The Power of Story

In art, I believe the line delivered by actor Richard Attenborough should be the only rule. "Spared no expense." Art, and the deep truths it can convey, are priceless.

I want to do this justice, and I know I won't because it's 1:20 in the morning and I'm winging this blog. But at least I'll be able to express some feelings and sort some thoughts.

I'm going to link a video at the end and wrap it in spoiler tags. It's an analysis and reflection on the anime movie Your Name, which is my favorite movie. It naturally sounds cliche but it changed my life.

I was at a real low point in my life. I didn't know where I was going. I felt like I was lost, either going in circles or spinning my wheels in the snow and going nowhere but digging myself deeper into a hole. I contemplated ending it all. Rationality without nothing to temper it turns into sinister nihilism and cynicism as toxic as Xenomorph blood. There is a quote that unfortunately I've never been able to find after having heard it some years ago, but it was a warning to not question oneself out of existence. That's what doubt, fueled by fear, does so well.

That jaded person is still inside me. It's inside everyone. Sometimes that voice still comes out of me. And you know what, it isn't even wrong all of the time. That part isn't useless but as soon as it usurps power the entire kingdom of my mind is cast into tyrannical darkness.

I had no job. I wasn't going to school. I had no plans because I was genuinely contemplating if I wanted to die. As I have best managed to describe it, I was too scared to live yet too scared to die. When I wasn't being too privately critical of my friends or getting bored doing the same old things with them (which I later realized was criticism I could not exempt myself from), I was alone at a cafe reading, writing, mindlessly surfing the web. Writing had never left me, even when we weren't on good terms.

One day I randomly decided to see a movie. Now, I may have only been around for two decades and I understand there's still a big world out there and a long road ahead (probably), but I can safely say that this will still be in the top ten most life-changing decisions of my life.

There was a list of at least two dozen movies that I could've seen. I don't even remember what they were called. For some reason, I scrolled all the way to the bottom, the very last one.

"Your Name". An anime.

I'd never seen an anime before. I mean, I had. Either bits and pieces of Naruto which I'm just not a fan of, not sorry, or random parts of Yu-Gi-Oh or Dragonball Z (*yawn*), or Avatar which I have to admit is actually really good from what little I've watched. Also, Inuyasha would come on Adult Swim when I was staying up too late as a little kid, and that show scared the shit out of me for some reason. Haven't watched it since so I couldn't tell you why, but if it was on Adult Swim then the creators were definitely on acid.

This movie is the reason why I'm a weeb. Once my eyes were opened to good anime, I never looked back. It's like I'm looking at the last remaining vestiges of art. Like watching Lord of the Rings and realizing there will never be anything like it again, as confirmed by The Hobbit. American TV is just so shallow and lackluster and has no pride in art, no sense of tradition, hollow values, shallow ass characters, bread-and-circus comedy (and don't even get me started on Hellish laughtracks).

To watch something so... beautiful. A story about love that wasn't jaded. A sense of magic and wonder. Of things that are greater than ourselves, and that maybe we should be humble enough to believe in them, even just a little bit.

The question of whether art imitates life or not is a false dichotomy. It's both. I think some art should reflect life. But what happens when art is only reflecting life? Then naturally life will begin to reflect back. And so you get this nasty self-perpetuating loop. Idiot dads, helicopter moms, single moms that don't need anybody else and especially not a man, white man bad, cops bad-- ORDER bad. Everyone's been raped, everyone's a victim. Everything's sardonic, everything's ironic, sincerity bad, everything's glitz and glamor, everything's corporate, everything's jaded, everything's cynical (yes I see the hypocrisy I'm telegraphing here), America bad, politicians bad, revolution good, free stuff good, no responsibility good, no family values is good, no ideals is good, change is always good and never bad, the old way is never good and always bad... because it's old, I guess.

I'm over it. Not because art can't have those opinions or express itself in those ways. That's fine. But that's predominantly all I see. That's certainly all I ever find in the mainstream.

Watching Your Name was so refreshing. If I could go back to myself that day for just a few moments and live inside my head, I can promise you how spiteful I was. I would tell you I don't believe in love. That it's all a lie cooked up by marketers. It's a deception we tell ourselves to cover up sinister, primitive selfishness. That women are all witches and sirens. That the dating game is a complete and utter waste of time, and if it's a game of numbers then it's certainly a bullshit slot machine at a corrupt casino.

Some of those things I still believe. Some I believe but to lesser degrees. But Your Name reminded me that there actually is beauty out there. My heart had grown cold and turned to stone much like the Earth's core in however millions of years, but it started again. And I cried, because I'd accepted it never would.

I could barely contain myself in the theater as I sat there watching it, alone, not a single other soul had come. When I got to my car in the parking lot I sobbed.

I went back again and again, four more times (I'm quite certain it was five, but I kept the movie tickets and I only have five total) and I had the same reaction every time. Part of me thought I was just losing my mind. "Yup, I've finally lost it." I certainly didn't tell anybody else until much later.

To this day whenever I watch it after having not seen it for a while, I still cry. I still lose myself in that world and in the lives of those characters. In the themes and messages that I get from it. In most movies I feel like a passive observer, distanced, unable to fully connect with the story. Not this one.

It was everything I didn't believe in anymore. Didn't want to believe in anymore. And it flanked the trenches, stormed the bunkers, hugged my raw heart and never let go. That's all I've ever wanted from somebody.

If I truly ask myself what I want as a writer, I want to pass that on to someone else. A person in the same place I was, and if they stay there for much longer they'll certainly be taken away from the light forever.

So I change my mind. I'm not going to spoil the movie for anyone by linking that video. Go watch the movie.