Teen Angst: A Style War

With the recent tragic passing of filmmaker John Hughes (dubbed the "bard of teen angst" in one obit headline), I thought this an optimum time to write about a film I saw at SILVERDOCS back in June.  I haven't quite figured out why this is so, but certain films, like this one, that affect me very deeply and profoundly with their beauty and truth--well, it takes me forever and a day to write about them.  While one part of me wants to shout to the skies and tell everyone and their mom about it, another part wants to savor it privately, clandestinely, like a delicious secret.

But then, seemingly, everything else I see and read and take in makes the experience resonate even more and, eventually, helps me to form coherent thoughts about why this small nonfiction piece called Let's Be Together by Danish filmmaker (the Danes!!) Nanna Frank Møller, thrilled me so much.  Maybe it's my own particular version of a film reviewer's angst, I guess, since I don't believe in the excuse of writer's block--much.

Clinically speaking, angst can be a kind of free-floating anxiety, often accompanied by depression or a profound disorientation in the face of a meaningless existence.  Our teen years are rife with that kind of stuff--at least mine were.  Instead of waking up as a cockroach one morning, 14-year-old Hairon, the main subject of Møller's fine film, seems to be morphing into a being entirely of his own making--not fully boy, not fully girl, not fully child, not fully adult, not fully Brazilian, not fully Danish, and entirely uncertain about how he wants to present himself to the world.  The only thing he's certain of is his searing need for 250 euro Dior sunglasses and Baby Phat mules with rhinestones.  Typical teenager. 

The biggest problem for the family that loves and cherishes and accepts this capricious cross-dressing creature, of course, is that he is well on his way to being a target of sadistic bullies and perpetrators of hate crimes, people who would take one look at him and lash-out mostly out of sheer terror that another human being is wearing his insides on the outside--outrageous and unacceptable, meant to be destroyed, my god, it might be catching! 

These three parents--his mother, Creuzina Gomes Jensen, his birth father, Marchello Pretti, and stepfather, Jimmy Jensen--adore this boy and want the best life possible for him.  They are also afraid for him, and so do the best they can to go about waking him up a bit to what the real world might have in store for someone like him, despite his crabby, bratty protestations that he can do what he wants and they can all sod off.  Typical teenager.

Hairon is a soon-to-be 15-year-old Brazilian boy who has lived most of his life in Denmark in a small provincial town with his Brazilian mother and Danish stepfather.  But it is only to his birth father, Marchello, whom he goes to visit in Brazil after not seeing him for several years, that he can say, "Now that I've started this, I don't know where to draw the line.  Or when to stop.  I'll have to learn."  And it is Marchello who becomes his teacher and mentor in the ways one can gracefully navigate between inner and outer lives.  For it is Marchello who knows better than most what it is to live a dual existence; for almost his entire life, he is someone who has had to traverse the dicey territory between being true to himself and protecting himself from those who would destroy him if they knew the truth.  It is a harsh, but honest, lesson in self-preservation, rendered in the most gentle and loving way a parent can teach a child something they'd prefer that child never had to face.

I am reticent and slow to reveal all the fascinating layers this film has in store because I think I'm simply trying to mirror the tantalizing and patient way that Møller reveals the details of this family story.  With refined camera work and infinite patience that pays off big, with not one whit of exposition, narration, explanation--not a peep--she gazes from behind her lens and waits for the riches she knows she will be able to mine with her subjects.  It is such a rewarding, exhilarating viewing experience, and sadly, so damn rare in this verbose, tele-crap, play-to-the-dumbest-guy-in-the-room, world.  If you're a human being, you get what's going on.  And I like it when filmmakers make films for human beings.

Western culture seems to be having a problem holding on to the propensity for affinity and empathy for our fellow selves, inner, outer and other.  We are so busy imposing structure and common identity, defining that identity out of some misconstrued imperative for a common experience.  (We're more label-crazy than the worst fashionista.)  Møller's subjects show us beautifully that the parent-child relationship can hold phenomenal empathic qualities, an uncanny ability to see inside the person your child is, to see how they see the world and help them articulate how they see the world, to "be together."  It can give the most confused, bereft being hope that they can navigate successfully in a world that is far from welcoming to difference or diversity.  Here is a parent who has lived through much personal pain and his own angst and come out the other side intact enough to give his own child faith in himself, the belief that there are possibilities in his life.  Hairon knows how hard life is--of course he already knows that, all of us do by the time we're five.  The kid needs hope.  In her film, Møller captures Hairon's understanding and discovery of the fragile nature of human identity.  However spoiled and silly and narcissistic and temper-tantrum-y he gets, he's searching desperately for his true self and I admire him greatly for that.  And, ultimately, so does his family.

In his interview with Mary Zournazi in her wonderful book, Hope: New Philosophies for Change (2003, Routledge), Greek/Australian writer, Christos Tsiolkas, says, "One of the tasks of anyone who finds themselves writing or producing film or ideas in our culture at the moment is to describe exactly, as best as we can, what alienation is and to give it a voice, and then turn it into the idea of hope and faith--that is, how to go beyond those experiences of alienation."  The shared commitment and the shared responsibility of every member of Hairon's family ensure that this will be a nurtured human being, someone who will be able to truly believe the words in the song that runs over the final credits as he and Marchello dance together ecstatically under a summer sky:  No beauty is greater than the one we're born with.

Comments

[Jesse]

Your write-up is so touching, I can't wait to see this film!