! It's incredible to me really, the stream of humanity that comes through.” “All at the one time.” “Yeah.” More seriously now, genuinely marvelling. “And it just doesn't end. There was another 5 a couple minutes behind me, and that one was full too!! Which means in the space of this going by, and that one showing up, a while another crowd showed up! Just this endless stream of…” “Job security!!” “Ha!” We had no idea what the future held. And we would hardly have benefited from knowing. The nature of life is to enjoy the moment, or at least the recent past, while leaving room for the openness of futures unknown. There would be time for empty buses, civic strife and economic collapse later. We humans are blessed with the ignorance of linear time. Only in our blissful cloud of unknowing could he and I so fully together revel in life's simplest fleeting pleasures, "enjoying," as Goethe wrote in 1787, "all that is enjoyable." The passenger above had the gift of looking on the mundane with fondness while it was still happening, before things are reduced to memory. I hope I can keep up the same. Another quick video for today, this time my reflections on why the book is what it is, what its intentions are, and why I wrote it. Just under 6 minutes! Buy the book from Elliott Bay here, or from Third Place Books, here, or any of the other locations linked here. While I have the luxury to do so, I'm committed to supporting local bookstores (more on why here).
Are you having trouble getting hold of the book? Email Chin Music Press at chinmusicpress@gmail.com– they're the ones who can get you more hard copies or (potentially) an ebook! Two fun updates– My film Men I Trust has been accepted as an official selection at the Venice Intercultural Film Festival, where it will screen (at an abandoned military base, no less, making the most of exciting social distancing possibilities!) on June 26 and 27! Men I Trust is one of only three films representing the US at the festival, and has received the selection honor of “Best Short/Doc on Women.” Read Amsterdam's NRFF Artist of the Month interview about the film with me here. Link to the VIFF site here. Watch the trailer, check out pictures and posters and more at the film's official webpage here. Also– my book, The Lines that Make Us is Redmond Library's, Microsoft's, and the City of Redmond's choice for their Summer Reading Program! I'm touched particularly because I worked as a page at Redmond Library for 6 years, and never for one second dreamed my book would even be in their system, let alone 36 copies, let alone their choice for the single Summer book. Quite frankly, I have trouble believing it. Here's KCLS's official page promoting the book; check back for weekly updates– short video interviews with me about selected chapters from the book, plus a whole lot more. The first interview I've included below, along with a short video from the Mayor of Redmond offering her thoughts as well (thank you, Angela!). We're in the process of working with Chin Music Press to get more copies your way; for now, the book is officially in stock and on sale at Elliott Bay– buy the book from them here– or from Third Place Books, here. These sorts of things happen only with the support and enthusiasm of folks like yourself. Thanks for indulging my ebullience and slightly crazed positivity!! Enjoy the links above and below, and I'll see you all soon! This story is a follow-up to this story.
There she was, again! The same hijab and stroller, but most recognizably the immediacy of those smiling eyes, and the ebullient voice from behind the cloth. “You came back!” I exclaimed. “Yes, I came back!” The last time I’d seen her I wished her well in my heart, appreciating her audacity but not optimistic about her hopes. I see far, far more people who tell me of their plans than who return intact to tell me their success stories. I was worried for how badly it might have gone, and considered not bringing it up at all. She had traveled across the country to recover a daughter she wasn’t sure she could find, who might not even want to see her, with hostile family members and officials thrown into the mix for good measure. Just the thought of how awfully it could go would be enough to make me consider not even trying at all. What had those eyes seen? I had to ask. “How was Minnesota?” “I had a great time. The hotel was nice, the people are nice. But it's so hot!” It was summertime. “Yeah it is.” “You felt it too?” “Yeah, a different type of heat than here, huh?” “Yeah I don't like the heat,” she said. “But I like the people. And it's cleaner than here, yeah?” “Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about you, wondering... did everything work out okay?” “Yeah, everything worked out!” Just go for it. Just ask. In the good mood she’s in, how badly could it have gone? I cleared my throat. “Did you find your daughter?” “Yes, I found her! We made up, now she calls me every day!” “Wow! My friend! Congratulations!!” “Yes I talked to the police. I could not find her so I said to the police to find my daughter. I explained my situation.” “And they have to listen to you, you're the mother.” “Yes they found her. It took them five days.” “I'm so glad they helped!” “Yeah. She opened the door and saw me and she cried.” I made a mental note: Not to be be such a pessimist! Miracles happen more often in life than in stories, and here was yet another: a daughter receiving, and welcoming, a tremendous act of love from her mother, a woman who put it all on the line after years of hardship. Who must have felt such shuddering relief at all of this, for a change, working out better than anyone could dream of. What a sense of discovery must have coursed through her soul! What peace! “I'm so glad she understood, she understands,” I said. That you're her mother and you love her.” “That’s right!” And how. --- One more story with her. He was late teens, or early twenties maybe, the age when you’re searching for what to believe and rebellion carries the heat of refreshing excitement. Irony lives large, but sincerity and passion wait around the corner, intermittently revealing hints of their immense future value. He had a nondescript black beanie and dark long-sleeve button-up, untucked and unironed, of a piece with his lean and slouching figure. We were on a northbound 5, cruising into 130th. It was almost his stop.
