This afternoon, as my apartment filled up, its inner space being voraciously taken by stuff that had safely been hidden in cupboards, shelves and closets for the last two years, as the ground was first tiled with countless cardboard boxes of various sizes and then littered with all the little things that somehow managed to get out of their drawers and cabinets and hadn't found the right box yet, I was contemplating freedom.
The move to England is entering its immediate pre-departure phase of panicked frenzy and I'm overwhelmed with matching some content with boxes and other with the trash can. How can one person have so much stuff? It's been many years that I've been refusing Christmas or birthday gifts from my parents for lack of space, desire and need. It's been many more years that I've been refusing to throw out things I don't need anymore but feel emotionally attached to.
As I steeple-chased through my apartment in search of the next logical thing to pack, the thing I surely won't need in the next six days, I thought a thought only smug Westerners can think: Freedom is being free from possessions. If by magic half of my stuff disappeared, I'd be a happier man (after a long phase of deep sadness).
I was reminded of what freedom really is at the theater tonight. Persepolis was showing, the artsy animated feature that won the audience's cheers and the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of an outspoken girl growing up in Iran and living through the Islamic revolution, a war, an unhappy few years in Vienna, a return to Iran, this suffocating, brutal, and deluded country, and final emigration. It's a funny sad movie, beautifully drawn in sparsely colored black and white with minimalistic grace, full of subtle moments, touching and stirring.
What I'm saying is go see this movie if it comes to a theater near you. But what I really want to say is freedom is not having some buffoon whirl a gun at you, telling you what do to, stunning nonsense most of the time. Freedom is thinking, speaking, doing without fear. Freedom is life. I know all this, but right now, it's a dozen big cardboard boxes, half of them full and the other half empty, and three corresponding rooms, that are on my mind. Will someone free me of this mess?
3 comments:
I would also recommend the comic-book on wich the movie is based. It's also named Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.
thanks for the recommendation
sounds brutal though, that film. It's a film right?
Sounds like a yard sale is in order.
@Albert: As I understand it, the film is a expanded version of the comic books, of which there are four, I think.
@GC: You're the second person the ask me whether the film is brutal. It's not. It actually has quite a few very gentle moments. It's sad but funny. You will laugh a bit, and you might cry a little.
No yard sale. I gave my TV & DVD player away yesterday and got an exquisite bottle of wine and a bottle of cognac in return. What a deal!
Post a Comment