Things take time. Particularly friendships and relationships.
Sometimes it is difficult to accept, and because of that I wanted to write a story about two persons that meet and get to know themselves fast, accelerating the process of connection. But can you really accelerate the process? What would that entail? In fiction one can question conventions in order to understand our own reality. I haven’t written the story yet but the theme made me think of the situations presented in two different films: Victoria (2015) and Duck Butter (2018). In both there is a case were emotional connections develop faster. The first film is more on friendships and the second one on relationships.
Superficially, Victoria is a crime and suspense film, the director mentioned that a “bank robbery” was the starting point, then thinking about how to make an interesting film out of it. I personally think they accomplished even more. The first thing you will notice, and for which the movie was highly praised, is for being one of the few films shot in a single take. The camera is following Victoria all the time during one late night in the streets of Berlin. The film starts with Victoria dancing in a club, and when she is leaving she meets some random guys, they fool around and hang out, and as the night progresses, the bonding grows, particularly between Victoria and one of the guys, Sonne. Then things get complicated when Victoria ends up helping her new, friends? robbing a bank.
A friend once told me that nothing brings you closer to someone than commiting a crime together. It creates a bond. Now, I am not advocating crime and I am sure there are better ways to make friends, but I thought of that because such a case is depicted in the movie really well. Point for my friend.
Victoria and her new friends having the truly german drinking experience, which of course involves getting beer from a store.
I don’t know the opposite of superficially, deeply perhaps? But my interpretation of the movie was this craving for connection and friendship, which sometimes is hard for people to have. Victoria for example was from Madrid and was living in Berlin for 3 months. She didn’t know anyone, and she didn’t speak german, which adds another layer of complexity, because in order to establish a connection, you have to communicate. There are other situations, however, in which when you really want to have an exchange, there are other ways to find a common understanding beyond language. Anyhow, Victoria manage to communicate in english with her new friends. In a scene she is with Sonne at the café where she works, and they play the piano. Sonne tries to play something and flirts with Victoria, she reveals to him that she can also play the piano, she starts playing some heavy professional stuff, or at least also really moving, I cried with that scene. Sonne is also touched by her talent. Then she tells him how she dedicated her whole life to become a concert pianist, only to be rejected at school where they told her she was not good enough. At school she didn’t make friends because people in the conservatory saw her as competition, or she mentioned how she was also having thoughts of wishing people bad performances so she could increase her chances of getting accepted. She felt horrible. And now it was not her dream anymore to become a pianist.
I found the movie relatable in this sense of seeking a friendship or “deep” connection with someone like the one Veronica was craving. Sometimes you meet people, and you think you “have something”, and then they just move on with their lives, you are not friends, you just shared for a moment some nice time together. I am learning to differentiate this. The fact that not everyone feels the same way you feel. That for others it is completely normal to hang out briefly and then never talk again. Or not in the same way, to sound less dramatic. Which is not a good thing or a bad thing, it is just a possibility, one that it didn’t occur to me. I don’t know if blaming my social upbringing for making me place expectations on people, but the more I grow, the less I know, as Nelly Furtado says.
At the beginning of the movie, when Veronica is at the club, she goes to the bar and orders a drink. She tries to talk to the bar tender and even invites him a drink, but he refuses. She takes the shot she ordered, looks around the bar, do some people watching, and goes out. Which made me think of the times I have been in similar situations trying to befriend strangers. Sometimes I am perceived as intrusive, sometimes people appreciate the fact that “I dare” to talk to them. But who knows what people are going through when we approach them. One has to take the chance, observe, and accept when someone doesn’t want to talk to you. It’s not personal. People sometimes are just tired. Making a connection takes energy after all.
Even though things escalated to a hyperbolic situation with the bank robbery, I think ultimately Victoria felt alive that night because she felt that adrenaline of being part of something, sharing a moment of togetherness with people, finally, after a long time.
Fun fact, the same actress from Victoria, Laia Costa, is also in Duck Butter.
In Duck Butter there is a different approach to this process of accelerating being close to someone.
Naima is an actress and Sergio is a musician. Naima meets Sergio at this gig, they dance, have a nice time together, and during a chat they reflect on how sometimes you don’t really get to know someone, for example, when people are together for 10 years, then they get married only to divorce shortly afterwards (not all couples). Therefore, they joke about “living in the moment”, “doing what you want”, and the idea of what will happen if they spend 24 hours together to “truly” get to know themselves. The deal also involves that they will have sex every hour. “We can do it. We can fucking skip time”, says Sergio to Naima.
Yeah, maybe later because in reality Naima has to go to work the next day, etc. But eventually she comes back to Sergio and they run the experiment, which is the whole premise of the movie.
From my interpretation, the film succeds in representing the stages of some relationships, doesn’t matter if they are together three months, three years, or 24 hours. The thing is that when you really get close to someone, masks start falling down and you see more than the things that attracted you at the beginning. You might realize your core values doesn’t align. You might have different attachment styles. Or you can be not completely honest with yourself or with your partner. But how long it takes until these realizations come to the surface? According to the movie it can happen in 24 hours. According to personal experiences I would just recommend having dinner together. You can get to know a lot of a person when you cook together. Power dynamics, social upbringing, politics, allergies. But I need to do more science on this. Lol. But seriously, think about the first times you cooked together with someone, a lot might be going on. Also it is just nice because food is nice.
Back to the movie, in an interview, the actresses are asked about the sex scenes, and I liked the remark of Alia Shawkat (Naima), who mentions how every scene has a motivation. They represent moments when they are really intimate, when they are still fresh and more playful, when someone is not as connected. Which makes sense because sex is not the same every time, and it was interesting to see how their encounters also changed through time.
The last observation was the aspect of how the traits of people you are really close with can stay with you. Deep down you might never lose a “deep” connection with someone because they stay with you in some little details. In the movie, Naima didn’t like dogs before meeting Sergio, and she ends up rescuing a stray dog and takes it home with her. She also starts meditating. Sergio on the other hand was really critical about doing covers because they were just “a copy”, and ends up also finding a value in them and eventually also singing songs that are not hers. We are who we are because of the people we are or we’ve been close with.
Bonus paragraph as a conclusion:
Can you accelerate emotional connection? Apparently yes, it depends on the willingness and situation. Sometimes we also forget about the fact that there are external situations that add up to promote a connection or hinder it. Which reminds me of Robin Scherbatski’s wise words for relationships success: chemistry plus timing. “If you have chemistry, you only need one other thing – timing. But timing’s a bitch.” Meaning that not everything depends on people, but also the environment and context when you meet someone, because we are not the same every moment. We behave differently depending on where we are, with whom we are, what is in our minds, and lots of other circumstances. What if, instead of meeting at this moment, you meet me in six months? Who knows what is going to be on with me. Who knows what next week situation will bring. To an extent that is relieving. Now if you excuse me I need to go baking an apfelstrudel.
