Reflections in the Windows
Justus Elo
The author is a student at Kallio Upper Secondary School.
Grandma’s house. 2011. Or 2012. The year Kung Fu Panda 2 was released, when was it? I'm sitting on my bed watching a movie on my laptop, where Phineas and Ferb get lost in another reality. The movie ends and something strange happens: I don't immediately remember who I am. For about 80 minutes, grandma, bed, laptop, or three-year-old me don't exist. There's just a window to another world. Dad picks me up. For a week, I don't talk about anything other than the movie I saw. It's not the first one I've seen, and not even the first one I love, but it's the first one I remember losing myself in.
Sähköttäjänpuisto. 2019. A week has passed since my granddad's funeral. I'm talking to a friend and I say that I cried more over the death of Iron Man than over the death of my own granddad. My friend says, “That’s weird.” I take the words with pride at first, until I see my friend’s eyes, which don’t understand me. It starts to scare me. I don’t want to be around him anymore, so I go home and start watching the movie. It’s exciting and there’s a talking raccoon in it. I can’t remember what scared me so I’m not scared anymore. Or maybe subconsciously, a little bit, what if my friend is right? What if this whole shit doesn’t make sense. What if Iron Man doesn’t matter. I make a strategic decision that Iron Man is the only one who matters.
Kinopalatsi movie theatre. 2020. I’ve learned that the best way for me to distance myself from the rest of the world is to go to the movies alone. This time, however, the movie is boring, which is why my own thoughts take over, but this time they go their own way. Then I have a panic attack. I don’t think of it as a panic attack then, because I don’t think I’m having one, because nothing scares me, because I always forget everything I’m afraid of. It’s a panic attack, though. The colors on the screen blur, my sternum feels like it’s pressing against my skin, and I can’t get my brain to stop repeating that no one cares about me. It takes me a few minutes to get the surrounding lights back together. I notice that in the movie, the main character has found a fancy gold watch in his basement. I look at the watch. I look at the watch. I look at the watch. Let’s see where the main character puts it.
Home. 2021. I decide to watch a comedy special called Bo Burnham: Inside because it’s under an hour and a half long and looks funny. I like the special. I think about it, so I watch it again. Something radioactive happens in my brain. I watch the movie again. I realize that Inside is not a “comedy special” but an experimental film. I watch it again. I cry my eyes out. I watch it 41 times. Over the course of the viewings, the film loses its story and structure. Now it’s just a vague collection of my feelings. In the film, the comedian’s attempt to entertain turns into existential horror, culminating in an encounter with what I’ve been trying to avoid for years: all is not well. I am, like the comedian, alone. Not because I don’t have friends, but because I don’t let them near me, because up until now I haven’t let myself near me. Just a few films. The most interesting thing about window to another world this time is the reflection of the viewer hidden in the bottom corner, which proves that I’m not really alone. I dive deep into the cinema in search of more reflections. I find treasures.
School. 2022. In art class, my classmates are talking about how killing seagulls should be legal. The girl in the beanie sitting across from me says the idea is sadistic. I look the girl in the eye and smile. “Are you the movie guy?” the girl asks. A few weeks pass. I’m sitting on the girl’s couch watching the 1977 House. I’ve seen it once before, which is why I’m lost in thought for a moment. The girl is close to me now. Like really close to me. Really close to me. My breastbone presses against my skin. My breathing quickens. The light from the television refracts. I squeeze my eyes shut as hard as I can to focus on feeling them. Instead, I soon feel a hand on my shoulder. I stop squeezing. The girl has turned off the TV. I look at her. I look at her. I smile. I think about nothing else for a week except my friend’s hand on my shoulder.
WHS Theatre Union. 2026. I'm sitting in the lobby of the theatre with my friend, and neither of us can speak after the film we saw. It's funny. My friend is not a beanie girl, the connection between us was severed a few months earlier by her. It was scary, but it didn't erase the memory of the hand on the shoulder, which has caused a few others to come close to me, one of whom has come with me to see The End of Evangelion. Unlike my friend, I've seen it before, but the images that roll over me of the Earth being reborn from blood as a boy writhing in self-pity realizes his own insignificance open up on a whole new level because of the big screen. Or maybe they open up because of my friend. Before the film started, I was looking forward to discussing the film's themes with her, but sharing the silence after the work feels much more personal. So the analysis will remain superficial, but I still tell my friend that I cried more during this viewing than any other viewing all year. My friend says that “that’s so real”. We hug. I smile all the way home. Then I think about what I saw for a moment. It’s not the last film I loved, but it’s probably the last one I remember finding myself in. Or maybe it’s not. Reflections can be found almost anywhere if you look for them. And I’m never going to get enough of them. No matter how much sense they make.
Illustrations: Taru Liikanen