I said, “How's it been going?” “Aw, pretty good, bro. And you?” I was a young man in my early thirties, verging on middle thirties; the time when youthful confusion has settled down, and sensitivity has revealed its appeal, but also the time when people you know are starting to die, and thoughts of mortality creep in, destabilizing what you thought you knew. I said what happened to be percolating in my mind for that whole drive, and what gave me peace in these chaotic times. “I don't understand this life, but I like living in it!” He kept staring forward at the road. Thinking. A door was opening in his mind, and he reflected, rising, formulating. Finally he exclaimed, with sudden force and excitement: “Fuck yeah!” The pause before his words, as landscapes came together. Concepts were formulating; their speed and freedom unleashed his outcry, a mental freedom that made the day all over again. You sensed my phrase gave him a place to put his ironic rebellion, a standpoint which quelled the thirst of sarcasm and pessimism while allowing room for unvarnished, pure appreciation. I got the impression he was realizing he could give himself permission to enjoy things. That the world doesn’t have to make sense, or be perfect. You can still relish the good. He grinned wide on leaving me and nodded significantly to himself, to the pavement and foliage around him, pacing to a new beat. I don’t understand this place, but I like living in it. Synopsis: A woman in Budapest searches for a man who may be her brother in the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Dir. László Nemes. 142m. 1.85:1. Watch the Trailer. --- Sometimes a work is brilliant to you in a straightforward way, and you’re at a loss for why it’s dismissed by the rest of the world. How could this happen? Such is the case with László Nemes’ masterpiece, Sunset (Napszállta). It's simply so evident to me this is among the best films of 2019 (US release year), and were I aware of it when I made my enormous 2019 list, it would’ve placed 3rd or perhaps even 2nd. It beguiles us with the rich unfathomability of life, achieving an apotheosis of film style’s ability to communicate subjective reality. And you can’t even watch it on Blu-ray, let alone DVD. I dismissed opportunities to see it theatrically because of its middling critic reception worldwide, especially stateside. They just weren't going for it. One of the only films in over 5 years to screen on projected 35mm at its Venice premiere (the only other title to do so that year was Vox Lux, another overlooked art film triumph), director László Nemes tirelessly travelled the western cinema world with it in a touring capacity alongside a 35mm presentation. It is not one to miss. But missing it is exactly what I did, and I’d give anything to see it projected as intended with a director passionate enough to travel with it (how often do you hear of someone doing that?). I pushed it aside because it had a 65 Metacritic and no rave reviews. Let’s look at what those critics had to say. But before we do, a word on the film itself: 1. On Style as Substance Nemes’ second film, his follow-up to the universally praised Son of Saul (Saul Fia), utilizes a similar aesthetic to limit our experience to a single person’s Danteesque journey through hidden horrors– in this case, a woman searching the underworld of 1913 Budapest for a man who may be her brother. Like Saul, Nemes’ camera stays on its protagonist’s head for nearly the entire runtime. We only see what Irisz sees. We experience life as she experiences it– and she may be seeing things that aren’t there, fears and projections. Photography and cinema are intensely subjective mediums, given the degree to which seeing is a decision (as a bus driver I know intimately that you only see what you look for), and Nemes maximizes that natural tendency to a hilt. It’s hugely involving because it's so much like our own experience: one perspective, and not much else. Irisz Leiter, played by screenwriter Juli Jakab in what should be a star-making performance, is daughter to two deceased parents killed in a fire set upon the family’s high-fashion hat store, a prominent fixture in pre-WWI Budapest. The shop refuses to hire her despite her being rightful heir to the place, and she gets wind her brother may have had something to do with the fire. Irisz begins to sneak around and ask questions. Things go from bad to worse as she fearlessly plucks up the courage to keep digging deeper, ultimately settling on a way of functioning in a world heavy with evil. Sunset is the most immersive recreation of a time period I have ever seen on film. No other picture I’ve ever sat through– and I’ve sat through a lot of terrific cinema– locates us so fully in a lost world. How? Because