A fascinating documentary. And surprising. The beautiful thing about it is a thirst for understanding and reconciliation, and a rejection of exploitation and ridicule, the exploitative and ridiculing impulses which are all too quickly defaulted on in this culture.
It is about a young man that begins an online relationship, but upon coming across some questionable signs, investigates the nature of his contact, only to find something far different and stranger than he anticipated.
There is a tension here between an old sensibility and a new emerging one: the film was picked up by a major movie studio that marketed it to be sensationalist and exploitative, but the narrative and progression of events within betrayed a sensibility of empathy and a desire for knowledge.
The movie is very interesting, but just as interesting are the reactions surrounding it: many were skeptical and some even expected it to be a hoax. Several possible reasons. First, many people have had these online relationships and perhaps they refuse to acknowledge they could be false: so it makes sense to attack the movie as a hoax and dismantle the threat. Also, we are so used to a culture of illusion and PR that we come to assume that anything that seems strange or disconcerting, but is presented as truth is necessarily a product of deceit. The Universal Studios marketing message primes us for this conclusion.
I really don't think the movie was a hoax either. There were moments that were too authentic and earnest.
Now, it is entirely possible that this very thing happened to me. I still think my own experience was authentic, all things considered, but the possibilities opened up by this movie are more than enough to raise doubts, however plausible.
But one gets to thinking about possible reactions.
It is justified to become angry about being lied to in such a profound manner. One has what one thinks is an authentic, beautiful experience, but all of that is dashed away due to another's deceit. But from such anger comes wrath: one heaps scorn on, or blasts, or ridicules the deceiver. It resolves the current situation, but it does so by transferring the evil (or whatever it is that we call evil) back to the originator, perpetuating the evil.
Is there another way?
If one focuses on oneself, one finds one's own ego harmed, thus the pain. If one focuses on the other, however, one begins to think about the other as a human being, as opposed to a threatening object. What drives someone to do such a thing? What was done to this person to feel the need to do such a thing? What sort of society produces people that need to do these things? If one follows such lines of thought to their end, there can be a flood of compassion that can connect one to the transgressor. It is not always possible to do this, but it is always worth a shot.
So we go from becoming angry and wrathful from being told a lie, which simply perpetuates the evil, to breaking down and feeling the pain behind the genesis of such a lie, hopefully resulting in some sort of reconciliation.
We are conditioned by our culture to take the former action, which in turn reproduces a culture of cruelty unless we expend additional energy to attempt to change trajectory. Is it possible?
