I’m going down

Last Sunday night I attended the suprise birthday party of my friend in one of the Filipino restaurants here in Cambodia. Her husband asked a couple of us to help him organize it and the party went well, even if the surprise element of the birthday proved to be debatable (they arrived ahead of most of the guests).

On the way home I dropped by my neighborhood friendly (pirated) DVD store to browse at the new titles. I got three films and as of this writing I have seen all of them. But I will only talk about the two not just because of their inherent odd-ness. Both are road movies (a la Little Miss Sunshine), both are gloomy and tragic (while one has a bit more comic elements), and both of them have a certain exuberance within the tragic circumstances.

The Darjeeling Limited, the 5th movie directed by Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), shows three semi-estranged brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman) who are travelling by rail across India. The trip is planned by Francis (Wilson) with obsessive attention to detail and with an explicit therapeutic objective (for them to bond, and later, to see their mother who ran off to become a nun). But soon, circumstances and the nature of the brothers lead them astray from their precious itinerary.

The brothers share a common attachment to material things: expensive clothing (Francis), a girlfriend who has walked away (Jack), their dead father’s eyeglasses and shaver (Peter), and a set of monogrammed luggages (all three). They find their mother–who runs away again the next morning, save 2 out of 3 boys from drowning, and just when you think they’re ready to resume their interrupted lives in America, they discard all their baggages (physical and psychological, presumably) and decide to stay in India.

Into The Wild, directed by Sean Penn, tells the true story of Christopher Johnson McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp who in 1990 (after graduating in university) donated his $24,000.00 savings to charity then set off on a 2-year journey that took him from Mississippi, the Pacific Northwest, the wheat fields of the northern prairies, and to Alaska, where he died of starvation as a complication of eating a poisonous plant by mistake. Along the way he meets and touches the lives of a middle-aged hippie couple, a rambunctious wheat farmer, a 16 year-old singer, and an old widower who lost his wife and only child to a drunk driver. McCandless is brilliantly played by Emile Hirsch (The Girl Next Door), he is at once innocent and worldly, and consistently charming and intelligent.

There is a lot of sadness in this film, not only because it ended grusomely for the main character but also because initially one looks at his journey as a means to escape the tempestuous marriage (and avarice) of his parents, which is probably why he was resistant to human relationships and had a fierce need for solitude. But throughout the film I could also sense this invigorating spirit of seeking freedom and holding it close to one’s heart.

Both films showed me the importance for us to have moments of self-discovery at least a few times in our lives. These moments have happened to me a few times in the past and these have led me to make changes–some drastic, some mundane, in my life. Changing jobs, changing countries of residence, among others. Both films also added a few sparks to the fires of wanderlust that had been brewing inside me for months now.

I came here in 2004 with no clear plans on what I was going to do. Living on my own, without the usual support of my parents, family and friends, have taught me many things about myself and what I could possibly be. I realized that this experience has changed me in many ways. However, the extent of these changes did not become apparent until last year, when 2 of my friends in the Philippines decided to come here to Cambodia and try their luck here as well.

As I have previously chronicled in this blog, those 2 ventures resulted in disaster. I am not in speaking terms with both of these people, and I do not see any change in the situation in the immediate future. The termination of my relationships with these 2 have caused me tremendous grief, but there is a big part of me that says the parting was inevitable. We have lost some of the common things that have bound us so close together in the past. And I am not willing to revert to my old self just for the sake of maintaining the peace. I’m not saying that I’m a better person now; my point is, making compromises is a two-way street.

Things are still changing even now. I am perceiving many signals that say it is time for me to move on, but I find myself unable to quickly respond. I feel like I’m waiting for something that is completely unknown. So unknown that I might be unable to recognize it when it gets here. This is probably why watching the two films have had such a tremendous effect on me that I turned on the computer again to write this post at this un-godly hour. I think, like the Whitman brothers in The Darjeeling Limited, I have accumulated a lot of baggages (physical and psychological, certainly) here in Cambodia and my attachment to these things is what holds me back to make a decision.

Like Alexander Supertramp, I desire to breathe the air of freedom and embrace a new environment. Unlike him, however, there is (as of now) no compelling reason for me to set off on this kind of journey, this vision quest. A good question to ask myself now is, ‘What is keeping me here in Cambodia?’  My career? My relationship? My friends? Unfortunately, as significant as it may be, this is a question that I am not prepared to examine and answer at this point.

I will relish the vicarious experience accorded me by these two films instead.