period films are expensive to make, they tend to emphasize their historical trappings. The camera tends to be reverential to production design, resorting to more wide shots of streets or buildings and emphasizing decor and costly recreations of buildings or crowds in era-appropriate attire. It becomes the gaze of the present upon the past, because the past wouldn’t memorialize itself so if it was merely the present. There’s a courtroom scene in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies I find exciting precisely because it doesn’t do this. The characters are situated in a cavernous art-deco interior, but we barely see it because neither the camera nor the characters have the slightest interest in their time period’s architecture. They’re preoccupied with the business of living in what for them is the present. That incredible ceiling dips into the frame for only a moment or two. Paradoxically, we appreciate it more as real, how we might exist in the space if we were present in the characters’ time. Sunset takes a similar approach but amplifies it. Ridley Scott speaks of making a point to fill in the frame with background action seen past open doors or windows, the better to simulate reality– period films often don’t do this enough, because it means more production design and thus more expense. But going that extra distance makes a difference. You believe it more: they're not on a soundstage in Burbank. From Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut: As mentioned above, every shot of Sunset is of one of two things: the head of the main character, or what she’s seeing. Director Nemes restricts us entirely to her reality, and being restricted entirely to one person’s reality can be terrifying. There is so much we don’t see, don’t know. Without resorting to the copout of dark rooms and jump scares, this is about as tense as cinema can get. The world goes on around her, but like Son of Saul, in which the horrors of the Holocaust are visible as blurry figures in the corners of the frame– we only catch glimpses of the vast and seething density of the metropolis that was Budapest before the fall of the Empire. It’s clear that enormous crowds have been assembled, with intricate costumes, buildings constructed, locomotives and carriages wraught in exacting detail, celebrations in the street, lives all around with problems of their own– but we only get glances. The film isn't quite a mystery, but it feels like one: all those fraught peripheries and the stories they contain. Irisz rides a streetcar past a train yard and several city blocks which any other film would’ve lingered on, given the millions it takes to build such spaces. Note the small ovular window in the back of the interior carriage ride earlier in the film, and how much activity is going on outside that we just barely see. This extra mile is what so many films lack. Isn't the difference between very good and great always the last ten percent? Many things we don’t see at all but only hear, on the film’s densely cacophonous soundscape. Happenings are transpiring all around, but this isn’t the past. It’s the present, Irisz’s present. When you’re trying to find your lost brother, you don’t care about the decor or the crowds. But they’re there on the edges of the frame. No film besides Nemes’ own Son of Saul has taken such a perversely anachronistic approach to recreating a city on film at a specific point in time, and no one has ever been more effective. Nemes and his DP Mátyás Erdély favor long roving steadicam takes with a challengingly narrow depth of field, the better to restrict us to Irisz’s specific perspective. We drift around pillars and through doorways and in and out of vehicles, revelling in the truth of the unbroken take and its effective analog to the reality of how we see while walking. It’s small wonder that Nemes thanks Erdély second in the credits, right after his own name (Welles would go one further with DP Gregg Toland, sharing the frame for their screen credit), as the follow-shot aesthetic they create here transforms the film entirely. It’s akin to the Dardenne’s formal rigor but with the elaborate planning and premeditated smoothness of Nemes’ mentor, Béla Tarr. Period pictures also tend to have things a touch too neat. The cars are all immaculate, as they’re often on loan from collectors who keep them in great shape; the newly made costumes too obviously never worn. Here the clothes are torn and scuffed in the street, the carriages heavily used; Irisz wears only two outfits for the film’s runtime, and her dress doesn’t stay starched but gets progressively further soaked with sweat and grime. Accuracy makes a difference. The early twentieth century involved a lot of particulate pollutants in the air of