#it's michelle yeoh's world and we're all just living in it

[rivertalesien]

It's been a strange day. Not strange as in "Did you see those clowns try to get into that tiny car?" more like "wow, we're really in bad shape and maybe there's no off-ramp from what is going to happen."

D and I drove into Seattle this morning to catch two (yes, two) showings of Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. Other than the trailer, we had no idea what the film would be about, only that it was sure to be wild and Michelle Yeoh is the Great One, and we were, for a change, really excited to see a film.

And the film didn't disappoint, though I'm not going to discuss it much. It's not a film that can really be described, except to its barest bones: it's a love story about a family, a mother and daughter in particular, finding meaning in their lives, no matter how trivial it all seems. There are flashes of filmmaking brilliance, delicate (though not terribly original) familial insights and so much insane hilarity I was worried a time or two that I didn't bring a change of underwear.

It's a film that requires its characters to make bizarre leaps in order to experience other versions of themselves, but boils down to the one leap that always seems hardest to make: a leap of faith, especially in others.

As one character points out in the film, people "don't trust one another anymore" and this has led to so much cruelty and unkindness.

We were very lucky I think to have an early showing with a group that came in just before the film started. It was a group, we learned after, of trans women who like to go to movies together (as it feels safer) and this one they'd already seen the night before and had to come back. Something about the possibility of other universes, maybe even ones where transness isn't shamed or criminalized was very appealing. The story of Joy, Yeoh's daughter in the film, felt particularly close to some of them, especially in relation to their own parents.

Films like this are rare and wonderful when they emerge, but never without melancholy; only a stubborn, human refusal to accept our fate (especially if it means falling into the Bagel of Doom, but that's a little spoiler). We can find redemption in one another, whether in holding on to what we have or letting it go and allowing ourselves to love and be loved.

I find from what I see in so many marginalized communities is the deep desire to love and be loved and finding rejection in the wider, whiter, straighter world. Something that, in the 90s, as a teen, I remember thinking must be getting better. But it didn't take much to set us back. If we were ever moving forward to begin with.

And I wish it were as simple as just begging everyone to stop fighting, to just recognize everyone's pain and know, no matter who or what you are, you can love and be loved.

^

After the first show we stopped into a supermarket to get a couple of things and were probably the only ones in the store wearing masks. This is depressing enough, as we are most definitely still in a pandemic with a virus that is spread through aerosols, so people not masking means the virus circulates (and gets to mutate). It isn't something arguable that our government has failed, perhaps deliberately, to protect the people from short-sightedness and even helped to feed some of the anti-mask/anti-vaccine sentiment circulating by its open ineptitude and mixed messaging.

So it shouldn't have been much of a surprise to us to be stared at, as if we were lonely hikers wandering in from a moonlit moor into a strange pub in a quiet village where a werewolf has been sighted recently. Were we bitten? Are we a threat? You have to wonder, sometimes.

It was all just uncomfortable enough that we wanted to leave quickly, but then there was this guy. A 30-something man in hunting fatigues with a probably-ten year old boy (also in hunting fatigues) with him. The man pointed right at us, laughing, and told the boy "That's what stupid looks like."

He and the boy laughed, the kind of laugh that makes you feel sick inside, the kid of sneering malevolence that seems to belong in films where outsiders are not welcome and only one night away from being dragged out of their room at the cozy inn and sacrificed to the local god of blood.

Now that's imagining things, of course. It was a nasty moment, but insinuating it as "malevolent" is probably hyperbolic. At least, I tried to convince myself of this as we left the store. That this was one person teaching his son how to be cruel. Just one person. Not everyone is like that. Most people aren't like that.

Right?

Not one person in the store said or did anything. It was as if this were a completely normal and rightful occurrence in their midst.

^

That's when we decided to shake it off and listen to some podcasts, namely NPR programs On the Media and This American Life. Content included stories on Covid long haulers and the ongoing failure of our government to see the shitshow in front of them (especially in regards to this being a mass disabling event), then turned to a deeper dive into the experiences of activists and journalists in Eastern Europe, especially Russia.

