After watching Jonathan Caoulette’s Tarnation I felt ashamed of my own life. The fact that this man had gone through so much in such a dysfunctional family and can make a film from it amazes me. The movie really made me feel an abundance of emotions that I can barely put to words. If I had to express the emotions I felt I guess it would be depressed, confused, and overwhelmed all put together in a bowl and mixed. It reminded me a lot of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream just because when the movie is over I sit here shocked knowing I loved it and hated it at the same time. I think I only hate it because when the movie’s over I feel cold. Knowing that for that length in time I put myself into their shoes to feel what they had felt.
I can’t begin to imagine how he could possibly make it this far to tell his story without going insane or commiting suicide. How could you live such a life. Seeing his mom raped at age two, being verbally and physically abused by foster parents, watching your mother act the way she does without complete hate towards her parents and doctors. I can’t imagine seeing pictures of such a beautiful women and not hating and fighting to find a temporary solution. But really what solution is there? She can’t go back to who she used to be after years of shock treatments. A little girl whose put into the stress of childhood modeling can fuck you up anyways so when she jumps from a window and is “paralyzed” for six months. Why don’t they take a closer look at her life and see what is going on instead they thought she had mentally convinced herself she was paralyzed, and give her shock treatments. Who ever thought shock treatments did anything good should have one themselves. Come on she’s just a kid. It ruined her whole life and her sons.
I don’t think I could live that way. I have enough trouble watching my alcoholic depressed dad, but seeing this woman that is almost empty and completely delusional is devastating. I don’t understand how Jonathan lives on a day to day basis taking care of her now. I guess love moves mountains, but how will he ever see who she really was supposed to be. How will he ever know the truth about it all when no one really talks about it. I really can see how putting this on for anyone to watch had to be hard. Especially when people, such as, his grandpa or mother watch the movie themselves. I wonder if they have.
Although I feel cold, I also see a pure natural beauty in it all. The way he grows and matures and takes it all in is the definition of strength. I liked that I get to see footage from when he was eleven years old. It’s amazing the things he knows and acts out when he plays Hillary. I know that I didn’t know those words or even what they meant at that age.
Another part of Tarnation that really made me think was when he went to his mother’s apartment and went looking for marijuana and got two joints with PCP, and ended up hospitalized. He said something close to that it “felt like I was living in a dream from then on.” I feel this way myself sometimes, like my life passed by me and I missed out or that my head is stuck in the clouds. I found that from watching the film it was almost like a dream of his life. With the flashing and pictures coming in and film clips, even the music made it a dream to me. Something that I myself might go through in my own dream, just seems so quick. The worst part though is to think that it wasn’t a dream at all, that this is his real life. He can’t go back because it was chosen for him, he had no choice but to get up and live. I like that he has enough guts to show others his experience and I know that a movie can’t bring out everything, but it sure made me feel emotions I have never felt from watching a film before.