CLEAR VISION AHEAD WITH A REAR VISION MIRROR

Anyone who really knows me also knows about my obsession with Wes Anderson’s movies. I have his films ranked by favorites and importance. If the story does do it for me, there’s always the creative visuals. When the day comes to remodel my kitchen, I’m doing it in Wes Anderson style with dark teal cabinets and light pink walls. My reward for sitting through a panel discussion on baseball statistics, was to see the new Wes Anderson film, Astroid City, in the theater. I posted something about having thoughts on the movie afterwards, which may have sounded like I had negative thoughts or I had been disappointed. That wasn’t my intention. My thoughts on the movie are not negative. In fact I loved it and have placed it number three in my list of Wes Anderson films. I probably loved it so much because I felt a little too close to the character of Augie, the grieving father in the story line traveling with his children and carrying along his wife’s ashes in a Tupperware bowl.

I’m a photographer. My pictures always come out. - Augie Steenbeck

A number of people have asked me what this movie is about and every time I’ve been unable to say anything other than “it’s weird, but really really good.” I don’t know how to verbally describe a movie about death and loss and the sidecar of crazy life that just continues to travel around with you in spite of your emotional state. Of course, in true Wes Anderson fashion, the events happening around Augie are over the top crazy and surreal. Yet no matter how bizarre the thing, Augie’s reactions are always the same bland, expressionless reaction. This is the shock and numbness that comes with loss. Things happen all around you, small thing and big things, but all you can muster up is a shrug and a ‘huh.’

The movie is a play within a play and at one point, the actor portraying Augie in the play breaks character and walks off stage. He says he needs a break and steps out on to a fire escape. The woman who was supposed to play his dead wife in a dream sequence is standing on the fire escape of the building right across from him. The dream sequence ends up getting cut in the play and the two have a brief discussion of it. Then the actor playing Augie says “I’m not sure I get it. The play.” The woman goes on to explain that it’s okay if you don’t ‘get it’. You just do your best with the parts you do get. Everyone interprets the script in their own way, just as we each deal with grief in our way.

We don’t have to ‘get it’.

One of the advertisement signs on the gas station garage reads Clear Vision Ahead with a Rear Vision Mirror. There’s another one across from this one that reads Death Rides on Unsafe Tires. Those signs are probably silly and meaningless to most, just something to draw attention with out much thought. For me though, those signs are my then and now. The first sign is something I am constantly doing, remembering and reflecting on the road traveled. Looking back every now and then to see the road behind you, reminds you to pay attention to the road ahead. That second sign was left for me by Chris, a safety warning from a man who worried about me doing things that he thought I couldn’t handle on my own. It is a testament to my strength (and stubbornness) all of the things that I have found that I can handle on my own. But I will concede that life is easier when you don’t have to handle things alone. That’s something that Augie also realizes. He doesn’t have to do this alone.

We don’t have to do this alone.