Love story with Jazz interwoven...

During this lenten period my blog writing has been put aside simply as it feels like life balance is a little more of a priority during this time. 

In saying this the other day I was in the city at a lecture/workshop that finish early afternoon. Afterwards I return back to the city to my ‘bookshop’ that I adore, to obtain so much needed light and heavy reading material. Upon my return to the city I felt like doing something ‘normal’, something like I would have done once before if I had a few hours to create magic with. 

With the heat jumping off the footpath and people rushing everywhere like little ants with sugar cubes, I decided to escape reality for a moment and watch a movie. There was only one movie showing at three - La La Land -  having little choice in the matter I was open to the adventure all the same. 

As the film started, I sat up in my seat with the jazz bouncing around the walls,feeling like I was in a jazz club back in the uni days.  The actors start to awake into song, bouncing across the screen in harmony. Apart of me was a little taken that of all things I have chosen a musical to see; while at the same time questioned isn’t this what I wanted? Something familiar, something “normal”!!! Was that not my motivation to attend in the first place, after all Im in the centre of Melbourne, the worlds greatest city to live!!! Feeling a little foolish that I fall into the trap of wanting something that I have not even defined - normal! What is that anyway??

The screen literally fills with flying colours, gorgeously saturated primary palette and fabulously retro costumes taking on a whimsical nostalgia, as the swelling orchestral score seeks to sweep the viewer off our feet and carry us to a world where people dance and sing without any trace of irony or self-consciousness. 

I’m starting to sound like a movie reviewer… 

As I sat watching away, I realised just how much this story really depicts my life in a sense, at the moment. Its like two worlds are crossing continuously with one another with this beautiful all powerful heart gripping jazz melody that interweaves between the whole script. 

The movie is a love story, one musician, Sebastian,  who is so passionate about preserving authentic soul jazz and an actress, Mia, who struggles to get acting parts after unless auditions. With each others encouragement, love for each other to achieve their dreams, Mia writes her own script and roll, while Sebastian starts on a bit of a twisted road to achieve his goal of establishing his own jazz bar. Its the normal fall in love in the most romantic circumstances imaginable!! Then… the twist comes, we jump five years forward and are forced to confront a difficult truth. They are no longer together. 

Sure, both achieved their dreams, successful actress, jazz club owner - but at what cost? “Their relationships has been lost but they have achieved everything in life they have ever wanted. But have they really? Should love ever be sacrificed for ambition?

It is in the last scene that as Sebastian begins the play the first bars of “their” song on the piano, us, the viewer, is given an alternative life, one in which they marry, start a family and everything seems in balance once again in accordance to the love story we are so familiar within especially on screen.

Such familiarity isn’t necessarily a problem, though; rather, it’s nostalgic - everything in this film originates from a desire to create a link to the past, a desire which has resonated in a positive way really. It offers a world its okay to be romantic, even unabashedly sentimental, and to remember with fondness things that were good and joyous and beautiful.

In truth, just look around the world at the moment there have been an awful lot of post-apocalyptic themes running through movies and television lately, and with the surreality of the present political climate, people seem to be looking for sincerity, earnestness, goodness, even magic.  

That is until the song notes ends, reality sets in, with Mia, leaving with another man. At that moment, its easy to see how reality falls upon the air like a damp cloth on a fading ember. Easy to see how some viewers, like the two girls next to me, were left with expressions of betrayal that reality is not meant to cross with idealism. How the melancholy tone with the shimmering optimism and lurid joy of the rest of the film seem to be dismissed almost. 

For me though, this was not betrayal, it was rather an almost lightbulb moment. Music is my soul food, I love it, I deprive myself of it in times of “pence” for lack of terminology and elaborate words used. I have always respond to it from a young girl to now, a song breaks me, brings me to tears in two beats or great joy in the same time. It speaks straight to me unlike words or actions can at times. If you want a raw expression then my fingers can dance or thump on the piano. I have always claim its the window to my soul. 

So the jazz interweaving through the movie felt like music of my soul is what is interweaved through my life, if I fully noticed or not until now, that moment. 

Then my love story… at this point my fingers want to type about my relationship with Christ, however in the moment this is not what I felt, well part of it but not fully. I feel like my relationship is more two ‘worlds’ mixing together as one. Im not sure why within me to a strong degree I separate at times secular and church into two worlds. I live in both, I am still on the journey to getting to that harmony moment of appreciating this, while now I am just starting to be aware just how much those two worlds within me are cross jointed. Apart of me is left feeling life before Christ was my centre is less important or relevant than now, with life as centre and forced around church. This though is a very dangerous and crocked path to walk, as everything before Christ is still apart of who I am, who I have become. Just as I was not aware that Christ was working within or around me, he was still working. I instantly think of the fact I was baptised in a non religious family, in a very little tolerant of any religion within the house, therefore Christ was working well before I was aware of Him. 

After leaving the film, I sat on the tram as I headed to the cathedral for holy hour, adoration. I sat on the tram watching people rush about with shopping bags, dressed up in business wear, talking into pieces of plastic with urgency and importance like someones life was on the line, only to listen to hear the clashing of reality and idealism. Sometimes I have that feeling of wanting the illusion sense of purpose by having an endless to do list, job priority, or surface reality that has no direction or impact. Even today I still have days when I sit daydreaming about what if, could it be that this alternative was for me. Only to hear the music of the ‘jazz’ leap out to remind me where my heart is fulfilled in a joy that has no limits, the only plastic I want to hold to my ear is the rosary beads with prayer offering “direct line” with invitation to drop the plastic out of the equation. Its strange how reality at times can hit you in a moment of WOW, this all interconnects and offers another stepping stone for the journey. 

In the movie a line that jumped out and sang a song of its own, painting a picture beyond the word limits - 

“People love what other people are passionate about. You remind people of what they’ve forgotten” 

This speaks so many words to me, it was exchanged in a heated argument or indifference, in a moment where you could feel the decision to take one path over another was ofter to you without any sign post of either direction. A familiar feeling, this infectious passion for life, for Christ, holds so deeply that keeps what feels like continuously consciously taking up my cross everyday, taking on more or let going of less; of embracing love in all its forms. This is what Christ was about, infectious passion for the Lord with a reminder of the past that either reminds us of the truth we may have loved and forgotten about, or it introduces those truths to us for the first time. 

The movie offers a reason that two things can coexist because of how deeply this woman loves him. The emotion was so deep and profound that the laws of time and reality and the physics stop existing. Its an idea that speaks to what movies can do, which is that emotion can override everything. You can draw a straight line from that idea to every musical ever made. If you feel enough, you suddenly have a 90 piece orchestra emerge from the heavens and accompany you in song, which is so ridiculous and absurd and yet feels so right sometimes, at least to me. Its where we allow movies to act like dreams.