SENA KAYASÜ (ARCH/IV)
sena.kayasu@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
Over the past week, I’ve been sick. Being sick, I had some time to re-watch one of my favorite movies: “Stranger Than Fiction.”
In my family, the domination of the living room couch by the infirm is pretty standard. If you’re sick, you get the remote control. So, over various colds and stomach flus, I’ve watched a lot of morning television and a good number of movies. In fact, I remember some illnesses by the movies I watched during them, such as “Reign Over Me” five or six years ago. It’s the only Adam Sandler movie that is truly, irrevocably tragic, being about a man whose wife and three daughters were on one of the four 9/11 planes. Needless to say, he has lost his mind, and our hero, played by Don Cheadle, tries to put him back together.
As a result, I learned a very important lesson: never watch sad movies when you’re sick. Never. I have no idea how, exactly, but the immune system directly communicates with your morale. On the other hand, watching silly comedies, soppy romances or mindless action movies back-to-back can get as depressing as watching a tragic one.
But there a few films that simply make you feel good. They’re made to make you feel fuzzy on the inside. They serve as reminders of the continuity of life, distracting the audience from the imminence of death.
“Stranger Than Fiction” is full of life. It’s about a man named Harold Crick. And his wristwatch. The wristwatch is inextricably pertinent as a commentator on and, in some cases, instigator of the events that form the plot. The movie is not solely about an IRS agent named Crick; it’s about his watch—an accessory that is common to all of us. The revelations of a man with a wristwatch may apply to anyone with a wristwatch.
Many feel-good movies use such tools to throw their audience off balance. They aim to distract, to poke, and show the bigger picture instead of the more specific plot. This is tricky, since plots are—by nature—specific. Too much of this, and the production will seem pretentious. Too little of it, and you’ve got a movie like any other.
Any story can be about a man named X and his neighbor Z and the girl Y. An audience needs more to believe; it needs character. But given too much character, we lose sight of what the film is trying to relate to us, which is often…life. Or rather, that life is worth living. That it’s worth taking a vacation day to feel good about yourself. That you’re special and so is everyone else walking down the street, so why not give people a chance? Why not renew your faith in humanity?
“Stranger Than Fiction” manages to pull together a great cast with hilarity and purpose in order to prove this. A woman you pass on the street may have made it her life’s mission to make a better world by baking. A man you see on the bus may save a life.
People are good. In their bones, truly good. When I’m sick, I try to immerse myself in things that remind me of this. Not all films use a wristwatch to do so. Some use threads, some fairytales and some set their stories in a universe, in a future far, far away.
“Love Actually,” for example, instead of giving us something smaller, endeavors to be utterly comprehensive. It presents a number of storylines with a bunch of characters whose lives are connected by so many common, random events that the only way we can truly see the movie is by taking a step back. Many other movies, such as “New York, I Love You,” have used the same tactic, but I feel like not even they can match the very explicit message in “Love Actually.” For example, the airport scene: seeing love and hugs on that scale, of that much variety, makes you feel better, whether you want to or not.
Fairytales, too, have an undeniable capacity to cheer. Instead of presenting distractions or interconnections, movies that utilize the fairytale weapon trigger a sense of familiarity. You don’t need a reminder like a wristwatch or people hugging in the airport if you can already remember a similar story that your grandfather/mother/father told you when you were a child. This is what “The Princess Bride” does. It makes up a new fairytale, original in its characters and dialogue, but not so much in its plot and themes. There is a happy, well-off girl who falls in love with a not-so-well-off boy. The boy is aided by two misfits in his attempt to save her from the evil that is out to get her. It’s not like no one knows the story, but there’s no harm in hearing it one more time—although watching this movie did make me wonder why pseudo-fairytales (or maybe we can call them “the new generation of fairytales”) choose Spanish swordsmen as their heroes’ sidekicks (see “Shrek”).
Winter is coming, and if we are to believe the forecasts, it won’t be a mild one. You, reader, have a good chance of catching a cold soon. But don’t worry when you do; instead, dig up this random column and pick one of the above movies to watch. You’ll feel better in no time.
Correction: It’s been pointed out to me that I made a mistake in my installment about the Gar. Foreign architects were not brought in to make buildings “such as” the Gar. Şekip Akalın designed the Gar after the 19th-century train station was deemed unfit for the burgeoning capital of the young Republic. Foreign architects were brought in to produce many government buildings, but not that one. Sorry.