Posts Tagged ‘despair’
SHE DIES TOMORROW
What Makes This Conviction Unshakable?
The Real Culprit Is Loss
“I’m Ok. I’m Not Ok. It Just Is” (Is it?) You try to reassure yourself, but you can’t. Then you try to accept it. Whatever it is. In Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow, that it is death. But, why tomorrow? Why is Amy’s (the character’s) conviction so unshakable? And contagious? Sure, we have the pandemic…
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WINTER LIGHT
Ingmar Bergman (1963)
A Man Who Need Cannot Love
Reverend Tomas Ericsson is a man who cannot need. And, because he can’t, he struggles with both God and love. Tomas over and over coldly rejects his desperately loving former lover, Marta. Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light 1963, slowly reveals the source of his loss of faith. Tomas loved his dead wife: “When she died, so…
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IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
That “I Got You” Kind Of Love
The Best Remedy For Hate, Helplessness & Despair
The River’s family’s “I Got You” kind of love is If Beale Street Could Talk’s most potent reminder of exactly what transcends hate, helplessness, and despair. We see it when Tish’s dad holds her: “I got you, baby, I got you.” When Tish says to her newborn son: “I got you. I got you. I…
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MAD MAX FURY ROAD
Depression &
Tyrants That Take Over Your Mind
Opportunists in the mind take over in states of emotional deprivation. Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) in Director George Miller’s western style post apocalyptic film, Mad Max:Fury Road, is a good example. As a psychoanalyst who treats severe depressive states, I found this film a fascinating allegorical tale of the conditions under which mental tyrants take over,…
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CAMUS’S SISYPHUS
Versus WOODY ALLEN’S
IRRATIONAL MAN
Albert Camus, best known for his masterpiece novel The Stranger, wrote an entire book (believe it or not) on The Myth Of Sisyphus. Camus’s point is that Sisyphus is happy because he’s accepted his life. This is exactly what Woody Allen’s existential philosophy professor in The Irrational Man can’t find a way to do. He…
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