One segment featured interviews with Russian journalists who have been arrested, tortured and intimidated by Russian police over their coverage. Their stories are harrowing, to say the least, especially when we get to hear secretly recorded exchanges with police they made while being interrogated. The police refuse to acknowledge them as having rights, treating them with dignity or respect. A sneering malevolence, if you like.

Another segment focused on a Hungarian political activist who has worked to bring together all the various political parties in Hungary to defeat long-time prime minister Viktor Orban. In spite of his own democratic beliefs, the activist had to build up an electorate that could defeat Orban and that meant catering even to fascist parties. Making concessions about LGBTQ citizens and ideas of "equality" (considered a Communist/Western idea and therefore unwanted). Concessions that would be unthinkable at any other time. But they were desperate.

The descriptions of how Hungary fell to Orban's ultra-conservative Fidesz party (think the GOP under Trump) and how quickly social changes occurred, including the revocation of Democratic rights, to bodily autonomy (anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ), to the present where Orban, in spite of the collective developed against him, still prevailed in the recent elections.

The descriptions of the cruelty of police and political leaders.

It's much too similar to what we see here, growing, no matter how the current administration wants to pretend We're All Friends Now and There Is No Pandemic.

These realities keep activists and journalists up at night. Personally, I'm not sure how anyone can sleep knowing our president wants to fund our militarized and blatantly fascist police forces even further.

^

In the last few days Twitter made a couple of striking announcements: they were finally, after more than a decade of users begging, adding an edit function.

The second: Elon Musk had bought himself a seat on their board and was welcomed with open arms.

Spelling out the dangers of a billionaire oligarch seeking control over one of the world's few, if not only, platform for free speech (in spite of his spoken desire for more "free speech" it's easy to suspect Musk wants to control what others say and not give them a wider forum) shouldn't be necessary. But Twitter is full of far-right accounts like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who use the platform to spread hate and, no doubt, violence. Our government does not bring such individuals into account and it looks like Twitter won't, either, in spite of widespread calls to ban her and those like her (Twitter is a private platform; banning someone for hate speech is *not* an attack on free speech).

It's as if consequences do not exist for a certain class and their sneering malevolence, which now includes equating LGBTQ with pedophilia, allowing trans youth to transition child abuse, creating laws to end access to abortion, banning trans youth from sports, all the work to suppress and intimidate voters, to end teaching history in schools (especially as it relates to slavery and Civil Rights), right into the mocking of Covid and those who seek to protect themselves and others from its disastrous effects.

^

We sat in the car and listened and talked about all the above and what would we do if worst came to worst (as it already has in some places)? The Hungarian activist had said, to that very question, he would only leave for his family, but if it were simply up to him, he'd stay, no matter how bad it is getting. There's no question that most of us aren't going anywhere. Moving simply isn't economically feasible and, in any case, where would you go?

^

In the film, Michelle Yeoh's character, Evelyn, is given deep glimpses into other versions of her life. There are no major political moments that describe societies in downfall: only the danger of watching her daughter slip away, out of her grasp and her understanding. She's offered the chance to join Joy in the Nothing beyond Everything, as the one person who might understand what Joy feels (nothing matters). She is tempted: and it might be a little bit of a letdown to learn how finding selfless love saved them, but that is the resolution.

In the last battle Evelyn's husband reminds her to be kind and so, instead of martial arts badassery, she fights "like him."

Showing others compassion and letting them know they can be loved.

It seems like such a trite, saccharine idea.

D and I decided we couldn't sit through another showing and gave our tickets to a couple waiting in line to buy theirs.

Maybe, like Evelyn in the film, we can learn to pass it on. What else can we do?

#everything everywhere all at once #2022 films #michelle yeoh #current events #a day in the life? #we read the news today oh boy #give a little bit