Dear Reader,
Today I finished watching the most depressing Christmas film of my existence. It is the end of October and out of respect for Halloween and Thanksgiving I try not to start celebrating the Christmas holiday until Black Friday. However, when I was looking for a movie to watch, this German film caught my eye despite the fact that it was set around Christmas.
The movie plot centered on the lives of a few strangers who live in the same city. While they are all in close proximity to each other and interact with each other at times, they are all peripheral characters to each others’ stories. The common themes that tied these stories together were loneliness, sadness, and hopelessness. In one word, I would describe this movies as bleak. Instead of putting me in a Christmas-y mood, this movie made me consider a future for myself in which Christmases would be uniformly depressing.
The stories in this movie centered around people young and old in different life situations: a lonely young mother (who is also a prostitute), a lonely woman (who is married with a philandering husband and young child), a lonely social worker (who wants to escape from her reality) a lonely middle-aged divorcé (with an estranged daughter), and a lonely old widow.
This year even in October I am already starting to plan a trip to visit my relatives for Christmas with my boyfriend. My mom and I are happily texting with the details and I look forward to the holidays very much. However, this movie made me consider how radically and tragically things can change. Will Christmas 10 years from now be something I will look forward to or will it only bring me sad memories in my lonesome?
I don’t like to think this way, Dear Reader. I am an optimistic person, but I am also a person whose entire mood and outlook on life can change for a few hours in the aftermath of a sad film. Instead of dwelling on the great unknown, I will just consider myself lucky that I have something to look forward to this year and people I am excited to spend the holidays with. I hope you too, Dear Reader, are in a good place this year and look forward to spending quality time with loved ones. And, if not, I do hope you will work to find happiness now, before you find yourself alone this holiday season.
I wish you the best and lots of happiness always, Dear Reader.
Love,
Raven
P.S. the German film I mentioned is called “Dreamland” (Traumland). At the time of this post, it can be found for free on Amazon Prime.
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