dense cities, from coal burning and other industry, and this led to what the black and white photographs of the time can’t show– a yellow cast, amplified by the prevalance of the use of gas lamps. Any film about urban environments during the fully developed Industrial Revolution that’s aspiring to accurate color should be yellow, and this one is. Shooting on 35mm (with a coda on 65mm) also enhances the immersiveness, as film was the capture medium for how we saw during the Twentieth century. There are precious few excuses for shooting digital (Mann, who has his reasons, notwithstanding) in a time when only film existed. Nemes makes no such gaffe here. Together with the immersiveness into a time and place is also a similar immersion into the protagonist’s mind. Staying on a person’s head for an entire film is quite an experience. We are right there with her, and we feel it. Anything she doesn’t know, we don’t see. There is something too, about following behind a character's head for so much of the runtime, and especially following behind a woman's head: similar to how men are almost never portrayed horizontally in art, while women often are, women are usually never shown from behind in cinema, while men are regularly. Because shooting from behind legitimizes the character’s experience. We’re looking with her, not at her; our gaze into the world is aligned with hers, and even when we’re in front of her, we’re sympathetic to her perspective. This is the power of Mann’s– to bring up his name thrice makes sense, as like Nemes he’s obsessed with reality– of Mann’s signature behind-the-ear shot. From Collateral: I found it refreshing and intoxicating to spend so much time in this woman’s experience, looking at the world with her, through her, more than at her. Alongside this, the subjective element of perception begins to expand as the narrative progresses and the rabbit holes Irisz is digging into get scarier. Though we see nothing graphic, this film goes to some truly horrific places. How much of what we’re seeing is real, versus only imagined? Are we so deep in her mind we’re seeing projections of her fears and suspicions? Walking through a crowd of strange and belligerent men would certainly inspire the fear of being attacked by them; is that why we see her getting attacked? Did that really happen? Or is it similar to the sinister menace she feels in that scene, the one with the men who have removed their shoes, who may be harmless? Did she imagine killing her brother in the Danube, or did she really do so? Either interpretation yields a similar and concrete emotional journey. Truth exists in one mind at a time. Whether she the girls at the hat shop are really united against her or not, she certainly feels as if they are, and that’s what Nemes immerses us in. This is exactly what cinema is best at: defining the interior reality of one or perhaps two individual characters through careful selection of images. It’s as far away from the strengths of theatre as you can get. Even multistrand narratives are still doing this, just one character at a time. 2. The Question of Violence “A storm is coming,” a character says in one of the film’s first lines. I take the title to refer to quiet dread calm before the storm that was World War I. As László Nemes tells Sight & Sound, not much was happening in Hungary in 1910. But a confluence of things was brewing in the air, and in this film you can feel it; evil is lurking in the spirits of men, and there is a pall forming over Europe. What do you do about it? Most films use violence to articulate morals coming from an otherwise good place. Sunset opts for the more painful truth: that violence usually begets more violence. Irisz’s brother figure Kalman is trying to do good. He wishes to dismantle a system of untouchable men who brutalize women, but his aims fall short, and the women in question fall into even worse hands. Kalman seems unaware of the evil around him, in his own followers, as Irisz is unaware of her brother’s existence and deeds. For a film taking place on the eve of two World Wars, the metaphors are clear. We end with [spoilers] Irisz as a nurse in the trenches, perhaps representing either or both of two approaches I find more suited to my perspective– 1) you do what good you can with the means you have control over, and 2) you rest at peace with the idea that it’s enough to be a witness. She abandons a role as leader to serve goodness on her own terms, perhaps invisibly, perhaps on a small scale, but without hypocrisy. [end spoilers] Knowing of the film’s rejection by the critical community and complete ignorance by the masses, I went in prepared for something challenging. Much was made critically of a labyrinthine and hopelessly confusing plot. Only Jonathan Romney and Kristin Thomson loved it; the universal praise that Saul received sat this one out. I was surprised to find the film relatively straightforward in its narratival construction, with its themes articulated quite clearly as outlined above and even further in some key lines of dialogue toward the picture’s close. Why, exactly, did educated critics fail so mightily in comprehending this piece? 