The Painful Beauty of Art Imitating Life
After 15 long years, Stephanie Meyer finally released her masterpiece Midnight Sun this past August. In doing so, she plunged me back into the world of vampires, werewolves, and CGI babies that I hadn't thoroughly revisited since middle school. There was no escaping this revert, when I wasn’t at work I was savoring the nearly 700 pages that were quickly dwindling. And while I was at work my co-workers and I blasted “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” and “Super Massive Black Hole.” As I’m sure is evident, Twilight once again consumed my life for a good month over the summer.
Naturally, with my Twilight obsession revived, so was my love for Robert Pattinson. Yet, I quickly realized I hadn’t really ever explored his extensive body of work, resigning him to the roles of Edward Cullen and Cedric Diggory. With this realization, I dedicated myself to a Rob Pat watch-a-thon. The first film in the series being: Remember Me. So, on a warm summer’s night with my movie picked out and nothing else to do I began my marathon thinking I could probably fold some laundry while I was at it. However, the second the movie started I was locked in. Unlike the comfort movies I usually watch (i.e. Pride and Prejudice and you guessed it: Twilight) I couldn’t take my eyes away from the small screen of my phone. Two hours later and I was in the very same position I had been in when I had hit play.
Remember Me doesn’t treat you like an idiot by explaining everything but instead just drops you in and lets you figure things out for yourself. The characters seemed real, the plot was driven, and there was just enough at stake to keep you invested. As the film was coming to an end and resolutions were being made it seemed like a movie that would easily make my comfort list. But, in the last five minutes some real-world context becomes clear, all hell breaks loose, and then the credits roll.
Shocked and wounded by the ending I was left staring at the white of my bedroom walls. For half an hour I sat there trying to come to terms with what I had just witnessed, overwhelmed with emotion but numb at the same time. I had never experienced such a strong wave of emotions from a movie before. Confused, I went to bed summing my feelings up to a mix of me being melodramatic and tired. When I woke up the next morning with the heavy pressure of sadness still weighing on my chest I realized that sleep hadn’t been the antidote I had thought it would be. Why was this movie giving me such a visceral emotional reaction? For days following I remained in this funk. It was bizarre, making me feel out of control knowing there was no real reason for me to be feeling the way I was. I even had friends and family comment about how I looked upset, and asking me what was wrong. Damn, Twilight had never made me feel this way.
For the most part, I am someone who enjoys watching movies, I do it quite often. Whether I need a pick me up, a good cry, or a reason to laugh I usually turn to movies for a quick fix. I’ve always seen them as a way to elicit an emotion that corresponds to and/or helps me process something happening in my real life. But never have I been so uncontrollably affected by a movie the way I was by Remember Me and I couldn’t help but wonder why.
Perhaps this is something that others don’t find that perplexing, but I can’t quite seem to grasp how a recording of individuals pretending to be people they’re not, in situations that are fabricated can seem so real and challenge me so much. Pondering this idea in relation to Remember Me has made me realize just how hauntingly beautiful art imitating life is. It not only has the power to show you the beauty in the mundanities of the everyday but also the pain and torture that goes along with life as well. I’ve come to understand that with movies like Pride and Prejudice and Twilight I am not affected in the same way as Remember Me because while based in our world they are so far removed, whether it be through hundreds of years or fantastical elements, that their greatest tribulations seem trivial, even humorous when brought into our world. These differences in realities polarize us (the audience) allowing us to separate ourselves from the characters we watch and in doing so limit our emotional connection and sympathy for them.
In contrast, when it comes to art that imitates life where we, alongside the characters see and experience events/scenarios we recognize--like 9/11--we are unable to detach ourselves from what we are watching because it’s not some version of our reality but rather a different viewpoint of the one we experience. The horror we observe is a horror we know giving us no choice but to empathize.
All this to say, I don’t think I’ll ever really know why I was affected the way I was by this movie. But, what I have deduced is that art in any medium is a powerful tool capable of unlocking uniquely human emotions. I find that very beautiful.