For Father's Day, my dad and I went to "The Tree of Life," which was beautifully shot albeit an hour too long and at times more like a trippy National Geographic special than a narrative film. It showed the majesty in the macro and the micro of this world, where human drama is but a dust mote in the universe. Those nature-video parts were wonderfully quiet—no dialogue, just classical music and incidental sounds. Every minute that the movie didn't feature people talking, though, two women in front of us (who together constituted one-sixth of the theater's audience) carried on a conversation with each other. These were not quick side comments or whispered jokes or sympathetic groans, but full-on back-and-forths about mundane topics. Do people really find silence so uncomfortable that they must fill it whenever it arises, even in venues where silence is encouraged? Why do humans find it so hard simply to sit back and let themselves be washed in awe?
No comments:
Post a Comment