Why do we love films?
-Projecting desires through art-
I spent my Friday night alone watching a French film. What seemed like a lonely night when every minute felt like eternity turned out to be fun and reflective. Filled with dreams for taste of adventure, connection, and meaning, I found myself loving the experience of watching films.
As a child, I was rarely moved or have little interest in films. As I grew older, walking through the enigma and complexities of human life, I longed for experience and intimacy. Sometimes, I wander through the city consumed by these burning passion. With films, I often find myself feeling a deep sense of connection filled with delight and melancholy.
For days while I was overcome by these feelings, I replay scenes taken place wishing it happened to me, even for a moment to forget the world and its miseries.
I longed what it’s like to watch the sunrise at the highest peak of Portugal, to have a road trip with friends while listening to the Beatles, to staying up all night under the stars, and to love and be loved. I wanted to be fed so much that I couldn’t take it anymore. Just for once.
In essence, film is:
“An escape from reality”
Projecting reality
“Projecting Illusion offers a systematic analysis of the impression of reality in the cinema and the pleasure it provides the film spectator. Film affords an especially compelling aesthetic experience that can be considered as a form of illusion akin to the experience of daydream and dream” — Richard Allen —
Film is an art form that depicts stories of human experience in all its complexities. It’s written, choreographed, and executed. However, sometimes life doesn’t work this way. Our lives aren’t structured the way film does. It does not have a set-up, a conflict, and a resolution that magically ends up in one big happy ending.
In reality, life could be a series of never-ending conflicts, it could be a series of emotional roller coaster, and it could end at any given moment. These realistic pictures of life are not aesthetically pleasing to the film spectator. We are longing for beautiful stories that capture our souls.
“Film is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn’t give you what you desire — it tells you how to desire” — Slavoj Žižek —
Despite knowing this, we never stop projecting and dreaming. We project our longings and desire in an unforgiving reality. But, If we’re lucky, just lucky, our lives could be beautiful as much of a movie.
“We still cherish the mornings, the Hi’s and Hello’s, the goodbyes, the joys and pain, and the mundane. We hope for adventure when all else fails”
Everyone of us are dreamers, we long for experience and intimacy. Above all, we like to be heard. In films, we see a part of ourselves that we never knew existed, parts that haven’t woken up, waiting for the right time. The characters are all part of us. We are the cause of the conflict and the solution.