3. Nathan Goes to Town Philip Kemp at Sight & Sound brings down the esteemed magazine almost to the low that Tony Rayns’s infamous misreading of First Reformed brought it in 2018 when he calls the Sunset’s tendency to leave questions unanswered a bad thing, and says that although he likes ‘staring at the back of Irisz’s lovely neck,’ he gets little out of it, finding the approach wearisome. Not much awareness of subjective realities here. He also pokes fun at Nemes' approach as being like Tarr’s without realizing the real-life connection between the two; jokes about the film’s number of hats without searching for meaning in a society preoccupied with such displays of ostentatiousness; describes his unwillingness to engage with the picture at large as the film’s fault for having an “absence of sufficient substance,” and in a moment that tells us far more about him than the film, calls the thought-provoking coda “ultimately pointless.” Why did I find the film so easy to comprehend, and he not? Over at the Film Stage, Rory O’Connor faults the film for having an ‘overly familiar MacGuffin’ and relying too heavily on a ‘few reliable tropes,’ worrying that the film uses “rape in service of what could cynically be described as a thrill ride, à la Son of Saul used the horrors of Auschwitz to similar ends.” Pardon me as I gape in disbelief here. No amount of insensitivity could ever compel me to call either Sunset or Son of Saul “thrill rides,” and one of Nemes’ very best moves as a director is in knowing when to hold back. I believe there is never a cinematic justification for showing a woman getting raped onscreen, and I appreciate that Nemes, like Scorsese, Tarantino and any number of others who deal with otherwise objectionable material, don't cross that line. I’m also at an utter loss as to what the "overly familiar MacGuffin" and "reliable tropes" Mr. O’Connor is referring to are. The film has no MacGuffins, and “tropes” of plot need to be considered with their execution taken into account. He’s also one of several critics who don’t realize the film is quoting T.S. Eliot when he labels a key line as “portentous.” As with the venerable Sight & Sound, Simon Abrams brings RogerEbert.com to a low point in his shortsighted appraisal also, saying Sunset “isn’t a movie you can easily get lost in.” Simon, I'm sorry. I don’t even know what that means. I was immersed from the opening shot, in which a woman slowly lifts her head to reveal herself to us as we hear the line, “let’s lift this veil.” It’s the first of a continuous peeling back of layers, and with the period setting conveyed as described above, it doesn’t get any more immersive than this. Abrams says “the movie's disorienting and visually austere style takes some getting used to,” which again I find as incomprehensible as foreign language– the vernacular Nemes deploys in his camera is precisely what draws us in so fully. Although no one in their right mind would call Consequences of Sound a noteworthy cinema journal, Dominick Suzanne-Mayer’s review does find itself included on Metacritic, wherein they call Sunset’s relatively comprehensible linear narrative “almost impenetrable.” Original Cin, another publication that definitely shouldn’t be included in Metacritic’s tabulation of major cinema reviewing outlets, finds Liam Lacey struggling “to discern the poisonous seeds of the violence that would wrack Europe” in the “fancy costumes, class hatred, vicious misogyny and official corruption… The connections are somewhat fuzzy.” If deep-seated societal problems of violence and misguided attentions don’t clue Lacey in as seeds representing larger unsolved issues, I don’t feel there’s anything I can add to be more explicit. Philip Kemp proves himself the worst of all when he actually quotes the doctor’s lines at the end of the film, which explain the film’s thesis. The lines in question: “He projected his own darkness on this world. He was dragged down by the abyss your parents created. Your brother saw horror in the world– but it came from him.” Irisz’s brother looked for evil, basically, and thus saw it. You see what you look for– much like Irisz, fearing the worst in many around her, as we see her subjective reality. Kemp calls these illuminating lines an ‘enigmatic pronouncement” that “explains frustratingly little.” You can do better, Philip. The idea of