The House is Black
was a film unlike any I have ever experienced before. While watching it, I felt
a range of emotions and feelings such as pity, thankfulness, surprise, and
numbness. Leprosy is something
that the average American college student does not think about or come into
contact with on a daily basis. However, I do not believe that Farrokhzad made
this film with solely the American college student in mind. This work functions
on a global scale because it really is a study of human lives that are so far
removed from normalcy. The film has potential to affect a large audience of
many backgrounds and cultures. She has accomplished this by portraying the
lepers in the colony as ordinarily as possible. They are filmed playing games,
singing, eating, resting, spending time in groups as well as alone. The only
difference is their physical appearance. Normally, a person may be aghast when
seeing a person plagued with leprosy for the first time. However, I believe the
film acts a sort of shield to open the doors to the leper colony without as
direct of an impact. Because of this, a viewer will be more comfortable, and
therefore more receptive to the intended message. It’s like Farrokhzad is
trying to ease us into it so we are sure to accept the fact that these are
people too, and that there no longer needs to be a stigma against them. Even
though the film was repetitive and possesses a slight sense of horror, it is
beautiful in it’s realness.
Her poetry is a type of shield as well, using description,
metaphors and a roundabout way of discussing a subject that may otherwise not
be as, say, beautiful as the prose on the page. In The Gift, she says: “O kind friend, if you visit my house,/bring me
a lamp, cut me a window,/so I can gaze at the swarming alley of the fortunate.”
And in Mates: “slipping from the
tap/then, two cigarettes/two spots of glowing red/the tick tick of a clock/and
two hearts/steeped in loneliness…” These two poems have a beautiful flow
throughout their entirety, yet, are discussing very sad things. I think her
message through both forms of art is that you can find beauty within the dreadful.
Lepers may not be what is considered attractive on the outside, but they have
beautiful souls. And writing about loneliness and desperation can be flowery
and poetic as well.
Melissa, our interpretations of both the film and poems were very similar. With her film, Farrokhzad proved that the lepers were no different than you and me. I noticed that many of her poems were sad but covered up with either the beauty of her vocabulary and form. We definitely both found beauty in something that is easily considered the opposite of that.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting way to look at The House is Black. You hit the nail right on the head, in that we as American college students do not have to deal with or even think about leprosy. That is a huge reason why I was so uncomfortable with this movie. I do not handle well people that are extremely ill, it makes me uncomfortable to be around them, even my relatives. I believe you are correct in that the lepers were meant to be humanized. Like I said in my response, and you touched on here also, it just made me thankful. I am thankful that I have such wonderful life, and have little to complain about.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting way to look at The House is Black. You hit the nail right on the head, in that we as American college students do not have to deal with or even think about leprosy. That is a huge reason why I was so uncomfortable with this movie. I do not handle well people that are extremely ill, it makes me uncomfortable to be around them, even my relatives. I believe you are correct in that the lepers were meant to be humanized. Like I said in my response, and you touched on here also, it just made me thankful. I am thankful that I have such wonderful life, and have little to complain about.
ReplyDelete