This week, I managed to get a couple of hours in the early evening. I had just finished swimming and gym and went to check out the movies at the cinema here in Rio de Janeiro. I had one in mind, but since I would be watching it alone and my partner would be upset if I watched it without her, unwarned I went into Hamnet with a long neck in my hands. Naive. As we say here in Brazil, "you know nothing, innocent one!"
The result is that, from the scene of Agnes's body nestled among the roots of the forest to the crossing of the threshold in the play's setting, I experienced a rare catharsis in my life as a cinephile since childhood.
Black Dog, White Devil (Glauber Rocha, 1964) and Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014) left me quite disoriented. I remember exactly where I was and what I did afterward. I was alone at home with Black Dog, White Devil; it was my first year of medical residency. I grabbed a white t-shirt and black pencils, wrote a line from the movie on it, put it on, and went out for a drink at the bar next door. Interstellar was on a flight to Australia, again alone (this is a sign!), heading to a conference. I excused myself from the sleepyhead next to me and locked myself in that tiny bathroom to cry the "i" cry, the one where we make the "iiiiiiii" sound. Maybe in English it's the "ee" or "ea" cry.
I agreed to go to Hamnet because I've needed to practice my English and I like theater; my paternal family founded The Amateur Theater Company of Pernambuco, my home state, and staged several classics of world theater between the 1940s and 1980s. And that's all. However, unprepared, when I saw that photo of Agnes from above being nestled by the roots, I entered another world of myself.
We doctors, who are very close to the extremes of human emotions in various social classes, are generally pendulum-like with spirituality. The more science, the less metaphysics; sometimes people's experiences and stories lead us to seek our own transcendental path. I'm currently in a searching phase, and your film was an encounter.
Chloé, the way you told this story and how you dealt with the actors is already supernatural in itself. Only great directors can create a family as real as that one; only you know how to use cinema to tell that scene of passion and flirtation. The births, the arrivals, and the deaths.
I understand that the film's subject isn't about that, the happiness and tragedy of a family trying to structure itself with the absent father in full ascension in his professional career. Regarding the plagues, of course, it reminds us of Covid and the ones to come. However, it's deeper than that.
Agnes's ancient witch wisdom unites with the cathartic power of art when it presents her with a way to deal with grief, which is undoubtedly transcendental. Art connects with spirituality to tell us that it's not about being born and dying, but about how we face the insurmountable despite all our limitations.
Jessie, I fell in love with you, I've never seen such a powerful and committed female performance in film. I'm sure you are Agnes, that she exists. In every discrimination against ancestral feminine wisdom, in the heart of the forests of this planet, in every dance, in every corner. The oppression of the sacred feminine has shaped this sick, patriarchal society. The relationship you have with your brother is beautiful, and all thanks to your mother, who valued nature and the sublime. I wanted to give you a reading recommendation, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Barbara Ehrenreich).
Finally, I want to tell you that this understanding of the vastness of life strengthens us in times of Gaza, Iran, and attacks against South America. It is the power of your film, which, along with Black Dog, White Devil, and Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2019), as we say in Recife, my hometown, that's it!, pushes us towards action, revelation, and enchantment.