both of one's parents dying in a fire creating a void in one's life seems only too self-explanatory. I must be missing something here. The uniting factor in these Sunset reviews and so many others is singular: they reveal a lack of engagement with the material. And by "engage," I'm referring to a two-way street: it isn't enough that a film engage us. We have to engage back. We have to make an effort, pay attention. When obviously incorrect appraisals like “tedium” (Glenn Kenny), “theatricality” (Movie Nation) and “lacking in any narrative substance” (Austin Chronicle) are thrown at something that’s so objectively none of those things, I begin to realize what’s going on. They’re not leaning in. Paul Schrader calls them “lean-in” movies: films where the director’s decisions are subtractive rather than additive, forcing you to “lean in” and fill in the gaps. The austere minimalism of Bresson, Ozu and Dreyer are his examples; Haneke is a living director who does the same. In the way that Scorsese doesn’t tell you what to think about his characters, or Malick expects you to find meaning between juxtapositions of images, Nemes expects you to pay attention. You have to supply the meaning that will complete the picture’s ingredients. It's enormously satisfying to do. 4. Room to Rise The populist Marvel and Disney franchise pictures are children’s films; they frequently restate themes and plot points, and make sure the concepts go over for even the most uncomprehending or distracted viewer. They disallow engagement. You don’t act with the film; it talks at you. No 2019 film was a worse offender of this than the insufferable Best Screenplay winner Jojo Rabbit, which was akin to being yelled at for 108 minutes. I’ve never felt so acutely stupid. For me, Sunset and films like are a breath of fresh air; they keep those muscles of engagement and comprehension alive. Only when one forgets how wonderful discourse is does one acclimate to the numbing laziness of being ceaselessly talked at. Sunset keeps your brain working, able to focus on thought-provoking art. People aren’t dumb. They just get beat down to that if they’re treated as if they are all the time. You give them a chance, and after a bit they rise up with aplomb. People can’t read maps or write cursive or tell time on analog clocks– because they don’t have to. If they had to, they’d be swell at it, as they once were. Sunset failed because modern society has precious little room for ambiguity, sensitivity, or leaning in. It doesn’t matter that these critics are esteemed and educated; they have fallen prey to society’s whim of reactive shortsightedness as handily as any teen sitting in front of MTV. Maybe that's why Parasite was a smash and Burning wasn't; they're both Korean films about widening class inequality. Both are fine films, but you'd have to asleep not to know what Parasite is saying. Burning you have to work with. And boy, does it stay with you. I believe expectations have everything to do with how you receive a film. Expectations and your own worldview, the degree to which you aligns or find compatible the view(s) in the work. These critics were expecting something easy. They were also living in a culture that has become deeply uncomfortable with ambiguity. “I’m interested in the idea of human understanding not being infinite,” Nemes told Sight & Sound in June 2019. “Nowadays we give ourselves as a civilization the impression that we have infinite knowledge and capabilities. The main story [of Sunset] is straightforward, a girl looking for her lost brother– but what is this world around her? The plot us constructed to be a maze. I know it creates frustration and difficulties, but I trust that if the viewer has no preconceptions, they can expect a journey that might be unique.” I agree but feel you’re being to hard on yourself, László. Sunset doesn’t create frustration and difficulty. It’s an exultant breath of fresh air to be so believed in as an audience. My blog is about trusting people to be good, treating them as if they’re good– and then watching them generally rise to that. Sunset is about many things. It resonates with me because Nemes, like me, sees perception as a choice, and chooses to build the film on that theme. He doesn’t need things to be concrete, and the mad rush to force life to be didactic, always known and quantifiable, bores me. László Nemes and Sunset leave room for the sensitive, the ambiguous, trusting us to pay attention. He shares with my approach a belief in the good qualities of others– in my case goodness, and in his case, thoughtful, careful, and engaged reflection. Doesn't it feel good to be believed in? Further reading: Kodak. "Kodak film captures the grandeur of old Budapest and the portents of WWI in Sunset."
