Melancholia

Years ago, friends and I went to the movies. We went for dinner before, had some wines and were having a typical 'girls night out'. One of those things that make me shiver a little when I read it, but we were really having a fun night. We didn't know a lot about the film we were about to see, just the name of the director and the leading role. Chattering and joking, we walked in, oblivious about what was about to happen. I suspect that I was the first who started to weep, but gradually, the others followed me with a lot of tears. Afterwards, we sat there, still, holding each others hands. In silence we walked out and drank some more wine.
A few months later, I went to see the same movie again. Slightly nervous, with the last melt down still in my memory, but now I knew what was coming. At the same moment, in the first half of the film, I started to cry again, and I could not stop until the end. As I was trying to stuff the pile of paper towels in my pocket, the girl next to me turned to her boy friend and sighed: What a terrible movie, it doesn't relate to anything that can move me.".
I decided to never, never, never watch Dancer in the Dark again.

I liked Lars von Triers previous movies though, so when his next one came out, I went to see it. Dogville. In which he managed again to create a terrible world. Afterwards, while trying to forget about it with a strong drink, I decided officially to never see a Von Trier movie again.



But then a few months ago, I found myself in the movie theatre, waiting for his latest movie to start. Melancholia. Again, I was totally unprepared. But this time, I found the painful family situations that always occur humorous. The images were beautiful, the conversations intriguing, the little gestures and looks disturbing. But it was beautiful. Then, the planet took over the lead, and the standard Von Trier drama suddenly became a very exciting film! While the end was rapidly getting closer and got more and more threatening, I wondered how he was going to do this visually. How would he, in line with everything he already did, complete his story in a beautiful and satisfying end? The final scene began, I suspected that this was his solution, Understandable, and beautiful. Melancholic even. But then, he zoomed, and the real end began. After everything turned black, I sat there for ten minutes with my jaw dropped to my knees, staring at the screen. Not knowing what to do or to say. But filled with wonder and amazement, stunned and impressed.

I told myself never to intend again, not to see a Von Trier movie.

Since then, my life has changed. I can't watch the moon, without imagining how it would feel if it were another planet. The sky suddenly seems less peaceful and beautiful. It is an infinite mass of potential trouble. You can't see the danger.

Cosy

While I slowely walked forward in line, along extremely decorated stalls, eating people and dressed up pilgrims who tried to make music on triangles and tambourines, I wondered why this was considered to be 'gezellig', a Dutch word that is best translated by 'cosy', although it's more than that. People looked with indifferent glances at the stalls at the displayed goods: beaded necklaces, nose flutes, expensive olive oil, those terrible crystal animal figurines and the latest results of the community centres Christmas workshop. Actually, they mainly were making their way to another food stall, the sausage came after the mini cheese fondue, then the marinated mushrooms, the potato cookies, and then crepes, waffles and ice cream with whipped cream. The stalls in between offered a moment of piece to taste the newly acquired taste sensation, before plunging in the next culinary adventure.

The Christmas market.

I grew up with this phenomenon, although the German version is much better and bigger. Maybe that explains my antipathy to this annual ritual. Maybe it's the memory of Christmas, and the forced conviviality that in my case lasted for three days, or that we tried to enforce upon each other, which makes my hair stand on end at the mere thought of it. There probably will be a lot of psychological reasons for my behavior.



But frankly, I think it mostly has to do with the excess, the mindless consumption, and easy marketing that gets so many people to walk in line like sheep in a meadow. Is there a crisis? Are we having hard times? I can't see it. Here, on an estate in Germany, thousands of people pay five euro, just to get into the area where they are going to spend a lot of money on stuff they don't really use.

Although I try not to sound patronizing, and I do not want to condemn the visitors - what's wrong with good food and nice stuff to buy or watch, and hey, you're outside too - I realize that I fail miserably. Because well, I just don't get it. I don't understand that you buy on impulse, I don't understand why it's fun to wait in line for an expensive sausage that can be bought cheaper and probably with better taste, somewhere where there's no line. I don't understand why people don't get annoyed by standing in line, walking in a slow pace, with people behind you that kick your shoes off your heels, and the mustard you suddenly find on your jacket because the guy that just passed you didn't bother to clean his hands.

And what stuck me most: few people looked happy. There was little joy to be seen. Yes, the sellers, they radiated joy, and they added a little more when they saw a potential new buyer coming towards them. And my large group of friends, of which eleven of the twenty had never been to a Christmas market. They were happy too. They danced in the tent where the glühwein was sold, and they enjoyed all the crazy food and trinkets. But hey, they had never been on a German Christmas market before.

