Still
Life
In
March, I was designated a key worker. This means that while much of the country
is on lockdown, I'm one of the many people still making the commute in to work.
I argued that the work I was doing was inessential. That any part of my job
that was essential could be done from home, and anything that couldn't
be done from home should be postponed due to the current government guidelines
around social distancing. I work at a hospital. I'm not medical staff, nor do I
fulfill any of the great litany of other important roles, such as porter,
cleaner, security, catering, pharmacy or IT, to name a few. My role is creative
and largely administrative. I'm not going to flatter myself; it's not essential.
Like
a lot of people, the experience of the past two months has had a profound
effect on my mental health and wellbeing. Every conversation is now charged
with discussions around Covid-19. Headlines scream from every news site or
social media platform about the great changes that the world has undergone over
the course of the year so far. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the fear of
infection, death and the potential loss of friends and loved ones, however, it's
not just the realities of life under lockdown that cause such stress, but the
way the course of life has been distorted and overturned.
As I
ventured out for my first day of work after the lockdown restrictions were
introduced, the thing that caused me the greatest anxiety was the sense of
loneliness; the alienation of being one of only two or three people riding the
train to work, when once it would've been packed with fellow commuters. The
empty buses and barren streets that I follow on my way to the hospital, or the
general lack of people on site, the locked doors, the added security, each put
me in mind of every post-apocalyptic horror film I could ever imagine, from The
Last Man on Earth (1964) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) to Morning Patrol (1987)
and 28 Days Later (2002). The feeling of solitude and disconnection was
incredible.
The
Last Man on Earth [Sidney Salkow, 1964]:
Morning
Patrol [Nikos Nikolaidis, 1987]:
28
Days Later [Danny Boyle, 2002]:
It
wasn't just genre films that this experience put me in mind of. When I think now
about the first week going to work after the state of quarantine was declared,
I was most reminded of the final sequence of director Michelangelo
Antonioni's great masterwork, L'eclisse (1962).
One
could argue that Antonioni was putting social distancing and self-isolation on
screen decades before the concept achieved historical recognition. His best films,
from Il Grido (1957) to The Passenger (1976), are each about characters in
conflict with the world and unable to settle. A backdrop of alienation or an impending
crisis is often used as a projection of the rift within the lives of these
characters as they struggle to conform, find peace, or accept their own sense
of self. This was certainly true of L'eclisse, which chronicles the affair
between a young bourgeois woman from an affluent part of Rome and a successful
stockbroker, but uses the relationship to hint at weightier, more existential
themes.
The
rifts in the relationship between these characters and the crisis they face is mirrored
by the world of the film, with its stock market crash and allusions to a potential
nuclear war propelling the film towards a final sequence that remains one of
the most extraordinary in the history of cinema. Departing from conventional uses
of language, both spoken and "cinematic", Antonioni instead suggests
something almost pre-apocalyptic. The film slows to a stop, the atmosphere
becomes labored and pregnant with the anticipation of something cataclysmic,
and there is a sense of the society collapsing in on itself, becoming inert and
inarticulate, regressing or ascending to a more primitive, elemental state.
L'eclisse
(The Eclipse) [Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962]:
When
I first saw Antonioni's film over a decade ago, I remember quite vividly the
effect this sequence of images had on me, and how transformative the film was
on both an emotional and psychological level. Going outside into the back
garden of my parents' house and feeling the quiet stillness of the suburban scene,
I felt, in a most significant way, that the world was both larger and smaller
than I could ever imagine. Changed by the experience of viewing, I felt overwhelmingly
that my place within the world was little more than an insignificant speck, no
greater or more important than the rustling leaves or the tweeting birds that were
my only reminder that this seeming simulacrum of existence was still
life.
I now
have this same feeling when I travel to work. The same sense of the world being
at once expansive, overwhelming in how vast and unknowable it actually is, and at
the same time being claustrophobic or fenced in. The same feeling of
insignificance, of alienation, of displacement, of the recognizable "everyday"
reality as we once knew it breaking down into something strange and unusual, or
of the portent of some even greater cataclysmic event just readying itself to
plunge the world into further silence.
At
this time, I think about the most vulnerable members of society and I hope they're
okay. The elderly, people with disabilities, people without work or homes, all
struggling with the same fears, anxieties and uncertainties. I think about the
key workers putting themselves at risk. I think about how difficult it must be
for children to adapt, and the impact that this period will have on their psychological
development. Whatever happens, it's important to remember that we're all in
this together. Stay safe.