Milan Kundera wrote that our memories are more like glimpses or brief 'scenes' than stories with beginnings or ends. They’re closer to photographs than movies. You’ve heard the phrase about life flashing before your eyes in the final estimation; or perhaps you experience something similar, as I do, prior to falling asleep. A montage not of stories but moments, slices of existence better defined by feeling than plot. On other occasions the fleeting beauty of passing seconds stills the moment in time for me even as it’s happening, as I realize this will be one of those fragments I’ll hang onto. As my blog winds to a close, here are a few from across the past year.
–Northbound Rainier and Rose, a gaggle of incoming faces at the front. Some of them tarry to chat with me; a middle-aged gent with a comic touch pushes through, mock-grumbling while secretly loving this clutter of community, “Everybody wanna talk to the driver! Man, sit your asses down! It's a po’ black man tryna get through!” –Another night at the same zone, just one passenger and myself now; he’d asked about the schedule frequency. “I got some schedules right here behind me,” I said. “Aw naw, your word is good enough for me,” he said, with a good-natured grin, a hint of the giving pride one feels at showing respect. –Three young boys celebrating the feast night that closes out Ramadan. They were taking a huge box of medjool dates to their family, and offered me a generous handful. I was surprised by how much they were gifting me with, given their special nature. I felt honored. They asked me how my night was, and I mirrored their glowing jubilation. –Gordon, one half of “The Camera Crew,” a duo of bus photographer enthusiasts who remind me of my younger self, stepping in on New Year’s with, I think, his family. I greet him with pleasure and they smile in happy surprise. –“Maybe that can be the theme,” my friend Jaesun would tell me that same night. “For the New Year.” He was feeling optimistic. I repeated his earlier words: “Better than expected?” “Better than expected.” I almost didn't say it, for fear it was too tall of an order. But shouldn't our reach exceed our grasp? And reflecting back now, how right he was. He would release a record and play the Showbox, and I would at long last finish my film. Better than expected indeed. –Kevin talking about how when he first worked at what would later become Puget Sound Energy, there was one president and six vice presidents. Which we agreed was silly enough. But when Kevin left, there was one president, one senior VP, and seventeen vice presidents. The two of us guffawed as we crossed John Street on Broadway, joking: “If it was hard to make decisions with six... I don't see how that would be any better!!” –A handshake hug with my colleague Asfaw at the Henderson terminal. You know the gesture: the manly one-armed embrace building on a handshake. It feels so good to do. He has a sleeper sitting on his bus, awake now; a fellow I’ve found threatening in the past. I feel joy course through me as I yell a hello and corresponding salute in his direction. He nods. –“I hear so many guys talk about you, man.” “What do they say?” I asked. He whistled, pointing to the sky. “Pretty soon you gon' need your own publicist!” –A young woman I’d almost passed by, whom I didn’t know would later become a friend– Jot, before I knew her name. The long silence between her boarding and when we began conversing, as I pictured to myself her experience and subsequently apologized for nearly leaving her behind. The pleasant growing warmth of discussing life. Her parents were going to the US Embassy in India tomorrow for something critical, and she sounded hopeful. –There have been several sleepers named James over the years. This James sags his pants indiscriminately, comically, in curious contrast to his gently-natured quietude. He dribbles mucus and saliva with abandon, and there’s a pathos in his attempts to hide in the back of the bus when we reach the terminal, a desperate attempt to get a few more minutes of rest. I’ll confess to being annoyed by him on occasion, because he’s difficult to wake and can fall asleep on me several times in one night; but tonight as he was leaving he said, in his quiet voice, “God bless you, man. You're a good guy.” Gosh. Talk about resetting me to goodness instantly. –Learning who it was who’d threatened to punch the driver of the leading bus: that guy? I’ve only ever had good interactions with him. I have no idea how lucky I am. The quiet smiling guy who speaks rarely, but clearly, and who's only ever been respectful to me. Maybe he would say I’ve only been respectful to him. -A muscular bulky heft of a man who inspired fear in me, who at the end of the ride came forward to ask where's the trash bag. A regular voice, respectful, like any other human. I like to think my positive demeanor throughout had something to do with it, guiding the space toward an easy kindness. I don’t think