Death

Being a Writer: Working With Trauma

The thing about being a writer is that you need to write.

The problem with having AuADHD is that you need routines and things that require deadlines.

Put the two together and…pretty damn fine writer.

Until you run out of deadlines. Or pieces to write. Or you get picky and niche. 

Or people are too flexible with you.

Or…you find some reason not to be writing.

And you end up depriving yourself of the greatest joy you’ve ever felt in your life: better than sex, better than romance, better than a perfectly cooked meal. And you don’t know why you’re so cruel to yourself, so abusive. You weren’t raised this way.

You were taught to celebrate your gifts. And you usually do. You’re so proud of the work you’ve done; the things you’ve accomplished. 

Then Big Trauma busts its way into your life like Lee Marvin in Who Shot Liberty Valance? and, like, what the fuck else are you expected to do? You’ve tried all the “normie shit”- drinking, fucking, eating…even that new-fangled thing all the kids are talking about called “bed-rotting” but it still doesn’t get you the same high. You know no one is gonna read what you write (or precious few) but what the hell are you supposed to do when you find yourself this alone in a foreign country and nothing makes sense anymore?

Oh.

Yeah.

You do what you’re best at.

You write anyway. So I am. And I’m going to.

I cannot describe the pain of losing two of the most influential people of my last 35 years within the same 5 months. I think that as a writer, that may be the worst part. I have so many words for so many things. I can describe decaying flesh, wild parties, drug-induced orgies…but I have no vocabulary for what it feels like to experience what I am now realizing is the loss of my youth. I am old now. My young times existed in the most glitteringly golden safe space where I was treasured and loved and held and protected from all the worst elements. It was punk rock at its finest. Bowling alleys and strip poker; mushrooms and trust. I have never been in love the way I loved everyone in my FriendFamily.
I am still madly in love with each of them in a way that no one but them will ever understand.
Dumb jokes about being in someone’s pants and the sounds of ska, Agent Orange and Oingo Boingo quilted into the Santa Ana Winds.

I danced and drank and celebrated life and us for a solid weekend back in the US and it was like one of those Big Chill experiences and that was both nightmarish and heavenly. FTR, our soundtrack was WAY fucking better, end of story. And The Big Chill rules.

But…..I’m obvs biased.
Also, I’m right.
But those of you who knew the person involved Get What I’m Sayin’.

I don’t even know.

I want my mommy and I HAVE my mommy but my mommy is also all of my friends that I’ve known since I was a nerdy teenager who told me how proud of me they are and gave me more love than I’ve felt in a long time.

See, I don’t regret moving to Korea.

Especially now that my former home is a fascist state

But I also feel like Bruce Dern in Silent Running sometimes…like I’m doing something really important but it’s super lonely and like…plants can’t talk back. And robots? They’re just robots.

If you don’t get that reference just, see Silent Running. It’s genius. 

I miss talking to people who get my references. 

Is being brave worth it if you have to put your heart and soul in your back pocket sometimes because people are just not gonna get that George Romero joke?

Anyway, back to trauma and writing.

What writer wasn’t chock full o’trauma.

Can you really call yourself a writer or an artist if you don’t have trauma? 

I guess I just didn’t need all this all at once. It’s a little much. But maybe I did. I’m writing.

And, more importantly, I want to be writing. 

I want to be writing more than I want to be doing almost anything else right now so I’m trying to focus on that. I want to talk about the things that I love. Why I’m here. So I realize it’s been a long while. 

But I am going to make an effort to come back. 

It’s only fair to me.

You may not give a shit about me or my writing but hell- it’s the best thing I do.

The Long Walk (Mattie Do, 2019): Death, Damnation & Deliverance

Writing calmly about Mattie Do’s The Long Walk is difficult. But sometimes you just have to be honest and shout (digitally) about a damn fine film. In all honesty, what I want to do is grab people by the shoulders like a crazed John Carpenter character and say: have you seen the way to horror? It is Mattie Do! But I’m not that creepy and there’s a pandemic on. I will say to you, reader: Mattie Do is everything I want from a horror filmmaker.

Thanks to LAAPFF for programming this film. While Mattie Do is California-born, she lives and works out of Laos and is Laos’ first (and only) female filmmaker (as of the date of this review). Platforming her work is critical to women in genre-filmmaking and the Laotian cinema world in general. The LAAPFF has featured a litany of incredible films all by, for and about Asian women. Effective on regional and global levels, it is a continual joy and inspiration to watch and write about these films. My great hope is that these films play everywhere, not just in festivals. Everyone should see this work.

