In an attempt to preserve my budget, I talked myself out of seeing Toni Erdmann a second time and instead did a library borrow of a foreign film called Moscow, Belgium. I know, I know, it’s old, from 2008, but the familial conflicts so timeless and universal, that it could have been made yesterday.
I titled this blog with a quote my mother has repeated a few times since I’ve moved to Florida. Every time I would question whether I should stand up for myself, in regards to decisions about possible careers or jobs, my mom has said, “you’ve earned the right to relax a bit” after spending 30 years teaching and counseling young people.
Today I applied this quote to a second date situation and after subsequently cancelling said date, and instead watched my third and final installment of Moscow, Belgium .
Did I need company tonight? Yes. Did I want company tonight? Mais oui! Yet I felt like I was already contributing plenty (bringing my own refreshments, driving to this person’s place, watching a dvd of his interest). When then asked to take him shopping (on the eve of my 6th day in a row of early and rather strenuous (yet super rewarding) work (helping move our book store from one block to a gorgeous new place in a historic building), I had to say no thank you with my mother’s advice, “you’ve earned the right to expect empathy and a meeting in the middle”.
Now on this person’s behalf, he doesn’t know that I have spent a major portion of my 30’s and 40’s taking care of people, my therapist called it a broken wing fixation (son excluded-he was a joy and my responsibility and has more self-reliance than many of those I’m about to mention). Everyone from a long term relationship in which I helped a person who started his teaching career late in life, only to have him date a former student of mine to a few men who lived with me while either starting a company or limping through life only to end up moving back to his parents’. So I’ve done all the figurative ‘taking people shopping’ that I can bear. Based on his curt response to my very calm an polite drawing the line, I highly doubt I’ll see this person again.
So back to my cinematic emotional rescue:
Moscow, Belgium mirrored my emotions to a certain extent. It’s about a 51 year old mom who loves her children and pours her heart out to the people she cares about. Her husband has cheated on her and moved out, but still isn’t sure if he wants to end the marriage. For awhile she allows other people to dictate her existence. Now here’s the part I can’t relate to, she falls for a 29 year old. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t believe and enjoy the film.
The film had your textbook screenplay construction: comical subplot at the heroine’s workplace, and I won’t divulge the other aspects to preserve your potential viewing. But what I really liked about the film was the raw dialogue and real emotion. The star of the film was the female lead played by Barbara Serafian. The ’29 year old’ Jurgen Delnaet seemed to be showing his underwear so to speak, meaning you could see he was acting which took away some of the emotion. This was perhaps due to his character being on the immature side. And I’m not calling my 2nd date that didn’t happen immature, as he was older than me and even commented that talking to women his age made him feel like he was talking to an aunt (and channeling a Groucho Marx response, I’d say, “Well now, your Aunt would take you shopping.”
The film premiered at Cannes in 2008 and won some lower level awards. It’s definitely worth checking out, if only to see how free the Belgium society is with people expressing themselves. Sure Americans seem to be really good at expressing negative emotion and angst, but how about if we all start counting our blessings and being kind? There is no irony to beginning of this piece, kindness does not mean continuing to lower the bar on expectations, it simply means giving and expecting the same in equal fashion. We all have earned the right.
