marmota_b

So I finally watched Paterson today.

Father’s been praising and quoting it at me for several years (he watched it with friends from church – I think maybe during one of their monthly film evenings), and several of my friends have praised it on Facebook. I downloaded / purchased it in March at the beginning of lockdown but didn’t find the time and peace of mind for it until now.

I loved it.

But also I then read the review at Roger Ebert, and the comments, and can’t help thinking...

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Father said it’s much more like a European film than an American one.

Father can, on the whole, be a bit overwhelming; Father has Opinions (I kind of write my Frank Castle like him, in that and a couple other respects, although there’s also a lot they don’t have in common), and he can give you what I call his fifteen-minute lectures on just about any subject, often without you asking.

And somewhat annoyingly, he is often right.

But sometimes he has these more subdued moments of insight when we connect over something unexpectedly, or he off-handedly says something that shifts my perception of something. (Like that one time he gave me a blow-by blow account, the way he often needs to share as he gets excited about a topic, as he came across a Wikipedia mention of the Fridrich method of speedcubing, found out about Jessica Fridrich through that, read up on her, and then matter-of-factly corrected the Czech title of the Fridrich method in a Wikipedia article to female gender - because it does enter into it grammatically in Czech - and matter-of-factly summed up his edit as "Jessica Fridrich is a woman." Jessica Fridrich is a trans woman. We've never discussed those issues. After that, I don't think we have to.)

He also claims – and is mostly right – that he doesn’t really “get” literature and art. But he still enjoys a lot of art, much the same way he enjoys wine – i. e. not because it’s somehow sophisticated but simply because it’s enjoyable and interesting? And he still has insights.

Like that one time he read Pan Tadeusz (one of my favourite books) and immediately twigged onto the fact Mickiewicz rather mocks the character of Telimena, unjustly. Which it had taken me several readings to realise. So we’ve had an interesting conversation about Telimena and how she doesn’t conform to the worldview of the people around her (she comes from small Polish / Lithuanian nobility but is more of a cosmopolitan character herself, which was a Bad Thing in the age of Polish fight for independence) but is still essentially not doing anything wrong and for one thing definitely is doing her best for Zosia, her ward... (and the way that genuinely loving relationship in the book was downplayed in the Andrzej Wajda film is one of my few complaints about it...)

... well. Now that I’ve digressed that way: you should read Pan Tadeuz. Don’t let the facts it’s Polish Romanticism, and a novel-length poem, and a dramatic story from the time of the Napoleonic wars and Polish struggle for independence, and that it has feuding families in it, fool you. It’s surprisingly... Austenian? Surprisingly concerned with people’s innocent foibles and idiosyncracies, and oftentimes rather tongue in cheek, for one thing.

Father also immediately twigged onto the fact Mickiewicz sometimes uses rhyme to subtly laugh at his self-important characters, which I also didn’t fully realise until he pointed it out. I’m not sure how well that carries into translations, though, I have and can read the original... (I kind of have a passive understanding of written Polish.) I do like Mickiewicz best when he does his subtle sarcasm, rather than when he’s being 100% Romantic. There is, for example, also an ongoing argument two minor nobles are having about which of their two greyhounds is better... which after several repeats finally ends with the solution that neither of them is very good.

I’ve also concluded that the book is basically Romanticism for Hufflepuffs – with the things that make Romanticism seem intriguing on paper, without most of the things that make it actually annoying in practice. With a lot of focus on family and love for one’s country, and with mushroom picking and vegetable gardens and coffee brewing and stuff. And it ends with the young couple deciding to free their serfs and do their own housework because if they’re fighting for Polish freedom it should be freedom for everyone. As a Hufflepuff, what’s not to love?

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Anyway. Paterson.

So father said Paterson was pretty European for an American film, and praised it for not having that much of a story and consisting largely of individual repetitive yet slightly different scenes...

Which is precisely the thing many commenters seem to dislike about it.

And I think somewhere in there lies the point. Some commenters were apparently feeling let down and disappointed because they could not suss out much of a meaning, and considered what they did suss out too trite to justify a 2-hour film. Others are trying hard to find some symbolism in individual motifs...

Meanwhile father simply enjoyed it as it came, as the layered slice of life it is. Which, I think, may very well indeed be the “meaning” of it. It is perhaps far too simple; but if the number of commenters dissatisfied with that simple answer and unable to just enjoy it is anything to go by...

It probably is something worth saying and showing every now and then. Sometimes the simplest answers are the hardest to grasp.

And also it totally is one of my jams. And my praise of Pan Tadeusz has more to do with that than it originally seemed; Pan Tadeusz is in large part Mickiewicz looking back at his impetuous ideals-filled youth and realising he should have enjoyed the simple joys of everyday life in his home country more.

Which circles back to one of my insightful conversations with father, that one about Ecclesiastes.

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That was Marmota's rambling musings post of the day.