Maybe you've seen the movie Nostalghia by Andrei Tarkovsky, but I'm guessing you probably haven't. I wouldn't have heard of it myself except that BYU had an excellent International Cinema program and I had an excellent friend who was into Tarkovsky films. Lacking a girlfriend and being something of an introverted film geek, I attended International Cinema fairly religiously my freshman year--it gave me something to do, required no significant human interaction, and was free. I guess what I'm getting at is that my friend didn't exactly have to drag me into the theater.
About halfway through, I think I fell asleep--I don't really remember.
Nostalghia is slow. Painfully slow. My eighteen-year-old brain just couldn't deal with the long, static shots that seemed to last for ten minutes at a stretch. Great swathes of time passed in which absolutely nothing happens. Nearly everything about the melancholy protagonist seemed to move in extreme slow motion. And that, of course, was the point.
Nostalghia is about a Russian poet on an extended research trip in rural Italy. The splendors of Italy lie around him--lush, hazy meadows, medieval paintings, and a traveling companion who looks like she might have been painted by Botticelli, but the poet is stuck in neutral. He seems paralyzed by remembered images of of his wife and homeland, both of them perpetually present if only in his mind.
Tarkovsky put more than a little of himself in the homesick poet. It wasn't many years later that he made the decision to defect from the Soviet Union, taking his wife but leaving his son behind the Iron Curtain. When asked by reporters whether he planned to settle in Italy, Tarkovsky was clear on the emotional cost of putting himself into permanent exile. The question of where he would relocate was irrelevant, he said, because the damage was already done. It was like asking him where he wanted to bury his children.
I've been thinking about Nostalghia recently because of my own longing for Virginia, and it makes me wonder: Is there anyway to cherish past happiness without souring, at least a little, the enjoyment of your present condition? Or is it the other way around: do we sustain and even embellish our memories of the glorious past as a way of compensating for our present discontents? "I'm unhappy now, but only because I've lost XYZ."
I commented a couple weeks ago on how much I loved living in Charlottesville, and how I miss it now that I live Elsewhere. What I wonder is, would I be fonder of where I am now if it didn't come on the heels of a place as personally idyllic as central Virginia? I'm still living in the same basic region of the country, still living under the same sky, but the trees seem scragglier, the terrain is less pristine, and the air doesn't seem as blue. More clinically, I also know that Elsewhere has more than its share of industrial pollution in the water, and I wonder if this knowledge doesn't cause me to regard even scenes of nature with a jaundiced eye. As I've told a few friends, Elsewhere is like everywhere else, only less so. It's not disappointing, but it's underwhelming.
Don't get me wrong. Elsewhere is still a great place to practice law and the decision to move here was a rational one, but it was one of those responsible, grown-up decisions that favors prudence and stability over sparkle and whimsy. Sometimes K and I ask ourselves whether we can visualize living here into our middle age, and we honestly can't say. It's not a place that will burn you out, but neither is it a conucopia of endless diversions. Maybe what I'm really rebelling against is not the place itself, but that my choosing to live here represents the end of my carefree student days. Charlottesville was a great place to learn; Elsewhere is a great place to work. You tell me which sounds sunnier.
3 comments:
Man, I loved the international cinema! I saw so many movies there--some for class, some for fun! I think we all miss C-ville. For me, I'm not sure how much of it is the setting, but more so the people.
I'm a hiker, so scenery counts for a lot, but I agree that we were in a great group of peers that will be hard to duplicate!
You were the one who first told me about I-cinema, while I was at UofO I devoured your (and everyone's) letters about the greatness of BYU, and when I transferred it was one of the first things I sought out-- as a humanities major I got to take that awesome film history class from the guru himself. I remember you weren't too hot on the idea of the H-major because it wasn't focused enough, but for me it satisfied an intense curiosity to learn about many aspects of the arts and the human experience-- I think you and I were both right, because I still don't feel competent in anything, but I do feel awed and enriched by the many subjects I've studied. I haven't visited that part of Virginia, but it looks incredible. The way you feel for it sounds like my feelings for Provo--the week we moved away in '99 we climbed up to a high place on a mountain at night time, looked over the valley and I just cried and cried. I felt there was something more I needed from here, so much I had missed. Once we were away and settled in our new life I used to be surprised at how something would suddenly make me realize how much I still missed it-- four years later I remember crying while my daughter watched "Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron". (Of course, I was probably pregnant. *laugh*) Remember Sondheim, "How do you know what you want till you get what you want and you see if you like it?" Clarification. I mourned moving from Provo before you and Alan and other close friends of ours left. There is an incredible synergy about being part of those life-changing days with friends you feel so much trust love and admiration for. I was saddened to realize that your mom moving means that we may never get together as a six-some to go to the temple after all. But life is funny, God has his own plans-- we didn't imagine we would have the perfect job land in our laps and end up back in Provo so soon... it's a dream come true, and ironic since we were looking so hard to move close to family. But things have a way of coming full circle and working out for the best. There was more that I needed to do here, I know that now without doubt. It is amazing to realize that my sorrow has been filled up by joy, with the new experiences and sharing the magic of something I love so much with my own growing family. Perhaps you will wind up in C-ville again, perhaps not, but clearly you have taken a part of that magic with you.
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