I'll See You In My .... Youth

And again we got a smash up, gladly i was surprised by these two movies and touch by the message about life from different perspectives. The deal this time is exactly about that, time and different ages and phases in life and both from a refreshing perspective. We all live and suffer from the same curse, we are under the pressure of time, time goes fast, time doesn't come back, time is a bomb ticking till will knock at our door and would be our time, time to fall in love, time to enjoy and grow up. It is all around us but in this case we will focus in two specifics timings: youth and old age.

Even here we'd talked about that amazing time when we are young and our adoration as a culture to those years when we have everything in front of us. Lots of opportunities awaiting for us to come ad take them. We are beautiful and have plenty of energy to fail and try again. We start learning from experiences while living every second as it'd be the last which shows our lack of experience and a way to grow up. So what would be different this time? Perspective and scenario.

"Testament of youth" (2015), is a film based in the same novel, which has been a best seller worldwide not because like other recent YA novels show an idealistic love, actually yes, there's some romance here and might be idealistic but there is no happy ending or ever after. The essence of this story, based in the real experience of it's author, is it's message about peace, a scream against war and violence that turned the eyes of the world regarding actual events where nations are still fighting for power while sacrificing their own future, their youngest citizens.

So the author, an English woman called Vera, when young back in the 1910's decade, always showed and independence and willing to learn and be more than just a wife, something totally edging for a conservative society where women were raised to entertain man and be the best suitor for marriage. so when WW1 explotes around Europe, all young men feel the need to sign up and go fight for their country, not because they like it but because it's the right thing to do as a citizen and men. All their dreams are put aside the need of something bigger than them. The mix of this enthusiasm for being someone and do something big, fits perfect the needs of their country and society plays the role as always has been to sell the idea as the coolest thing any man could ever do, go and fight while making proud their families.

So when her brother signs up, she gets to hang with his friends, one of them very into her but not getting the same response from her as she falls for the new guy, an aspiring writer as her with whom share poems and letters, dreams and expectations. As teenagers they feel this rush to share their thoughts with the world and when someone shares the same idea, can't avoid to create a connection and attraction till things get in between. Not to spoil the movie but have to say that she gets to lose one friend after the other and then her fiancé and love of her life, reason enough to join as nurse to try to find her brother and save him trying to take him back home, till she loses him as well.

After been through all this consequences from war, losing every man she loved, her only way to express her sadness and lack of new exceptions is creating new ones, which are fighting agains the reason that took them all, war. So he starts spreading the world, finishing school at Oxford, writing books as a testament of how wasn't war who killed the young men, but their own families sending them to fight as if was the right call, violence has consequences and they are never as good as everyone think they will be. We need to stop fighting and sacrificing other for the benefit of an idea.

Always youth has been seen as an opportunity but never as knowledge. So the elders make decisions and send the youngest to do it. Their lack of energy and capacity to do more serves well in front of the others anxiety and hunger to live while lacking experience and maturity to take the right decisions and see the big picture. That's why these days young adults are raising hands and saying no to follow paths that were made by others instead creating their own and able to make their own while learning from those mistakes.

But on the other side, old age has also been locked in a box where everybody assumes theres is no more to tell, they had their chance so basically they are just waiting to die. But sometimes that waiting can be long. So what happen with them while going through this last journey. Are they like dead people walking around us? with no more dreams or expectation from their lives. In fact happens that things didn't change much in those terms as middle age and older age suffers from the same questions that youth, what would be of my life, what am i doing?, what's next?

Of course your career was pursued and maybe they are living from success from the past but that doesn't mean that's all, there's always more to come. They still feel, so they need reassurance that they are doing something for their own and their community, they still want love and be loved. They want to live their days not as the last one but each one with meaning as they are not much more to come, as it wasn't waisted. "I'll see you in my dreams" (2015), which debuted in the Sundance Festival, is a film that earned the audience award and got great reviews as a refreshing glimpse to what the called third age means.

This is the story of Carol, an old lady, that doesn't look that old neither acts as an old lady, she just happens that has lived already the previous phases, she was a teenager that follow a career in music and fell in love of a musician then she got married and enjoyed love and a relationship that gave her happiness and success. Then she became a mother, raised a good woman, than now has a family of her own, she has a close group of friends that support her every step of the way, so what now? well now as we said before, she is losing everybody, she's being a widow for more than 20 years already, and now she also lost her dog, her only company in her big house, so her days are just passing by without meaning and trapped in routine.

Then she get to meet a young guy, the pool cleaner, a man that matches all her experience with his lack of sense of what to do with his life, so she sees that as much as knows his missing answers she is suffering the same thing as she doesn't know what do now after all what she has achieved. Marketing for the movie it's trying to sell it as a rom-com for elders but surprisingly it's not, its a deeps touching story about life and living when you are old and won't be more: when you get old, all what you have is the present and all plans are about take advantage of it, day by day, and that means there is still room for love, being goofy, adventures with friends, face old fears and embrace who you are now not for who you were but for what you want to be till the last day.