(Oct. 26, 2023 ● Oslin Pierrette)
A revelation experience.
You start off with a very average Joe kind’ve guy, Wally. He grew up with hopes and dreams of art and being something. But you see that he’s trapped inside a survival nightmare where he has to tend to all the survival mechanisms to stay afloat. Which is denying him access to appreciating life, and doing things in this world that reflects that. He’s trapped inside the actions of survival of staying afloat lifestyle.
He has dinner with Andre. Another person in theater, but he’s heard odd things about him, so he’s quite skeptical about how this dinner is going to go. They meet up at the bar, and Wally notices how good and refreshing Andre looks, and Andre relays how terrible he feels, and that’s basically one of the larger themes of this whole dinner conversation.
Andre goes into these stories of adventures he’s been taking. That are so far removed from relative civilization and society. They were some very ritualistic adventures. And they’re wild and grand stories about him trying to find contact with life that he felt so deeply deprived by. But you honestly feel this huge disconnect, that Wally might also feel, and that later on Andre acknowledges. But they were some interesting experiences and adventures in attempts to contact light and the soul. With some real aspects of achieving that.
But then Andre addresses how repelled he is by his journeys, it made him question himself. It made him feel as if he was a spoiled princess, someone who felt above the rules of life, it didn’t apply to him, he could do as he pleases. But it made sense. A man going throughout his life where most of it, he isn’t conscious. He isn’t in contact with his own life. So you find yourself dark, alone, and lost. Which can bring a meaningless monotony to everyday life that many live, so you abandon it to go in search of something, anything that isn’t this meaningless miserable experience. Could’ve been a mid-life crisis. Where you go so long without that contact of inner light and life. So long without any meaningful stimulation. Where it feels like, have I lived and experienced the best moments I’m going to live, are my best experiences behind me? Is this cold darkness the rest of my life? So you chase those extreme peaks and valleys to spark that light, feel stimulated by something, find real intimations of life and meaning. Even if some of the journey is ludicrous. It did and can lead to some very real moments. You allow yourself to experience, and you can find real things on your journey. But when you cease to experience anything stupid, and be more mechanical, technical, traditional in your experiences. You remain within the lines and box of your experience. And it kind’ve guarantees the meaningless normality of it, if that was inside your box to begin with, and you’re not venturing out of it.
Then the conversation transforms into the problems with humanity, and addresses the zombie apocalypse, mental slavery, the sleeping mass. Where the majority of the people are so dejected and unconscious in life. So many people are fake and just playing the role that best fits them into society. And their real self goes off to hide in the corner blocked off, to protect their real vulnerable self from having contact with the truth of the world. So it’s best for them to build this veil of dishonesty, cloaked in ignorance to provide them their blissful experience. That’s the lens they choose to perceive this world, a highly unconscious one. Also create this bubble where everything is safe, comfortable, and convenient. Creating a society that blocks the seasons, the changes, and all the unpredictability of life. Creating mechanisms that will create the convenience to block all those aspects. You get to control exactly the settings you would like life to be. Like an electric blanket, no matter what temperature it is outside, you get to remain under an electric blanket. But maybe it’s too hot outside for that, that’s ok, you can turn on the AC, then get under your electric blanket, that will provide you the perfect temperature. Which completely removes you from reality, and you get to be in your controlled comfortable dreamworld. What’s life like for others, I wouldn’t know. I’m too disconnected from nature and real life, and too comfortable inside my bubble. I’m going to drink my warm milk with extra sugar and doze off to my comfortable sleep. And this is what you call luxury. Being dejected from the true realities of the world. You don’t have to face them.
But within luxury, does that mean you can’t have an interesting experience? And maybe you can, but there’s just something about dealing with real reality. Outside in the cold winds chilling and shivering your body. Drowning in sweat from the heat. Feeling the powerlessness of all the crises of the world. Struggling to survive. Maybe attempting to find love, putting your heart out there and failing, heartbreaking. Dealing directly with your feelings, issues, and anxieties. Then all the unplanned pains of getting sick or accidental breaking of the bones, whatever. Death of a loved or close one. Just dealing with life has to offer. I feel like that’s where The Blues comes from. That deep enriching feeling of soul. And when expressed, you just feel completely imbued, expressing honestly and living honestly the reality of life. Where true beauty is possible. That access seems to shut off or diminish within the parameters of safety and comfort.
Also that connection to others, your comfort can blind you to the realities of others, where that can start to block your empathy to others, and start to see and treat them like others, and not a human like yourself. Especially the underprivileged and poverty, it becomes a dangerous world where so many people don’t understand, that can be you too, not an other you’re separated from. You get to control your reality, and block off unwanted things, because you have the luxury of convenience. A convenience that might be sold to you by societal controllers, with the price of being a docile and submissive part of society. These societal controllers make a lot of money and profits off this very same dysfunction that Andre is relaying. And maybe they are creating this perpetually destructive society that benefits the societal controllers, the oligarchy. Anyone who denies this way of “life”, more like darkness, becomes an outsider who is denied dignity and sometimes the right to survive. Which arises a fear that forces and makes everyone run into their bubbles and best characters to perform for the world. Be the perfect docile character.
And maybe Wally was offended by that whole spiel of needing to be a sentient human. He’s skeptical about all of it, he doesn’t believe or want to hear about all these amazing “meant to be” magical coincidences that Andre is talking about. This beautiful interconnectedness of life that is represented in this world. Doesn’t believe in this “coincidental” web of beauty. He seems to believe in the everyday normality of life, and that events aren’t connected to each other, life is not this magical and special thing that Andre is talking about. Wally goes on to defend his docile life, and questions what’s so wrong with finding the little enjoyments within the cycle of his everyday docile life. What’s wrong with appreciating all the tiny details everyday. What’s wrong with looking forward to a very predictable day after day. I’m staying active as a respectable human, while he condescendingly objects to Andre’s way of life.
Wally feels he can’t just sit down and bask in his own presence because then he would be doing nothing he feels. When really sitting with himself makes him feel inadequate. If you do nothing you are nothing he probably feels. He’s convinced being with himself is doing nothing, because maybe there’s nothing behind his lens. The constant everyday docile lifestyle, after many days on days on years, maybe can produce that nothingness. Because what do you gain on autopilot mode? But it’s so hard to question that when you don’t have the luxury to escape it. So instead of living with that truth and awareness everyday, maybe it’s better to live with the veil, and just live in your fake foggy disharmonious life. That you do your best to be ignorantly blissful to be able to smile and try to appreciate something. It can be scary to embrace the truth and all the obstacles of reality when you have nothing to change the situation, when you don’t have the ability or vision to get over it. So even though you accept a meaningless docile life, you do your best to entertain the emptiness that you’re boxed into.
By the end of the amazing conversation. They both seemed imbued by crossing paths with each other. Wally walked in with docile veil lenses, and left illuminated, lifted veil, looking and experiencing the world with his real eyes. Maybe this creates a new life.
Absolutely amazing dialogue, a film that’s made off mainly one location, and just a conversation. To build a simple, sincere, and strong film like that is phenomenal. I loved it. Great convo and performances.