A Single Man

To Phoenix Square this evening, to see "A Single Man". The film (or rather, fashion designer director Tom Ford) has been criticised for being obsessed with its look, to the detriment of other cinematic aspects; as if it's nothing more than a series of high fashion tableaux vivant. I found the visuals alluring, but not at the expense of other kinds of engagement we'd want with a well-crafted movie.

Colin Firth (who well deserves his BAFTA for the role, I'd say) plays a fastidious man, a professor of English Literature in California in 1962 who has lost his partner of 16 years, dead from a car accident some months before. He is consumed with grief, loss and loneliness. We are introduced to him on the day that he has decided to end it all by shooting hmself. The reason I'm giving this space in my blog is because the film made a very strong and lively link with what I've been learning on the Monday evening course in "Mindfulness". Because this is the central character's last day on earth, he experiences everything as if it is his first. The film shows him engaging in a new, different and special way with all aspects of his existence, of his interaction with the world around him. He sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels everything anew and fresh - the last of these related to both the outer sensation of touch and the inner feelings to do with selfhood and relations with others, personal integrity as well as openness.

Near the end of the movie, we hear Firth's character's inner monologue, as he approaches some kind of resolution to his situation: "A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think … and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be." I'd say there were some genuine spiritual principles operating here, which took "A Single Man" beyond the superficial debate over anything to do with its fashion conscious look.

As we sat through the closing credits, one member of the audience, who had spotted a friend sitting in our row, came along, leaned over and said, "Oh my God, that was so depressing." Her experience of the film and mine were clearly very different!