This is why I love art

One of the rituals Jim P. told us to keep long after the workshop is over is the Artist's Date (a practice he derives from writer Julia Cameron). You're supposed to set aside two hours of the week to do something for yourself, like an afternoon at the spa, watch a movie, etc. The idea is to restock your wellspring of artistic inspiration since like all wells, they can dry up from time to time if you draw from them too often without replenishment.

When I don't have the money or enthusiasm to leave the house and treat myself to something special, I devise my own Artist's Date in my room and with my laptop. The pirated DVD market at the office is brimming with choice films (many from the Criterion collection) and I have bought quite a number of them I've long wanted to see. Some of the titles are never heard but I trust my gut (well, actually, it's more like the cover was pretty) and I pick my choice DVDs and give my payment the next week.

Some of my favorite picks include Hilary and Jackie (Jackie being Emily Watson's breakthrough role) and The 400 Blows, touted to be the precursor of the whole French New Wave movement. I watched my third pick yesterday and I was glad I prepared for it with donuts, chips, mayonnaise and lots of water.

This time it was Paris Je t'aime (Love Paris) (2006). It is an assembly of sixteen short films from directors as diverse as Gus Van Sant to Alfonso Cuaron, even the actor Gerad Depardieu. Actors are likewise as diverse - Natalie Portman, Gena Rowlands, Emily Mortimer, Nick Nolte. The connecting thread is their own love affairs set in Paris. Eventually, one realizes that there is, similarly, a love affair with the city itself. This theme was verbalized in Alexander Payne's short film, about an American tourist who takes a vacation in Paris for the first time, armed with limited knowledge of the language. Like Payne's Sideways, the film is about an ordinary person whose concept of life is the everyday and the mundane. It is only after a trip to a place far away from his roots and social networks that he (or she) realizes that after all, he is very much alive. That indescribable feeling (as the American tourist had while sitting on a park bench) is akin to reuniting one's self with something previously unknown or seeing something for the first time; these evoke both joy and sadness, but a little of the sadness only. Upon this epiphany, the tourist then realized that she fell in love with Paris (and she'd like to think Paris fell in love with her too).

Of course, there has to be that slight expectation that some connection has to tie these characters and so after the last short film, some of the characters were shown being in relationships, espying each other through apartment rooms, reuniting at bistros.

I would have preferred that the isolatedness of each film be maintained. The six-degrees-of-separation strategy has been used too often in film. Maybe the word 'isolatedness' is rather dire, but then again I can't think of a better word. I'd like to think each of them, as they pursue human relationships of all shapes and sizes, have their own private relationship with Paris (just as religious and/or spiritual people have their own personal/private relationship with their God). It's like saying to one's self, 'I have my own version of Paris and you will never understsand what it is' or, 'You don't know Paris like I do.'

I was pleased that some of the films casted people from various ethnicities and religions (Brazilian, Nigerian, Muslim) At the same time, viewing them made me feel rather unfamiliar with the France I've come to know through film, language classes, pictures and TV5. But this, after all, is the reality of not only France but many of the countries in Europe. It is odd, yes, viewing French films mostly populated by what one expects to be the face of the French person.

On a superficial note, the DVD cover is, yes, pretty. It is a heart composed of many Eiffel Towers. At first glance, it looks like a heart struck by numerous towers. At the same time, it looks like a throbbing heart. I suppose it is emblematic of the love/hate relationships we have with cities in general, me with Manila. There is overcrowding, detritus, concrete and pollution. There is also the mass of people from all over the country you get to meet, strike friendships with, (sometimes love affairs). You get to know where they came from and why they chose to try it out in the city. The city fails you and enthralls you. They're all part of the same banana.

Lately, I've hied off to the country that's not so country anymore. Still, it is home. For me, however, the city will always be that enigma I choose to participate in. It's not out of some need for nostalgia or something because I did not live in pre and postwar Manila to make a comparison. By my participation, I add one more question to the multitude of questions floating along the creeks and rivers, wafting their way through the sewers, swooshing their way across the view afforded by the trains, lilting with you when you devise a different pathway through the weird streets everyday.