Me: "Ughhhh, Carla, what organ is this? It really hurts(Points to right side)"
Carla: (reflects) "Mmm, what side is your appendix on?"
Priya: "Your left"
Carla: "Oh, that's your ovary. You're ovulating."
Me: "Really? But I just got my period."
Carla: "Oh.... Um them I don't know. I went to my mom once
and she said the cramping is when you're ovulating, but that happens like 2 weeks into your cycle"
Me: "Oh, I got my period like 2 weeks ago"
Carla & Priya: (in unison) "You're ovulating"
Carla: "I thought you meant that you got your period like 2 days ago"
Me: "Weird, I've never felt that before! And I'm getting kinda moody and anxious..."
Priya: "Yep, you're definitely ovulating."
Me: "But why is it just one side? Don't I have 2 ovaries?"
Priya: "No, it's every other month, your ovary switches"
Carla: "Wow I never knew that before!"
Me: "Does that mean I'm highly fertile right now?"
Priya: "Yeah"
Me: "Like, I'm at my peak of fertility?"
This takes place at the front of the room, table closest to the professor. I noticed him blushing really really hard when we finished this conversation.
Today in Film class we were assigned to watch "Pardonnez-Moi" (2004) by Maiwenn.
Priya and I watched it during our break in between class, because our advanced convo class was cancelled. You can watch it here without subtitles
Maiwenn made this film in 17 days, all improvised. It's about a woman who's about to have a baby, and she decides to make a film about her family, exposing her family secrets, such as the fact that she was brutally abused by her father for 10 years and no one did anything about it. She buys a small hand held recorder so she can record moments with a shaky hand, rendering them more authentic, intimate, and having others doubt her credibility as a film maker.
I won't reveal anymore details, or at least not more than necessary.
This movie captivated me. It was so personal, and she showed her neurosis, as well as her faults. I wouldn't say she was dislikable, but she wasn't too likable either, and I thought that was an honest portrayal. She acted like a child sometimes, sometimes manipulative, sometimes unreasonable, sometimes whiney, yet it was believable, and I understood her. I think it's important that the movie title is in the VOUS form, which translates to "FORGIVE ME" but speaking to an elderly, or someone above, you which, more or less, is her saying forgive me to her father. She was asking for forgiveness from her father, and saying that's all she wanted, but towards the end when he does apologize she says that regret
and forgiveness are different and she wants to hear that he regrets, not apologizes for what he did. Layer after layer, and at the end, I do believe she's asking for her father's forgiveness too.
The professor talked about the culture of the individual, how we're fascinated by individuals now, it's the age of the autobiography and the autofiction (a word invented by an ex. Nyu professor, and it's now in the dictionary) He discussed theories by Guy Debord, about the Society of the Spectacle, which basically says that our world has become so alienated, that there exists other worlds separate from our realities, such as internet, TV, radio, etc. That everything we see and hear we hear it from a secondary source, so we're connected by necessity through these parallel universes. He related this to Avatar, about the
dichotomy between worlds and how in the end, the fake universe becomes the real one. To us, our alienation, our secondary consumption, our fake worlds, are real to us.
This came into play because Maiwenn is creating a secondary world, through her movie. She mentioned her purpose for making the movie was due to her baby, and wanting her baby to enter into the real world without lies, so she was revealing them all before the baby was born. I raised my hand and deemed this hypocritical on her part, because in one scene she dreams of her father being warm, and excited, and caring, which basically inserted she wanted to live in a fantasy as opposed to reality, yet she's bringing her baby into "reality" which is a broken, ruptured home, after all the exposed secrets, yet she herself dreams of a fantasy land, which is what existed before the film because everyone had repressed
the bad memories of the past and were at least an illusory, together, family.
This led the professor to say that he didn't think it was hypocritical, necessarily, but he did think that it was paradoxical. He mentioned that he said at the beginning that he loved this movie but also hated it because he found objections, and that I pointed to why. He thought that the baby being brought into the "real" world was paradoxical because viewing the movie would be showing him a spectacle as opposed to the real world. This led then to a tangent about how spectacle is everywhere, even in the school system, because we learn the system and get good grades as opposed to learn how to think, and he also said that it's impossible to learn everything he wants to teach us in these 13 weeks about french cinema and culture, and that's a facade as well. He thinks that the aim of a good class is to help pe
rpetuate how to think. He then said something that stuck with me:
it is important to take time to create and think in order to get out of the spectacle.
and i realized, that's what i do. all the time. i'm always thinking, taking time alone to think. to write, and i always thought it was a waste of time. as other kids were out hanging out with each other, i would rather stay at home sometimes just to think. i always thought there was something wrong with me, or that i was wasting time by thinking, but now i realize why it's so necessary to me. i need authenticity. and what has become a h
abit, as well as something that was innate to begin with, is my own way of challenging the spectacle of this world. my thinking saves me from consuming this spectacle.
It's also funny that when you want to do something, the world throws in your face clues and signs to how to do it. I won't elaborate on this further, but it's like the heightened sensitivity, like, when you want to buy a red car, all you see is that red car. Or you learn a phrase, and for that whole week you hear that phrase everywhere and everything has to do with that phrase. The same thing. Now I know what I need to do! All signs point to go!
I have to say, this class is my favorite class I've ever taken.
I got a worse grade this time on my analysis of "Les Petits Mouchoirs" than my analysis of "Notre Jour Viendra". I asked him why he thought my treatment of the movie through colors (because I literally only focused on the colors of a pillow as a basis of my analysis) didn't work, and he said it's not that it didn't work, but it was specific. I said yes, because it needed to be 2 pages and he said next time to feel free to write more.
In Les Petits, I noticed that Marie leaned against a pillow of blue and white, blue inside with a white border, which mirrored the imagery of the ocean and the sand, blue surrounded by a white border, which also mirrored the scene when the friends walk into the hospital room and their friend is dressed all in blue on the hospital bed and the friends are all wearing white, surrounding him. This to me meant healing, and uniting, literally healing, as the friend was wearing blue to heal, in a hospital. Then as the movie progressed and their little lies came out and they became angry and hostile towards one another, Marie started leaning against a pillow that was white, with red stripes, separated and not touching. Which then to me, represented the characters, as they became separate and dealt with their own pain in their own ways. Eventually at the end, the funeral, showed that some of the characters, notably Marie, wore blue to the wedding. This showed she had fully healed, and that there was catharsis for her. This is a short little summary of my paper. I also talked about camera shots and angles, as well as other imagery, but I won't go into that.
Anyway, then Nicholl came over and brought me my iphone charger. We had a nice conversation outside, as we discussed our project more through the lens my film class had provided me. We've had so many conversations discussing the differences between new york and paris, and their projected value to us both (a value that is assigned to a certain thing that is highly personal and separate from the actual worth of the thing) and it's hard to articulate, yet when she tried to explain to her french friend, he replied to her
"New York, you live for the city. Paris, you live for yourself"
and I got chills! So concise! So TRUE! Nicholl said she felt that New York is like a beast you have to conquer, where everything is so separate and everyone is alienated, whereas in Paris you really do live for yourself. That led me to discuss the ideas of Guy, the alienation, the spectacle, the secondary consumption.
anyway, here's a fun song of how I feel today
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