I like to know as little about a film as possible before I see it. I call it the “Tabula Rosa approach.” No trailer, no reviews, no reading of descriptions or reviews. Genre & country are usually enough for me and occasionally if someone I know says: YEAH, that was awesome, I listen to them. 

All I knew about The Long Walk before watching was that it was Laotian and a horror movie. I am BEYOND glad that was all I knew. Deftly written by Chris Larsen and hauntingly lensed by Matthew Macar, Mattie Do’s direction makes this movie a genuine force to be reckoned with.

I’m going to try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. I don’t want to say too much. Honestly?

JUST SEE THE DAMN MOVIE. IT’S LIKE NOTHING ELSE YOU’VE SEEN BEFORE.

Admittedly, there are some aspects to this movie that make it a subjective hole-in-one for me. So here are a few of my personal sweet spots and why The Long Walk is definitely one of those films that was “made for me” but may not be everyone’s film. 

First of all, it has the “told through a kid’s eyes” aspect. I love films like that. Germany: Year Zero (Roberto Rosselini, 1948), Come & See (Elem Klimov, 1985), and Forbidden Games (René Clément, 1952) are all films told through the perspective of a child and films that I consider favorites. They are also some of the. Most. Disturbing. Films. Ever. While this film isn’t Klimov-level, it certainly holds its own and the way Mattie Do utilizes the child’s perspective in this film was a good call. Her sensitivity to innocence and betrayal was perfectly balanced, depicting the kind of confusion and discomfort only a child can feel.

The tragic life of the young boy (played exquisitely by Por Silatsa) is certainly a story we’ve seen before, but it is in the telling that the dynamism becomes real. Do’s regional specifications and temporal involvements of modernization are what drive this part of the film. What would be a simple dysfunctional family story is transformed into grounded work and distinct circumstances in small town Laotian life.

The Old Man (Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy) is one of the great new figures in modern horror cinema. Chanthalungsy’s performance is just mind-blowing. I am desperate for more people to watch this film so they meet him (and, selfishly, so we can talk about his narrative!). Rarely has such a calming character led me on such a beautiful and horrific ride. Inspiring empathy, anger, nausea, pity and frustration, this is a fucking horror movie in every sense of the word.

The Long Walk is a meditation on ghosts (personal and supernatural), death (natural and not-so-natural) and concepts of growth and stagnation. The underlying narrative of technology in the Laotian countryside plays a critical role, upping the ante and bringing different kinds of monstrosities to the landscape. This language might not be making it sound sexy, so like- if you need that kind of review or recommendation? Let me reassure you- this is a scary and messed-up film!  

Playing with ideas of horror and science fiction with skillful fluidity, The Long Walk will make genre-rule-obsessed viewers uncomfortable as hell.

To those viewers:
Concede the fact that fantastic cinema can work within and between genres. Genres are like gender: fluid as fuck and that’s how they SHOULD be. To produce quality art like The Long Walk, you need to be able to be slippery while maintaining suspense, terror, and the right to whip out OMGWTF moments at the right time.

And I live for those shifts when they are done well. This was absolutely an exercise in How To Do It. Every Western filmmaker who tries (and fails) should take some classes from this film. Big ups on this. It wasn’t exploitative, it was smooth, and it kept on rocking the film. That third act. Hot damn. I shouted at my screen: “OH hell no. What????? No way. Shiiiiiit.” On the other hand, my cat then went into the other room. He may not be a fan. 

Finally, while the film features men as the protagonists what hit me hard was that their stories were actually entrance points to a larger exploration of women and women’s experiences. Like horror is wont to do, The Long Walk viciously reveals some of the worst parts of humanity. But it does so in a nuanced and complex way. A road trip of masculinity and growth, this movie takes a scalpel to gender issues and power structures, ripping those bodies open like a drunk mortician, allowing us to revel in the pure unadulterated pain, joy and liberation that exudes from that screen.

Part of the LAAPFF, this film can be seen through the Eventlive link here starting on October 15, 2020. It’s only up for a few days so get on it!!! This film is only available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from October 15, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 18, 2020 at 11:59pm PT