By Maia Engelbrecht
Before
The family dynamic of my upstairs neighbours, I concluded early on in the residency of my old apartment, was abusive. It had to be.
The indications were far from subtle: a tantrum here, the breaking of a vase there, but what got me to notice at first was the early morning verbal disputes. The kinds of castigations that a father might throw at his son, whatever the indiscretion might have been, were not ones I was familiar with until then, on those early weekend mornings when the sun was still tucked away. The son in question used to play the violin too, and I could always tell it was him playing, for the music was amateur yet admittedly earnest. Though it’s been years, my memory fragmented, I can still recall patterns of their routine: the screaming symphony of the man and his son, the discordant tune of a stringed instrument, and the inevitable cries of a failed prodigy. But every once in a while, when all was finally quiet, I remember something distinct. Just above me, as the sun began to make its presence known, were the unmistakable, all-too-eager traces of small feet, running across the floorboards to a room. There, the boy would remain for most of the day, the gentle crepitation of his marbles prompting a slight stillness in me that never lasted for too long.
The Beginning
The Projector, as per usual, was hosting a special series of screenings, recently it was during February. Five films by Wim Wenders, six dollars only. The only exception was Perfect Days, his latest film. Alice in the Cities and The American Friend were the ones I went to see. I had the company of cholesterol-surging pop-corn and several years of experience of solitary movie-going by my side: Based on the only Wenders film I’d seen up till that point, Paris Texas, I felt as though his movies were best viewed alone.
Now, to some, going to see a film without company may sound lonely, but, in terms of lonely activities one can engage in, it turns out that films are actually the least pathetic of the lot. That’s because there’s often real value in going to the movies alone. It’s the kind of outing that’s probably better without company because it gives you a chance to immerse yourself in what you’re watching. This was the logic, it seemed, that most people in the theatre seemed to follow.
I sat down. The first film on the agenda was The American Friend.
The First Act
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game It follows Jonathan, a framer who’s diagnosed with leukaemia, and, hating buyers who only see the monetary value of art, standoffishly dismisses Tom Ripley, a con man posing as a collector who deals in forged pieces. Bittered by the encounter, Ripley suggests Jonathon as a hitman to the gangster Raoul Minot to help him rid an unwanted mafia rival of his. Despite the premise, it was incredibly stylish and intimate and seemed more interested in the inner workings of Ripley’s and Jonathon’s minds than it did in the theoretically enthralling action, which came to be conveyed as more pathetic than ensnaring.
After the film wrapped I made sure to look around the place. The Projector, though lacking in cup holders and sometimes needlessly pricey, has always maintained its charm.
Every time I’m there I’m always reminded of Pauline Kale and her romantic convictions about the movies, and that, to her, the true wonder of going to see a film lies in “the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel just as you do about what you’ve seen”. Certainly, there is a fantasy that prevails among lonely people, that dream of developing deep bonds with strangers, only to never want to see them again. And that’s almost exactly what films do for you, at least, the kinds of films you can only ever see in the restricted bounds of a theatre.
But I digress. After leaving the establishment, out of curiosity, I stopped by a toy store. Amongst the vast sea of thermoplastic products and hard Lego, alas, no marbles to be seen. So I went home.
The second night was to be Alice in the Cities.
Middles
Alice in the Cities follows the story of a German man, Phillip, who lives in New York and who, out of necessity, develops a friendship with another German woman and her daughter as they await a flight back to Europe. The Woman disappears, and leaves her daughter, Alice, in the temporary care of Phillip, whom he takes back to Germany to find her grandmother.
Phillip, searching for meaning, holds onto every modicum of experience he can, trying to capture it with his camera, but it never quite appears on film the way it does to his supposed reality. His experiences are not things to be experienced; He’s a drifter, and when you’re a drifter, your delusion makes it so that your life’s ultimate meaning may reside in the most innocuous of instances because those are the ones that could be just around the corner, requiring little more effort than having the will to walk down your neighbourhood. While on your stroll, you wish for divine beings to come and save you temporarily from your inertia and then for them to vanish as soon as your temporary catharsis is through. Their disappearance would be your pain to bear. Their transience would be your meaning. Loneliness becomes your martyrdom.
Jonathan wants to feel alive again — he isn’t shocked when Ripley reveals that he spread rumours about his worsening condition to coerce him to take the hitman job, nor when his wife informs him more of Ripley’s betrayal. Ripley wants connection, he’s tired of an insipid life of art forgery; never making anything with his own two hands, only using them to take the lives of others when absolutely necessary. So, he develops a bond with Jonathon, and it’s a relationship that ends with Ripley being stranded beneath a bridge, while Jonathan abandons him in the same car in which he would eventually succumb to his leukaemia in the middle of his escape.
Closing Shots
The movies, when they are as fugacious as they are in theatres, are the perfect ethereal beings you never have to see again, and who, from then onwards, only exist in the luminous glow of a memory.
Initially, I’m inclined to look at his films and his characters in their uncompromising loneliness through a lens of self-hatred. When you’re lonely, the idea of actually developing permanent and long-lasting relationships becomes unthinkable because you’ve already indulged yourself in your abject state for so long. You’ve already ascribed meaning to it, you’ve convinced yourself that this is in your nature, and that, in fact, you are actually better than anyone who doesn’t feel as you do, and, what’s more, you hate everyone who does. You need this paradox when you hate yourself, it becomes imperative to stay in your self-persecution. Because if your pain doesn’t take on divine significance, it would have all been senseless and thus, too painful to live with.
It would be very easy to view Wenders’ films like that; indeed, they are conducive to attracting the kind of person like Ripley or Phillip or even Travis from Paris, Texas, futilely looking for meaning where it doesn’t exist. However, I worry that negates the beauty of them. The nature of loneliness, whether contradictory self-loathing follows or not, is never worth it. Abstractly looking for meaning in every single encounter nullifies the beauty that may reside in its simplicity. That, I believe, is what Wenders tries to convey, through his insistence to always capture the menial yet strangely unique. But none of these things is the ultimate thing in itself; the reason to keep living. But if they can’t function as the reminders of the could, only existing in the abstraction of the begging mind, the actual reason to keep living, whatever that may be, will escape you.
The significance that resides in every beautifully simple thing, perhaps, is meant to go unnoticed, and it’s only when they eventually escape do you realise what you’ve lost.
Epilogue
I got home from my final screening with nothing ostensibly different.
But, as an art form, films can be visceral and all-encompassing; they can make you care, they give you something to think about, and, at least for a little while, that’ll give you meaning. That is the kind of meaning that will supplement your life without having to become the sole proprietor of its purpose.
When all is well, you’re not wrought with anxiety or hopelessness at the action of attending the theatre alone, agonised by the absent prospect of the angels or beautiful realities captured in photos. No, you’re mostly content and hopefully reflective. Maybe you’ll look outside, the sun will have set, and everything will be tranquil.
Maybe the poignancy of the moment will take you aback; apart from the rustles of the curtains and the draws of your own breath, you won’t hear anything. You won’t hear the screaming, nor the crying, you won’t even catch the slightest pluck of a string, and you won’t, no matter how carefully you listen, hear the gentle pattering of small, all-too-eager footsteps shuffling above you.
You will only have vague acoustic memories of the echoes of marbles, enshrouding you with a stillness you would remain in until dawn.