The prospect of being in a new place and living independently is terrifying to some and madly exciting for other, whether we’re done it before or not. Stepping out and deciding which direction we’re going to go in is a daunting thing. But any narrative structure will tell you that the ‘call to adventure,’ often indicated by leaving for a new place, kicks off all the best stories. Think of Harry leaving for Hogwarts in Harry Potter (Columbus, 2001), Ofelia arriving at the manor in Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006), and Charlotte lost and small in the sprawling madness of Lost in Translation’s Tokyo (Coppola, 2003). All of which are wonderful films that I think make the transition of change a little smoother.
changes in a person’s life, and teach us about how to deal with them ourselves. Boyhood (Linklater, 2014) is a great one if you want a creative take on the traditional coming-of-age story; Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012) will show you two kids finding their own freedom on a tiny island while on the run from parents and the authorities; and How I Live Now (Macdonald, 2013) will give you a more dramatic look at adapting to new places than you’ll be having (unless Trump starts World War Three that is). But instead, I’m going to go back a couple of decades and across a few seas to Japan, and recommend Kiki’s Delivery Service, the 1989 animation by Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki.
it to, whatever we try it just isn’t right. It’s even scarier if you’re spending a lot of money to study said passion, but it’s something that happens to all of us sometimes. If (when) it happens, try looking at Kiki. While films can help us adapt to new places, they also let us explore them without moving at all. You can reach Hogwarts or eighteenth century France without moving an inch as long as you have the right thing in front of you. We can learn about different cultures and people (real or not) as well as visiting familiar places. Strange as it sounds, sometimes going to an imaginary new place can help adjust to a literal new place and aid growth there.
When thinking of the things I could recommend to people for ‘comfort films,’ I realised that really it depends on whoever you are and what you love. My instinct is to list all the films I could think of, but the next person along might think of twenty paintings or a hundred songs. Whatever it is for you, never underestimate the power of a good list: find a way to keep together all the things that make it a little bit easier to get on with change. I’ve recently discovered what’s known as a ‘Morgue File’: the idea is that every time you find something that inspires you or piques your interest you take a picture or write it down and keep it so that you can come back to it later (read Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist for more). A similar idea is to do the same with all the things that make you feel a little bit better, so they’re there when you need them. But remember that creating can be just as good as consuming. Sitting down to watch, read, listen or look at something that comforts you at the end of a long day is great, but you’re at AUB for a reason. Don’t forget how much you can get out of making your own comfort art.
Storytelling – at the heart of all art forms – is the driving force of escapism. Watching other people’s stories is cathartic; they tell us how to adapt to new things by seeing how others succeed or fail at them. Specifically, I think, in films. You might prefer sitting in the comfort of your bed with pizza or a mug of tea - while I’ll always go for the experience of sitting in a darkened room with a bunch of strangers which we call cinema - but either way the moving image is the closest thing we have to going through character’s experiences without actually going through them in the literal sense.
I’m a film student, and as such I could talk about movies until after I graduate. One of the things I love about them is the fact that in a few hours, they can tell the story of massive transitions and
Anyone that knows me knows that I have the greatest admiration for this director, but even if you aren’t familiar with his work, Kiki has a hopefulness about it that is timeless. It’s the story of a young witch, who at 13 leaves home to spend a year learning her trade in some faraway town. Kiki, finding herself in a big city very different from her home, ends up cobbling together the only skills she has to make a delivery service – a flying one. Without spoiling the film for you, it deals with how to adapt to a strange new place (often through blunt optimism and determination) as well as the experience of losing the skill for something you’re passionate about. What I think scares a lot of us – creative types in particular – is the idea that one day we’ll wake up and not be able to do the thing we love anymore. For some inexplicable reason, we can’t get the pen to work the way we want
Words - Daisy Leigh-Phippard Illustrations - Natalia Podpora
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