Moonage Daydream

Moonage Daydream, the 5-star movie… (20/09/22)

Having a cinema day has been my favourite treat over the past 26 years. I go for a movie, a lunch out, a walk, and then shopping. Today, after a long break, I decided to take a cinema day again.

I chose to see a movie about David Bowie, assessed by critics as as 5-star film. His artistic work was never of big interest to me, but the 5-star reviews convinced me to see it.

My favourite cartoon joke ever was an illustration showing a psychoanalyst’s or psychiatrist’s office in which a psychotherapist was interviewing a patient lying on the couch. He asked the patient a question: "Has anyone in your family suffered from mental illness?" The patient’s answer was: "No, everybody seemed to enjoy it."

With the above joke on my mind, I came up with my own definition of the two words madness and weirdness. I believe that mad people suffer from mental illness and weird people just enjoy it. Luckily, I belong to the second group.

If you suffer from something you look for relief. That can take the form of drugs, alcohol, or sex to kill (at least for a short moment) the continuous discomfort, the feeling that most representatives of 20th century pop music and other branches of art have tried to suppress. It's easy to notice that most of them were men….

I came back home from the cinema pretty exhausted. Straight after I got home, I fell into a 3-hour nap to regenerate myself. Reading David Bowie's energy from his historical concerts, interviews, and recorded moments from different stages of his life, as well as the uneasiness of his music, the bottles of alcohol he surrounded himself with, and the tense pace of the movie intensified by flashes of strong colourful lights that I am allergic to, made me impatiently wait for the end and finally to leave the cinema with great relief. I can’t deny his paintings and acting were absolutely outstanding, but also disturbing. On the other hand, there is a saying that true art should be disturbing for those who are at peace and peaceful for those who are disturbed. Personally, I prefer when art magnifies my peace, however.

The most beautiful scene from the movie was when an interviewer asked David about the shoes he wore. He really wore the most unusual shoes I ever seen. The interviewer asked him if they were men's or women's shoes, high heels or platform, formal or casual, and so on…. David answered with innocent smile, "They are shoes…. you, silly…"

I liked as well one question/statement by one of the commentators about David using his body as a canvas; a great observation that I think applies to many people. I never thought about it that way…

“Chaos” was the most repetitive word in David’s speeches. Once he said that the chaos he lived in would finish the 20th century era, the era in which the only escape from the chaos for super sensitive artists and people was an escape distorted by drugs, alcohol, and other realities.

I like when Taylor Swift, a revolutionary female artist of the new era, sings something like "my drug is my baby," or "fuck the patriarchy." Her songs are definitely weird, but not obsessively mad like David’s. They are not contaminated by the negative vibes of the dying patriarchy-- the era David belonged to.