We have grass; it exists

[asakiyume]

Last week I saw No Other Land (2024; Oscar-winning documentary on destruction of a group of small hamlets in the West Bank, filmed from 2019 through 2023).

In it, at one point the father of Basel Adra (one of the two main young men making the documentary) takes several of the children in the extended family to school in a van. (The school is later destroyed.) The children are chanting in the van, they say--

We have grass; it exists.
We have a mountain; it exists.
We have a chicken house; it exists.
We have a rock; it exists.

There may have been other things they say--those were the ones I scrawled down in my notebook in the theater.

This could be something similar to playing "I spy with my little eye" ("I spy with my little eye something striped!" and then people guess what you see). Or part of a nursery rhyme or something that doesn't rhyme when you translate it into English.

But to me, watching that movie, it felt like a verbal way of touching, and touching base with, things that are really there and won't disappear. It felt like a spell, even.

Although the chicken house does, in fact, get bulldozed.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I wish I had the fortitude to watch this documentary. I am so impressed with the makers and subjects.

[asakiyume]

I wouldn't have gone to see it if someone hadn't asked me to--I don't generally see things like this, where I know all the facts, where I know it will be harrowing, and where my witnessing that will help the people in question not one whit. ... But--and I just put this in a story I wrote--I guess we never really know how things ripple out. Maybe my witnessing it will help in some way that I don't know about or understand at the moment.

I spent a long time looking at the faces of the beautiful brave young men. If my gaze could protect them, they would be well shielded.

[sovay]

But to me, watching that movie, it felt like a verbal way of touching, and touching base with, things that are really there and won't disappear. It felt like a spell, even.

It makes me think both that the spell works as long as people hear the children chanting whether the chicken house is still standing or not and of Auden: "We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now."

[asakiyume]

Ahh, my heart. larryhammer just posted an Auden poem that also resonates.

[sovay]

larryhammer just posted an Auden poem that also resonates.

Thank you. I am kind of sketchily on DW right now and had missed it.

*hugs*

[sartorias]

What, what an effective chant! And kinda heartbreaking, too.

[asakiyume]

Yes, both things.

[oracne]

Ouch.

[asakiyume]

Very