Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com By-Chaadaeva-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-use-
August 27, 2021,
Conversations that should be had, need to be discussed but can’t be, often revolve around a discussion we hate to have.
A discussion that takes us into the realm of the unthinkable.
Not a nuclear bomb unthinkable or a chemical agent that can poison large segments of society. Nor the rage of climate change where virtually all of California is burning up.
It is something else and we can’t begin the discussion by asking the dreaded question.
We have to work our way up to it.
Let’s initiate with an unthinkable conversation that we want to completely avoid. It would be too personal if we started in the real world so we will start with film.
The Truth About Emanuel is a 2013 American thriller drama film written, directed and produced by Francesca Gregorini. The film stars Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario, Alfred Molina, Jimmi Simpson, Aneurin Barnard and Frances O’Connor. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2013.
Here is the storyline.
Emanuel is a seventeen-year-old girl still wracked with guilt over her mother who died giving birth to her. Emanuel lives at her home in Los Angeles with her father and her stepmother, with whom she has issues. Predictably. Almost to be expected.
A woman named Linda moves next door, who looks just like Emanuel’s mother. Emanuel discovers that Linda needs a babysitter. Emanuel agrees in order to get to know more about Linda.
Everything is going fine until Emanuel makes a startling discovery. The baby that Linda is so loving and nurturing to, complete with goo, goo, goo conversations?
It’s not a baby.
It’s a doll.
What’s a babysitter to do?
As Linda and Emanuel develop a friendship, Emanuel tries to hide the fact from others that Linda’s “baby” is really a doll.
This becomes harder when her best friend, Arthur agrees to babysit because Linda will be attending Emanuel’s birthday dinner.
Eventually it is discovered by another that Linda’s baby is indeed a doll. Now Linda begins to wonder what happened to her real baby and initially blames her babysitter, our heroine Emanuel, yes a female whose name is spelled like a boy.
One might question, why is Emanuel giving Linda so much leeway to continue with this charade?
Well, it is because Linda actually believes the doll is alive.
Through a series of conversations and daily routines, Emanuel continues to play along with her and even goes to great lengths to protect Linda’s secret.
The film captivated us because we thought we got Emanuel’s point and understood her thinking.
We gather others did not agree.
At our favorite film review site rogerebert.com they express, “Turns out, “The Truth About Emanuel” isn’t even the about the truth about Emanuel.”
The reviewer appeared to conclude that because she found the film too murky, especially the dream sequences where Emanuel is in water, symbolic of her mother’s womb.
Here is why we feel that we do “get it”.
Yes, it was not about Emanuel in the sense, the truth was revealed that the real baby died and was re-invented by her mother into a doll because the mother could not accept her role in how her baby perished.
Yes, it was not about Emanuel in the sense her step mother eventually revealed that she was unable to have children in a slowly painful scene where we felt that Emanuel, who throughout the film was purposely at odds with her step parent’s almost turn of the century like personality, complete with always saying nice things and over stepping her bounds in terms of how things should be and work, like Emanuel’s possible sexual preferences; finally felt sympathy for her.
How was it about Emanuel then? In this sense.
There was an evolution that took place right in front of our eyes as we watched Emanuel churn grudgingly into a more mature person. Someone capable of compassion and empathy. Someone capable of protecting the weak from the unthinkable conversation that at some point must be had.
The death of an only child.
In the end, it was only Emanuel, not the therapists at the mentally ill facility, who would give Linda some sort of relief. Not another fictional escape but a chance to symbolically take some of the painful swelling off of her brain.
If Linda was to heal, then at some point, if not completely, she needed to face a small dose of reality, like seeing her child’s gravesite.
That was the power of the film.
It addressed one of the most unthinkable conversations that needed to be had without having the conversation.
From our perspective, in everyday life situations, part of the reason that some conversations, like the one above, is so hard to have is because it forces us to face the real unthinkable conversation through a very difficult question.
Why are we here?
You’ve heard that before and can you honestly say that you know why we are all here?
What is the connection to Linda, Emanuel and Emanuel’s step-mother’s situation?
Why did all of those bad things have to happen to them?
Person by person.
Most children are born without their mother dying in childbirth so why did Emanuel’s mother have to die so that she can live? Do you know the answer to that question? We sure don’t. If you do, would you like to explain that to Emanuel? We sure wouldn’t.
One of our important team members was a former leader in an international organized religion.
For over twenty years.
The operative word is former.
Part of the reason he is a former and, not a reformer, is because he was drained from trying to answer unthinkable questions from those in deep pain while others around him, and at least when it came to healthy children, he himself, lived a very charmed life.
Why couldn’t Linda’s step mother give birth while virtually all of the other women she knew can?
Would you like to explain the answer to her?
We wouldn’t. In part because we know the answer. And what is that? It is the unthinkable.
All of us are not remotely in control of our lives.
Any of us could get untreatable cancer next week.
Get washed away in a flood or have our house burned to the ground in an uncontrollable California fire.
Any of us.
Perhaps we may try and build a stone castle life through finance, family, romantic love and a circle of friends who have our back but that still doesn’t prevent the unthinkable from happening.
Solution?
Most of us simply try not to think about it. It is too frustrating. We’re beyond being frightened by it.
Like Emanuel’s step mother.
That is why this film is absolutely the truth about Emanuel. She’s willing to deal with Linda’s truth and eventually her own that is was not her fault that her mother died while she lived.
She had no control over that. No baby does.
Linda’s husband came in late in the story, to present himself as the reasonable and noble one, who moved on from his daughter’s death but could he have done more to help Linda? Or was it easier to sigh and say he did the best he could but she became untreatable.
Really?
Though Emanuel did not do it in conversation form, like saying to Linda, your child is dead, she was willing to address the unthinkable.
While all others chose not to.
~ ~ ~
OPENING PHOTO Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com By-Chaadaeva-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-use-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Emanuel
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-truth-about-emanuel-2014
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