he’d have spoken as he did had I glared at everyone, stomping on the brakes and speaking rudely. So much of how they respond is in my control. Not all of it, but so much of it. –At the 49 terminal in the U District. Several sleepers have just deboarded my bus and are ambling up to the leading bus, which will leave first. I see something on the bench and call out, “Hey, anybody want some gloves?” Marcus says, “Yeah!” “Yeah, it's cold. Finders keepers!” They laughed appreciatively. I feel warm in their inclusive embrace as I walk back to my coach. Many drivers don’t like sleepers, and you know these guys can feel it. Sometimes I’m aggravated by the extra work and time they take from me, but I’m working on it. Tonight I bask in the warm glow of knowing what they know, and exude: this guy’s nice. He likes us. The joy that comes from letting others feel they belong. –Walking with sleeper Benjamin out of my bus, the two of us strolling nonchalantly down the sidewalk together to my leader, Haitender, in the days when he drove the Owl. I wanted to say hello to him. He didn’t like that shift; few do. I don’t do it myself. Something demoralizing about going home to sleep right at sunrise. I needed to give him a big smile, let him know I support him, I’m here, right behind ya for at least the first two-thirds of your shift. A smile will turn my whole day around; I hope it’s the same for other people, and act accordingly. –John and Valerie, back again. John’s always ribbing me about my hair. He loves my long locks, because they look like his, and mock-collapses whenever I get them trimmed. “You got it cut? Again? Man, why you do keep doin’ me like that?” “I don’t know what’s wrong with me! Somebody just came up outta nowhere, cut it all off!” “Hey, I saw you walking. You know how to walk? I only seen you drive!” “Ha!” –Two dear friends from private life coming out for a joyride with me, each not knowing the other had made similar plans– and not just similar plans, but identical plans! There they are, both waiting at outbound 8th, a twice-grinning miracle in the after-dinner sunset. For comparable reasons both friends had been drawn to the quiet attitude of 8th and Jackson. Birds of a feather. –The satisfaction of having negotiated the left turn onto northbound Broadway from Pine: you have to go deep to keep the poles over the back of the bus, and the wire’s complicated there. Don’t challenging things feel so good to do well? I wave at the 49 on the opposite side, peering at the passengers as well. Still riding the small high of that turn, I see Rudy sitting in the back, his black hoodie pulled over his slumping head as usual… and also as usual, a massive grin beaming out from his face. A smile makes anyone beautiful. Incredibly, he recognizes me through the layers of glass and street. We wave excitedly: strangers as friends, passing in the night. --- What did it mean? What does life add up to? In this collection of moments is for me an echo of the sublime, a sameness in everyone’s beautiful glinting eyes, hinting at an answer we have no names for. I remembered the old adage, which I can never be told too many times: life is an experience to be lived, not a problem to be solved. This was before the pandemic, when getting on through the back was frowned upon. These two teens tumbled aboard through the middle doors anyway, a rough’n’ready young couple jumping in at Rainier and Othello.
The boyfriend was already stalking toward the back, casting about for his favorite seat. She was also African-American, with tight jeans and an athletic sweatshirt, her hair in long, tight multicolored braids. She looked at me through the mirror and paused. “Could we have a ride?” she called out to me. They were already onboard. Of course I was going to say yes– but that’s exactly why I was so touched by her question. She knew she didn’t have to ask. The only reason to do say anything at this point was out of respect. And it was important to her to offer the gesture. I assume she knew me from previous rides in the general sense, as a genial part of the neighborhood, the person who won’t give you trouble and whom you get to saying hello to. “For sure, thanks for asking!” I replied. At the end of their ride, I looked up as I prepared to open the doors for them. Usually it’s me who calls ‘thank you,’ preemptively, and I get excited when I get any kind of reaction. Especially from the kids. But these two. She spoke first. “Thank you,” she called out, turning toward me as the bus slowed to a stop. Then she added, “Thank you for driving late at night!” Who’s gonna tell me no youngsters care? Who’s gonna try to convince me there’s no one out here who puts themselves in another’s shoes? Magic happens. We have to recognize it when we see it, and hang on to it. Put it in your pocket for later, as a reminder during more frustrated times: There are some great attitudes out there. |
Nathan
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