I saw recently that Netflix had added the recent film (The Other Woman) about Charles Dickens (and his mistress) to the available titles. I decided to watch it tonight while exercising on my recumbent.
The film started off strangely – in modern day. I thought perhaps they were going to have parallel stories – one contemporary and one about Dickens – but as the movie progressed I realized that there was no Dickens in this story at all – I had picked the wrong film (and Netflix doesn’t have the Charles Dickens’ film available yet). I was watching The Other Woman when the Dickens film was The Invisible Woman. Shouldn’t it be illegal to have movie titles that similar?!
[I should clarify that this is The Other Woman with Keira Knightley, not The Other Woman with Cameron Diaz…I didn’t even realize that there was another movie with this name until I googled it!]
It turned out to be quite a good film. It was not a guy film in the traditional sense of the word, I don’t think it was a girls film either – even though it did center around a romantic relationship and included some of the usual romantic film cliches.
It felt like one of those independent films. You know, the ones that refuse to do what makes the audience happy and instead tell the story they want to tell – b/c they are making art and they are going to make art whether anyone watches it or not?
I like these films on occasion – though I can only take them so often – b/c they do frustrate me. I want the same elements most folks want – the ‘pop’ elements of film. But these films on occasion are a refreshing change of pace.
I cried for at least the last 30 minutes of the film – perhaps longer. That is by far the longest I have cried. The film managed to bring together most of my significant wounds…most films only touch on one or two – if they touch on any.
I cried for the disintegration of my marriage. I cried for the broken relationship with my dad. I cried for the twins I never held in my arms. I cried for Talbott whose death I still feel in some ways responsible for…if only I had done this…or that…maybe she would have lived. I cried thinking about how scary it is for me to be around people, how I start to feel this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach just thinking about it. I cried b/c sometimes I feel like it is my teeth who are too sharp and tale who is too long…and I cried for the too frequent silence between Him and I.
Oddly enough, today has been a pretty good day…before and after the film – and while the film was in some ways a painful experience it was also a cathartic experience…though I sometimes get frustrated that I seem stuck in a loop of cathartic experiences…Can’t they just be done and enough? Do they ever become enough? I assume they probably do.
I can remember the months when I didn’t know how I could live another moment. When the pain inside of me felt like it should kill me…and those times have faded…now I have these experiences…and sometimes memories and thoughts flash into my mind unbidden – holding me down for a moment or two, but not with the persistence they once had.
So maybe, just maybe, I am healing. But just like when it felt like the dying inside me was never going to end, now it feels as if the wounds are too deep and they will never heal.