Me and Marjeta went to see Mamma Mia! this evening and it was a bingo, pure joy for us. Ok, it is not the deepest movie that we have ever seen and neither does it have any sort of a mind blowing plot, but this was meant to be an emotional experience, not an intellectual one. And emotional it was!
One trigger of the emotions was the pure nostalgia that connects me with Abba. It was the first pop band in my life that I became a fan of, knew all the songs and sang them over and over again, sitting by the tape recorder. And, of course, I was deeply in love with Agnetha. Now, who wasn’t?
But the crucial thing for me was that the whole movie was about people coming out with the deeper self and deeper reality, and coming together on more fundamental levels. Yes, I guess it was the coming out and coming together that did it again. As it always does. And we cried and cried, ran out of handkerchiefs after half an hour already.
And it made me remember the sharing we had at the NVC training in July about the question why do we cry when we are happy, when we are touched. Why are we not just plain happy, like kids? They do not cry when they are happy, for the first few years of their lives at least.
So, the best explanation we came up with was that when we are touched, when we open up emotionally and get in touch with ourselves, with others and with life, when there is a sense of reunion, reconciliation, we feel two different emotions at the same time; on the one hand it is happiness, fulfilment, joy. But on the other hand we, at the very same moment, get connected with all the past pain that accumulated in us during the period of separateness. We re-experience the time when there was pain because of having no contact with ourselves, life or others. There seems to be some deep existential mourning and grieving going on.
This sounds so true to life, at least to me. For instance, whenever I watch the video I have posted a couple of weeks ago, I cry, every single time. It is always pure joy of coming out and coming together, yet there seems to be an awesome lot of mourning within me, mourning over all these billions of tons of separateness, barriers, distinctions and pain within us and between us.
Children, on the other hand, have not yet generated that many painful experiences and can still enjoy pure joy and happiness. May they enjoy it forever.
Know now that I blame you for getting this song in my head!
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — September 20, 2008 @ 2:36 am
It must be an age thing. I think that I was always a little bit too old for ABBA. I was one of those people who went through the whole diso era and hated it the whole scene. Back then I used to listen to a lot of ska and new wave music.
Comment by razzbuffnik — September 20, 2008 @ 5:18 am
I’m with Hayden I am so going to get you back though just you wait!
Comment by SanityFound — September 20, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Razz – I thought all Aussies used to be into Abba (Muriel’s wedding, Priscilla…), but I guess it was not like that. Anyway, I used to be Abba’s fan for the first half of their decade. Then Dire Straits came, and Clapton and Police, and I started to discover that I actually had a rock’n'roll heart. And after I discovered Pink Floyd, life was never the same again. But, Agnetha, well, I still wouldn’t mind meeting her.
Hayden & Sanity: you girls must be dancing queens by now. Play it again and dance, sisters, dance…
Comment by Robert — September 20, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
How you could stand Pierce Brosnan’s Singing is beyond me…. yuck. *shiver*
Comment by Amber — September 21, 2008 @ 5:19 am
Amber, let’s have a positive approach here: he did not miss a note, so it was OK from this point of view. His voice is not the perfect one for pop songs (though he would fit better in Tom Waits’ songs or alike), but he was born that way and let’s give him some empathy. My voice is no better, to tell you the truth.
And, have you seen his face while he was singing – he was obviously out of his comfort zone and in a lot of stress and pain. So let’s give him some more empathy.
Honestly, it was far better than what I have expected from reading reviews of the movie. So;
let me hear you sing once more
like you did before
sing a new song
Piercey-tito
Comment by Robert — September 21, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Haven’t seen it yet, but got the songs stuck in my head now thanks. But still think you should cry for “good” memories when listening to Pierce singing. Other reasons yes, but not happiness…
Comment by angryafrican — September 24, 2008 @ 1:05 am