Not India

It says something that in December with the trees leafless and my garden barren, Marlou managed to make an excellent soup from our home grown tomatoes.  True, this was something of a team effort.  It was my brother and nephews who tied up the tomato plants last spring.  It was Marlou's nephews who brought gallons of green tomatoes indoors to, I thought, decompose.  It was my sister who supplied the recipe.  I thought of adding the chicken.

Somehow, while Marlou was in Sweden and the heat was off in our apartment, the tomatoes took advantage of the indoor coolness to turn a credible red.  And so it came to pass that in mid-December fresh soup materialized in our cooker.  Marlou even found oregano growing live on our terrace.

At the same moment 'After the Wedding' arrived in the post from our video service, Netflix.  I keep trying to find films we can both enjoy, particularly now.  Marlou feels like going out less and less, and I don't blame her.  The problem is that I gravitate toward serious films.  Marlou would call them somber.  I haven't seen enough films over the years to know what's funny and what isn't, so my choices sometimes arrive with a thud.  But 'After the Wedding' promised to be a film about a distant topic, India.  Wrong.

The story has little to do with India and much to do with heartbreak, growth, and dying.  The protagonist, played by a handsome Dane, is all weltschmerz.  We have some evidence of his losses, but mostly what we have is him.  The man's face says it all.  His heart has been broken, but not his spirit.  The love of his life is poor kids in India.  When he must return to his native Denmark to deal with business, life deals him a series of blows.  He becomes caught up in old entanglements.  Like a true hero, he accepts his fate.  The kids he loves in India have been taken from him, an unknown daughter has appeared from nowhere, and he has new commitments in a new life.  In the efficient way of great storytelling, we know remarkably few details of his past.  What is most credible about the hero is his grief.  It is pervasive, never overdone, the product of a life.

One of the central characters begins dying as the film draws to a close.  His attitudes toward death shift before our eyes.  Manipulative at one moment, raging and desperate at the next, he slips toward his fate.  I had not intended this.  I had thought this film was about relief workers in India.  Instead, it is about love and loss and dying.  I glanced at Marlou as the film drew to a close.  She shed a few tears.  She enjoyed the film immensely.

Some close to Marlou are hoping for a miracle.  I think we already have one.  We are able to be here dealing with loss and appreciating life.  I tell Marlou that I admire her for this.  But the truth is that we share credit.  Marlou and I are making this happen together.  My family experience had left me so scarred that I wasn't counting on much togetherness in my life.  And in these moments, in these days for all their pain, I have been proved wrong.