Honestly, the things they’re calling “cinema” these days. Back in my day, a movie was an event! You’d get dressed up, maybe put on a dab of rouge, and go to the picture house to see something with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Something that made sense! But this new film, “Whispers of a Withered Leaf”… don’t even get me started. My niece, bless her heart, dragged me to see it. “It’s a profound exploration of human ennui and the silent ache of existence,” she said. All I saw was a two-and-a-half-hour film about a woman staring out a window, a man walking down a street, and a whole lot of silence that was only broken by the sound of my own internal groaning.
I’m telling you, I’ve seen more drama unfold while trying to find a decent ripe avocado at the local grocery store. Just last week, a woman in the produce section, a perfectly nice-looking woman, mind you, got into a full-blown verbal spat with the manager because the last carton of blueberries was slightly smushed. Now that’s a story with stakes! There was yelling, there was pointing, there was a whole audience of us with our shopping carts, just captivated by the raw emotion of it all. It was a masterpiece of human conflict, all because of a single carton of bruised berries. You don’t get that in these new films. Oh no.
In “Whispers of a Withered Leaf,” the most dramatic moment was when the main character, a woman named Elara who apparently “communicates through her quiet observation of the world,” spilled a cup of tea. That was it. She spilled the tea. And for a solid ten minutes, the camera just focused on the puddle of liquid seeping into the wooden floorboards, as if this was some grand metaphor for the slow decay of her soul. Decay of her soul? I was more concerned with the decay of my backside from sitting on that hard seat for so long.
And the dialogue! Or, I should say, the lack thereof. It was all so… sparse. The characters would just stare at each other for minutes on end. I kept waiting for them to say something. Anything! “Hello”? “How are you”? “Can you pass the butter, dear?” Nope. Just… staring. I turned to my niece and whispered, “Are they supposed to be telepathic? Or did they just forget their lines?” She shushed me and said, “The silence is the dialogue, Aunt Mildred. It’s about what’s unsaid.” Oh, well, I have plenty of unsaid things I’d like to say to the director, believe me. I’d start with, “Where’s the plot, darling?” and work my way up from there.
My mind kept wandering. I started thinking about the time I got stuck behind a woman in the express lane at the supermarket with thirty-seven items. Thirty-seven! The sign clearly says ten items or less. Now, that was a tense situation. The person behind me was huffing, the cashier was nervously scanning a can of beans, and I was just standing there, gripping the handle of my cart with all my might, trying not to lose my temper. The drama was palpable! That film could have been made entirely about the moral dilemma of whether or not to confront the thirty-seven-item woman, and it would have been ten times more compelling.
And don’t even get me started on the ending of “Whispers.” The woman, Elara, finally gets up from the window and walks outside. The film ends with her looking at a single, withered leaf on the pavement. And then… credits. Just like that. The whole audience was silent, and not in a thoughtful way. It was a “What in the blazes did I just sit through?” kind of silence. The silent ache of existence, my foot! My feet were aching from sitting still for so long, and my mind was aching from the lack of anything remotely interesting happening.
The supermarket, on the other hand, is a treasure trove of dramatic endings. You’ve got the woman who finally finds her favorite brand of coffee after they’ve been out of stock for a week, and her face lights up with pure, unadulterated joy. You’ve got the mother who finally wrangles her screaming toddler back into the cart, a look of weary victory on her face. And then, of course, you’ve got the check-out clerk who finally gets to take their lunch break, the quiet sigh of relief a dramatic climax in itself.
I asked my niece, “What was the point of it all? What did she want? What was she even doing?” And she said, “That’s the point, Aunt Mildred. She wasn’t doing anything. It’s about finding meaning in the nothingness.” I looked at her, truly perplexed. Finding meaning in nothingness? The only thing I found meaning in during that film was the slow march of the second hand on my watch.
I could make a better movie out of the drama in the baking aisle alone. The fierce competition for the last bag of all-purpose flour during a snowstorm? The old man who has a system for picking out the best yeast packets? The unspoken rivalry between two women who both want to get their hands on the last box of store-brand sugar cookies? It’s all there! The human condition, laid bare on a linoleum floor.
The whole thing just makes me so frustrated. These filmmakers, with their artsy camera angles and their silent protagonists, they’re missing the point. Life isn’t about staring out windows and spilling tea. Life is about the small, dramatic moments that make up our days. The triumph of finding a parking spot close to the door. The tragedy of dropping an entire jar of pickles in the middle of aisle six. The suspense of trying to get the lid off a stubborn jar of spaghetti sauce. That’s the real drama!
The film critics are all raving about “Whispers,” calling it a masterpiece. “A poignant masterpiece of minimalist cinema,” one said. Minimalist? The film was so minimalist, the actors didn’t even bother to act. They just stood there. My niece said it was an “anti-film.” Well, if that’s the case, then I’ve got a whole collection of anti-films at home! They’re called “my laundry folding,” “my dishwashing,” and “the silent moments I spend trying to remember where I put my car keys.” They’re all about what’s unsaid, and they’re all just as boring.
So, to the director of “Whispers of a Withered Leaf” and all the other filmmakers like him, I say this: Go to a supermarket. Go stand by the checkout lanes on a busy Saturday afternoon. Watch the people. Watch their faces. Watch the little conflicts and the tiny victories. See the real drama unfold. And then, maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to make a film that actually has a pulse. A film that actually says something. Because I’m telling you, I’ve seen more action in the dairy section than in your entire cinematic “masterpiece.” And until you learn that, I’ll be over here, finding all the entertainment I need in the day-to-day chaos of grocery shopping. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go see if they’ve finally restocked my favorite brand of coffee. That’s a drama I can get behind.
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