Where Do We Go From Here

watching movies with family can be the ordeal of a lifetime. Watching them alone with your child or a loved one can be rewarding. Never has my "little" girl been able to stay awake for any. It's as if they lull her to sleep and she always routs for her mother's breast and arm or whatever she can nuzzle close to. Tonight was no different and my little one is fifteen. It doesn't matter if the movie is at one in the afternoon or ten at night, she will pass out securely in my arms putting them to sleep like a twisted domino effect-only I am fully awake and cramping like hell. Movies, love them or leave them, they are a window into all we hope to be, fear becoming or glimpses of fragments from the past.

You ever see the coming attractions on television or at the theatre and think to yourself making the mental note that you have to see this one or that one? I do and I guess I figured most of you would too. But I also make little mental notes as to what movies I want to watch with whom and whether or not I plan to devote a hundred percent of my time to focusing on the subject material or to multi-task and soak in all the audio and pieces of visual.

I have written reviews before for movies and have related to all sorts of genres and stories from them regardless of the period of history and gender of the hero/heroine. This evening my daughter hounded me to get a movie from the Redbox at our local Walmart. She has a pretty good memory and when I feel mine slipping I know I can count on her. I didn't want to rent it this evening because my brother's children were all over for the weekend and it is next to near impossible to become absorbed into the fantasy when you have six children ranging in ages two to ten bandying about and cavorting in their collective boredom. I even bribed them after deciding to get the flick by getting two children's fare. "Ramona & Beezus" and "Gnomeo & Juliette" were adorable and the tots couldn't sit still for either. I will probably have to catch them on free tv in the future as I did not get to fully enjoy them. But back at the rental box my Lobo points out several times how I wanted to see this other movie because it's subject matter deals with my own fundamental existence and beliefs. "Hereafter" deals with very adult subject matter and there's nary a cuss word, exposed breast or crude sexual innuendo at all. It's the point of the film that strikes close to home and its adultness. It portrays three lives. A man who is hiding from his ability in being able to correspond with the dead as a medium, a woman who died and came back and a small boy who lost his twin (older) brother tragically who both came from a less than perfect home life. I cannot tell you too much about the movie in that it would spoil the whole film and I will say this, close to one third of the dialogue is in French, I know French, but not this good or fast of it. I can read it better. I did not put the movie on closed captioning because I saw no need as I was able to distinguish what was going on without the dialogue due to my own correspondence with the things most people cannot see. My intuition comes into play as well, and I found the moments where the language exchanged from my native tongue to a more romantic one quite beautiful and it seemed to be the only time my family would be still. Intently watching me knowing I am the most capable of distinguishing what was going on and deciphering a good quarter of the speech, they waited and begged me to let them in on who was saying what. Now you may find this cruel but life gives you back what you gave and they had theirs coming and I told my brother the lady, in question, was expressing disdain for the big guy on the couch with the hairy bare chest to keep his mouth shut so she could remember her lines! Imagine his shock and awe, and I suppose under my evil circumstances he took it well, though it could have had far more disastrous results. I never did tell them what was going on or why and they never really asked again assuming I didn't know.

I know this. I felt a kinship to each of the three people in the film. I too have died, lost someone very dear and close and been capable, but hiding, in my ability to speak freely with the dead. It overwhelmed me and these days I cry at movies old and new at the drop of a hat. Only, today, it wasn't so. Oh I hurt and felt the pain and sorrow for what these people had undergone, but I wasn't upset nor happy in it. I accepted it like you would a scraped knee or bruised rib after a well fought battle. It gave me hope in being able to cope with my dirty little secrets I no longer hide, my thoughts on my own mortality bearing down upon my head and missing the ones I love. The title was too small and too insignificant I believe. "Hereafter"..."hereafter today things are never going to be the same." Or one of my favorite from the past a la dad, "you will never see the light of day from hereafter for that Missy!" - this last one was almost prophetic wasn't it? No, I think it should have said something more in the title but not too kitschy. "Death and a  Human Condition" sounds better to me. "Denial is Not a River in Egypt" would have been funny. But "Where Do We Go From Here" seems to fit. Where does a medium go to get away from the hounding public all wanting answers he can't always give? Where do you go when you have died and know what's waiting on the other side and to stay behind and live seems so pointless? Where do you go when the only person you have ever been able to count on is gone? Yeah I think it fits but I'm no producer or marketing agent...I'm just saying.~mobe's love to her all and her all to her loves.