Time

Time seems to fly. Has wings. Or disappears into a black hole. Is lost on indefinable 'things'. Slips away unnoticed. Time, in other words, goes too fast. Hours turn into days, and those days suddenly were weeks ago.
For three years, I regularly wrote down my thoughts. In recent months, I just could think them. Because the time to write them down, just didn't present itself. Or because I did not make the time to write them down. Since that's the course of time: you have to make it. And then, it might be there.
So I took the time to visit Berlin. And to work. To go to see films with friends. To drink coffee. To get inspired. To sit in theatres. I took, in other words, the time to do the things I wanted to do. And writing was just not one of those things.

But that is not entirely true. Because I did write. In my head. A whole series of writings still awaits for the moment that they appear on the screen in front of me. Once in a while, they fight their way forward and suddenly loom in my mind. If they are lucky, they turn into a few words, that one day have to lead to a story. But they are in a long line with other thoughts, that also managed to manifest themselves, and are just as important and scream just as loud for attention. And in the mean time, the strides striding forward, and another week passed, in which still no thoughts are being written down, and the line of stories to write has grown because of new adventures.

Then, suddenly, there is something that makes you realise that you really need to take the time, and that the time is now. The inspiration this time, is not a book by Eckhart Tolle, or a TED Talk about spending valuable time. The inspiration comes from Woody Allen and is wonderful latest film, Midnight in Paris. Where the desire for another time magically becomes a reality, but where the present seems to win. Paris in the Fin the Siecle or in the twenties of last century, opposite the Paris of today. Which is not less good, but maybe less romantic. Because, in the end, some people always long for lost times. Two days before seeing the film, I was in the Van Gogh Museum, and looked at paintings from that same period of the end of the ninteenth century. I saw how Van Gogh painted dark and gray apples in the Netherlands, and how, two years later, influenced by exactly the same Paris, he burst out in colour and feelings.

It's time to get back to work. To choose for the things that are important. It's time to write. To share.

Protest

I cycle through Berlin. It's warm, the sun shines brightly, and I've spend hours already, in search for the perfect place to sip some coffee and read. I cycle past large buildings that carry memories of times that I can't recall. The Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate. All of East Berlin. I stop at the Topography of Terror, a corridor where once the headquarters of the SS and the secret State Police stood and where now the remains of the walls still bear witness to remind us of that time. A few blocks away I wander through the maze of pillars of the Holocaust Memorial, where silence comes and goes between the heavy concrete blocks. The diaries and letters that are displayed below recall familiar images that are still intriguing, sickening and disturbing.

Later, on a terrace in the sun, I loose myself into the harsh world of José Saramago, who describes in his book Blindness how, after an unexplained blindness epedimic first the government, and then the crowd reacts. The nasty, degrading and violent world he describes makes me forget about the sun. The fear that governs and that accepts inhuman behavior so easily, the power that is abused as quickly as possible by anyone who holds it, the indifference and brutal violence that people apply when they apparently feel forced to do so, it's all not really encouraging. The few attempts of compassion can not compete with the trouble that is accepted by the masses, but also implemented by them. It's every man for himself.

When I go online a little later I see the images of New York. Here, a big mass of people makes its voice heard, to challenge systems that are larger than they are. While the media is silent I see police officers with sticks strike bystanders, I see how people are dragged over the ground, how the crowd talks with one voice. I'm looking for coverage online, but time and again, I can only find videos and personal stories that seek their way to the rest of the world through modern media.

Afterwards, it's always easy to talk about such things like who is the villain and who is the hero. As is presented in films too. I wonder how the resistance during the Second World War was seen by the masses back then. As heroes? Or as crazy people, who did not know what they were doing? I think of the woman who stands up against the abuses in the city of the blind: the only one who can see when the rest has been blinded. The protests in the Middle East were seen as a new, fresh and hopeful movement, but no-one speaks about what is happening right now. First, thousands of people have to get arrested, beaten and humiliated. Only after more people move to the streets, and all around the world they raise their voices, the media start talking about it. I wish I could already look back on these times.

Sweat

The windows of an old caravan are covered in steam, from a little pipe on the roof, small puffs of smoke are blown into the crisp air. Two large buttocks are pressed against the window and slide down, a broad back leans against it. In the next shot, two naked men sit together in the caravan. They remain silent, gazing into space.

No, this is not the beginning of a raunchy porn, it's a scene from The Steam of Life, a documentary about Finnish men in saunas. Why Finnish men? Because there are enough films about women in saunas, and because the makers wanted to show that Finnish men have feelings too and are not just rough and closed.

An ex-soldier talks about his broken marriage, a divorced father cries because he doesn't get to see his daughter grow up, an ex-criminal recounts how he almost went down, but eventually managed to turn his life around. In the next shot he washes one of his three sons, who sit beside him in the sauna. An old man lives with his bear, a wood worker talks about how his stepfather abused him. It's a succession of sad life stories, told by tough men, who don't look at each other, but who put a clumsy arm around a shoulder, when the other person is silently weeping. And in the meantime, they throw water on the hot coals. With buckets, bowls and soup spoons.

