A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015)

Ramadhan started on the 6th of this month. That day, he told me we are not to see each other for one whole month. I was hurt and troubled. I know he is busy and all, but most times I find myself thinking if I really have a place in his heart and in his life.

So on the 9th, before I jump into an extra hectic schedule which I embraced wholeheartedly to somehow keep him off my mind, I decided to watch a movie alone. It was funny how that week there were heated exchanges of SMS and all throughout the week I was crying hard. Yet we still manage to remind each other to bring an umbrella because the rainy season is upon us. Or maybe we just want to find an excuse to text each other and show that we care despite the misunderstandings. Either way, when he texted to say it was raining and for me to take care going home, I replied saying I would be at UP to "take a walk because I just wanted to be in a place full of trees". Wild child still.

But I fought hard, braving the heavy Metro traffic, to end up at UPFI to attend the free screening of A Tale of Love and Darkness, a movie by Natalie Portman. It's a heartbreaking movie (or maybe I read too much of my own situation into it) about a family striving to live a normal life in the new state of Israel following World War 2. The Palestinians are of course not too happy since the state was formed on their land. (And we see how malicious the West is when they cause border and frontier issues which remain to this day.) The movie was based on Amos Oz's book of the same title, an autobiography that reveals his pro-Zionist sentiments but without discounting the possible peaceful coexistence with Palestinians.

Amos' story focused in his mother Fania, played by Natalie Portman herself. Fania was a romantic, seemingly infatuated with a strong man who can do manual labor, in contrast to the person she married. Amos' father was a writer who loved etymologies, by the way, and he took pride in this as this gift was what made Fania fall in love with him. Unbeknownst to him, Fania suffers from the marriage, snubbed and bullied by her mother-in-law. Until there came a point when she falls into depression and young Amos had to take care of her. And she repeatedly told him that he was her Light, her only joy. (At this mention, I couldn't help but cry as I thought of the Light of my Life...)

The movie ends showing a teenager Amos driving a tractor. He had become a farmer, a realization of his mother's fantasies.

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Rarely do I see a jampacked UPFI and because I came in around 7:20, I had to be on my feet for the whole duration of the film. Didn't matter to me because I liked the movie although the love part was not emphasized. Darkness pervades the whole film. Love was evident only in Fania's sweet talk to young Amos and well, how Amos put her as the central character in the story.