Solace


What can we get from our favorite art?

Movies are cool. You can use them to escape, relax, and challenge yourself. Well crafted films are often cool, inspiring, impressive, and, you might hate the word, “vibey”. 

Movies can serve a lot of functions. Some movies exist only to entertain at a very basic level(Ex. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire(2024)). Some movies exist to be purely artistic expressions of the director with little entertainment value(ex. Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky(1979)). Some films seek to entertain by creating an intensely escapist world or by having a hyper stylized composition(See Star Wars or any Quentin Tarantino film). 

Many movies, the movies that are typically most peoples’ favorites, blend entertainment and directorial vision and some amount of thematic meaning all together. Generally this leads to our most widespread and beloved films - See The Return of The King(2003), The Dark Knight(2008), or Jurassic Park(1993).

Some of my very favorite films are those that are well made but also force me to reflect on truths I hold close. Stories, if made well enough, can subvert and challenge our expectations for the legitimate purpose of making us stronger and wiser thinkers. I’ve found that certain pieces of film art really have impacted my maturing and I’d like to share a small number of them.

If you were to get anything out of this post, it’d hopefully be that you should find some form of art that helps you endure life, it doesn't have to be movies, though I feel like movies can be immensely impactful at it if done right. It depends on what problems you as an individual deal with which shape the category of the art you enjoy.

My historic problem: ANGST

    The informal definition of 'angst' is "a feeling of persistent worry about something trivial." None of us have not felt angst in this way. I have always struggled with this anxiousness, and I still do, but not as bad. It wasn't until I actually had to struggle through legitimate life problems during COVID(different story) that the trivial angst problems were fully put in perspective. 

Being an often-existential and overthinking  kid, my [informal definition of] angst would bleed into a more formal definition of angst, defined by the internet as "a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general."

So here's the question: where could I be comforted in both the trivial matters(friendzones, bad grades, college applications, etc.) and the big existential ones(it feels like I have no control over my life). The comfort comes easiest to me from films that address one or both of these in some way. I know their comfort films because I’ve rewatched them all multiple times, and always seem to get some emotional solidarity out of them.

Examples:

1. Band of Brothers: HBO mini-series about 101st airborne in WW2


Good luck fretting about your college applications.


The men portrayed in this miniseries actually served in World War 2 and were in some of the most death-defying scenarios imaginable. I would try and rewatch the series when problems came up which were on the whole trivial. Not only does it make me feel grateful for what I have, but also it makes me motivated to endure more existential hardships.



2. No Country For Old Men(2008)


All is vanity.


This neo-western thriller was the first time I really messed with a movie whose whole goal was to make you question existence. While I don’t agree with the semi-agnostic nihilism it supports, I developed a serious respect for the quality of the story it was able to pull off. Besides, some parts of its message can be found in the Bible- my guide- such as the idea of “hey, are you worried that you don’t have control in your life? Well, you don’t.”

Such movies I’ve watched over and over again because they’re cool and thought provoking, and they enable me to step outside of myself in the trivial situations that I’ve been in.


3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)


"I think his world was gone long before he was ever in it"


This is definitely the most stark example of a work of art that I might return to when things are rough. Without spoiling it, it’s a movie that slowly brings you into an explosive and fantastic world of color, and then towards the end slowly brings you out, like one of those lazy river Disney rides. The music, acting, set pieces, characters, etc. hit so hard when mixed together, and make the body of the film a fantastic adventure. 

What Grand Budapest does which is so remarkable and comforting is that when it pulls you out of the fantastic world you’ve spent the entire movie in, it brings home its overarching themes of loss, and time, and how we move our lives forward. All these themes may seem grand and melodramatic, but, I mean, teenage me was one of the most melodramatic people I know. It was almost as if the drama of the story felt like a person who was empathizing with younger me, and that’s why I so often came back to it, because it was comforting when things were hard.

Why I don’t need these exact movies so much anymore

Since COVID especially I've noticed that I haven't needed the repeat comfort movies so often. Films are still a big part of my life and I love them very much, but I think I've matured out of needing a specific movie as an emotional-life-progress sounding board. I love Grand Budapest Hotel, and will continue to rewatch it, but in the future it likely won't play as big a part in coping with sadness or anxiety. I love Band of Brothers, but I have seen it enough times to understand its messages and appreciate it to, at the moment, completeness.  Besides, there are more movies that deal with grief and pain that I haven't explored yet! There's countless books I need to read. There's paintings, albums, history, etc. that can all aid in my future hardships. I don't need to limit my comfort movies to some cool films from grade school.

What’s more - and this is a whole blog post in and of itself - my love of nature has been taking the place of movies when it comes to providing comfort and confidence for me. To make art, we humans will write stories. When God makes art, he causes millions of years of tectonic shifts to birth mountains from the ground. I guess, as I mature, I shifted from one form of art to another for solace.

The word ‘solace’ just popped into my brain. I think that’s the word I’ve been trying to describe this whole time. Thank God for giving us the potential to make art, and thank those who make it for being able to make things that bring solace.

Early morning moonfall over Smoky Mountains near  Asheville, N.C., 2023 - shot from my iPhone of all things!







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