The heavy conversations in small spaces are joined by breathtakingly beautiful Finnish scenery: huge forests, deep blue lakes, meadows. The seasons change, but the silence of nature is always present. The saunas are the structures in these landscapes, they are built in caravans, tents, and even an old phone booth, on the side of the road.

Two homeless men, carrying all their possessions, walk down the streets of Reykjavik. They enter a building, peel the layers of clothes of their bodies and wash each others backs before they go into the public sauna. Even if you have nothing, you can get steam in Finland.

Fifteen Minutes

The concept is simple, the idea inspiring, but then you have to execute it. Put a number of people, who may or may not know each other, together for a weekend and give each one fifteen minutes to say something.

Once, I had a conversation with a friend about how little we actually knew about the work of each other and and our friends. After our time at university, when we talked a lot about classes and research, we became increasingly removed from substantive conversations about our daily activities. When we were studying, we spend more time in the pub and had less to do during the days, so logically, after ten beers we eventually started talking about our thesis subjects. After graduating, we all disappeared in different directions and hid behind doors and walls to work at computers, doing work that we liked but that we wouldn't talk about a lot. Most of my friends know I do 'something' at CREA that also involves organizing summer courses, for which I have to make long hours. What this organization exactly involves and what I do in those hours, they don't know. Just as I know little of other friends. What does M do as an assistent to a professor? And why is J traveling through Europe for the mediainstitute that he works at? I know V. works online a lot, but why exactly? And S. conducts research, and coaches people, but in what? The idea was born to gather together and talk about it. But even though we're still interested, apparently there was no energy to actually organize it. And who would we invite? Do I want to know about L.'s brothers work at his high school?

In the end, the idea evolved with another friend into Fifteen Minutes of Fame. A weekend where you get fifteen minutes to talk about anything you like. It can be about your job, but also about the book you recently read, or your favorite computer game. The only restriction is that it should be done in fifteen minutes.

Last weekend was the third edition, with twelve people, of whom not one knew everyone. With strangers, acquaintances and friends, we drank, we danced and we ate. We swam in the sea, we walked through the dunes. But mostly we listened, and we anticipated. We brainstormed on projects, we learned about associative thinking. We judged different products on their taste instead of brand, we improvised, we discussed.

What is special about these weekends is that everyone talks about their passion or about what's on their mind. Even though the presentations can be incredibly different, they always lead to further talks in the remaining time. Even though we didn't know each other in the beginning, we parted as friends. Because when someone shares something personal and show his or her vulnerability, you can no longer be strangers.

I love bringing people together and share things with my friends. But I am very grateful that friend A. decided to actually start organizing these weekends. Now we have parted and thanks to the social media, we can stay in touch with eachother. And guess what? We all write about our experience and keep sharing.

Social Network Friends

I can devide my friends into many different groups: based on how long we know each other, the frequency in which we see each other or the corresponding level of interests. More and more, however, the devision that seems to be emerging is that of the social media. Relatively few of my friends are not a member of one of the social network sites. The few who distant themselves from these things, often bring it as a statement: "I do not participate in that sort of nonsense" or "I'm way too busy for those things". It's all fine by me, I don't really care. But I have been noticing a few things.

First, the people who are supposedly rebelling against "those things", are often people who do not work at the computer. Often they teach in high schools, are traveling artists or doctors who work their way through patients charts. When you work at least eight hours a day behind a computer, doing work that mainly get generated by receiving and processing emails, it's lovely to get distracted by status updates from friends. Of course, it's another matter how ethical it is to check your private email on your bosses time, but it's relatively easy to open Facebook, Twitter or whatever site in another tab in your browser.

Secondly, and I actually think this is more important, brings Facebook (in my case) a whole lot of pleasure. In fact, I believe it has enriched my life. Of course I'm not interested in every single status update of each of the people I've befriended online. (It's a social experiment in itself to examine the criteria people use whether or not to befriend others). I also suspect that not all of those people are eagerly waiting for the things I decide to share.
But I think it's a very easy and nice way to be aware of the things that are going on in my friends lives. People who I cannot all meet with on a very regular basis. By reading their updates and watching their photo's, I keep up with their lives a little and it makes it much more easier to catch up during our half-yearly talks. Of course it doesn't replace the real conversations in the bar, but it is an addition to our friendship.
Also, over the last few years, I have enjoyed all the little gifts I got from my Facebook Friends: the funny, touching and beautiful films, links, websites and thoughts they have posted and on which I decided to click. I discovered new bands, inspiring websites and had to laugh out loud a lot over funny or bizarre comments, discussions and links.

On other words: I think Facebook is a gift. And I don't mind spending time on that.