Watching the Film - '2012'

The film ’2012’

Sometimes life does get a bit mundane. The day to day routine; getting the kids up and moving in the morning, trying to teach them to motivate themselves, trying to teach them to solve problems with the minimum of fuss… trying, trying, trying. It does wear a parent down and truly, sometimes, it seems like an uphill battle, with little time for fun.

So one fine day, on the weekend, I told the kids I wanted to take my fourteen-year-old daughter to see a movie and have what we call ‘a mother-daughter bonding time!’ This is very similar to a ‘sister brother bonding time’, ‘mother son bonding time’ and so on. It’s a bit of our family culture. We go out somewhere together and have fun and talk. Everyone shows respect when this is announced. No one worries because they know their turn is just around the corner…

So I took my sweet, bubbly, ‘always has something to say’ fourteen-year-old to see ‘2012’. We joked as we bought the tickets saying, “A bit of death of destruction sounds like fun!” But beneath the surface of our laughter was a very real feeling of fear. I mean, deep down, we all know that one day (hopefully not soon) the world will come to an end. But when, I wondered, did watching it all happen become entertainment? I felt uneasy, thinking that maybe we had been swept along with the tide of ‘entertainment addiction’ that most of the world seems to be suffering from. Gulp!

Well, we watched the inevitable daring hero, the good guys, the ever-present bad guys, the great visual effects, and watched how mankind organized itself along selfish egotistical lines to save, what it thought was necessary, to re-establish the world after its destruction. My daughter was moved by the film and was shaking her head, saying ‘tut tut tut’ as we watched the innocent, the gullible of the world, the vulnerable people get wiped out, leaving a few good guys, as always mixed up with the bad buys and in continual conflict.

A stream of ideas filled my head and I felt the urge to take out my tiny note book and scribble down my thoughts as I watched the film. So holding my mobile phone so I could see what I was doing I jotted notes. My daughter leaned over and asked me, “Are you having fun mum? Don’t you ever stop working?” I smiled and assured her this was fun for me! And, the second question I hesitated because I do seem to rarely stop working. But at least we were together…

After the film we sat in a coffee shop and ordered a latte each and talked about the film. I was wondering what she had learnt from it, if anything, and I wondered if she had been troubled by it. I certainly didn’t want that. “Weren’t you afraid when you watched the film?” I asked her. She answered, “A little bit, but I think I’ll just keep busy with normal stuff and have fun and do things for today. I’m not going to think about the end.” That made me think that maybe the kids know how to cope with life more than us..

I was relieved to hear her say (after a few days) that she had become a fan on Face Book of ‘In 2013 I’ll watch 2012 and laugh’. That made me smile.