paying attention to fiction has helped me put my head in order

There is so little life in reality that it is not uncommon for more than one viewer to think of take refuge in a movie theater to understand each other better and let the thoughts and emotions of your own existence flow there. The American writer Hanya Yanagihara, who made the expression used at the beginning of the text her own in her novel published in 2015, captured on paper the tedium that can be felt in moments of anguish and in which there is a risk of not being to oneself

It was precisely shortly before the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic that the World Health Organization (WHO) began to speak in a report prepared by its Office for the European Region of the beneficial relationship between art and emotions –and, therefore, mental health–even being able to help with “complex challenges” on a personal level.

Getting on the screen, like the confusion caused by one of the main characters in Woody Allen’s ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’, can be like unraveling the skein that we have inside our heads and that on a day-to-day basis, due to the impossibility of living slowly, it is not manageable. Part of that magic also resides in being able to cry, laugh and feel, ultimately, in the dark to release tension.

When looking at the screen is looking in the mirror

Going to the cinema as a collective experience has been widely talked about, although not because of the fact of communing with the ritual of entering a room with seats that will turn off the lights and remain silent. the intimate experience of being alone “you to you”, like when listening to a song acquires different meaning depending on the ears that appreciate it. At a recent concert on Rosalía’s ‘Motomami’ tour, when the catana artist began to sing ‘G3N15’, the song dedicated to her nephew, you could feel on the track that her own experiences began to flow, far removed from that child of 10 years of which the letter speaks. And, in that context, suddenly you had in front of you someone who was moved to tears but in a different way, with someone next to him who was sheltering him.

Nomadland

In this case, the audiovisual can awaken a parallel way of thinking that serves to get out of the mental quagmire and learn to overcome certain chaotic moments, as well as serving as a distraction from the tangible and real world. Pay attention to fiction, an art form that may seem much more majestic than reality but ultimately falls short when compared to everyday life, leaves a trace of personal roots that allows you to grow and be able to see everything from a greater calm for having, in part, already “suffered” some trances in the dark. Can crying in the cinema have a therapeutic aspect? According to the WHO document, establishing a link with art can help develop social connection, reduce isolation and build individual identity.

There is a lot of intimacy in watching a movie and the fact that many talk of the inability to go alone to the cinema because it is an uncomfortable experience, being basically alone in the face of danger with oneself, shows that standing in front of a screen to follow the journey of one or several characters is an introspection that risks ending up raw, possibly healing itself. Exposing yourself to another reality and living it intensely is one of the great refuges to go to not only for entertainment, but for the mirror that serves to offer a self-reflection.

Depending on the genre that the public sits down to watch, a marked duality can be found in the protagonists that intensifies the plot to make it more interesting. To this plot of mystery is added another of its own based on a well-known duality towards the viewer, seen as that “voyeur” capable of observing all the action that takes place in the cinema or in the room, and that can also serve to analyze oneself. To understand it a little more graphically, the moment of facing a film in this way can be like that boy or girl who at some point in their childhood, faced with an invasive moment, can only experience it by covering their ears, sitting on the floor , crying and wishing internally that it ends soon, but with the obligation to live it inevitably.

For some viewers, the strange ritual of see the characters as a kind of alter egos in a parallel universe. Seeing yourself from the outside with a script as a channel helps to internally deconstruct and undo the steps to reach a conclusion that serves as a starting point, turning point or conclusion. There is a genre that specifically tests attachment to the tragicomic tone of reality with characters that seem to have nothing special to be worthy of an audiovisual plot, but that end up hitting the vital key with the very arc that they experience at the moment.

In the recent movie ‘All at once everywhere‘in which, without a doubt, scenes pass, each one more fantastic and which is partly anchored in the ‘summum’ of stepping on the Olympus of superheroes, there are a lot of comedy that is born from the purest absurdity and the result of sadness.

A tone very similar to what life is and to the mix of feelings that must be digested every day. That mother with that husband or that daughter who are unable to speak is perfectly us talking about our defects; just like that receptionist, that co-worker, and that boss of ‘office‘ they show everything desperate that is around us and that can often leave us speechless and making strange faces, feeling even more uncomfortable.

For who writes this article, crying with the audiovisual has already become a liberating processespecially in stories like the recent ones shortlisted to represent Spain at the 2023 Oscar Awards, ‘Alcarràs‘ Y ‘five wolves‘or in strings like ‘fleabag‘which at first seems to have a superficial character but then discovers a very human journey towards “I can’t stand myself” and “I can’t stand my family”.

Those who also find similar projects their comfort fiction will understand that philosophy of the “bitter”. One does not go to the cinema purely to suffer and have a bad time, although one learns a lot from that trip.