To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Presumptuous Known Mimesis
Thoughts On: To All The Boys I've Loved Before (2018)
A return to an antagonising cinematic experience.
I wrote this about two years ago. I recently tried to watch the sequel to To All The Boys I've Loved Before. I didn't get through it. But, I approached the film wanting to further investigate the effect that the first film had on me, and I think I found some answers. What I endured two years ago was a suffering of self. I put before myself someone who I was not. I stared into an inky mirror, and through it saw a shadow. Cinema is an imitation of life. It is easy to think of art generally of such. And the concept becomes a trite cliche all to easily. It needs re-evaluation and reconsideration. With deeper thought, the mimetic faculties of cinema reveal themselves to be far more nuanced than the phrase 'cinema is an imitation of life' is often read as encapsulating. Life is a pattern through space and time. It stretches backwards toward a singularity we may only know as Tao. Life is a deep pool of waves and molecular interactions; a vast ocean of resonance and relations that formulate a nexus of a certain logic. To imitate this fabric of space, time, reality and logic, is to create cinema. We reach back towards the singularity of form and the soul with hands only so far from our faces. That is to say that we see and may know what we reach with, but could never come to comprehend that which our tools may touch or even grasp. The disconnect is jarring and poignant. Cinema is made of known and unknown mimesis. Known mimesis is concerned with the logic of conscious humanity. Unknown mimesis evokes the way and intelligence of the pattern of reality. The two have their relationship. I do not understand it. But, it is evident. What has become clear to me of recent, however, is the source of the disconnect between filmic material and spectator produced by certain films - films like To All The Boys I've Loved Before, and its sequel. These are films that present known mimetic material that is not actually knowable; that the individual spectator has no relation to. All known mimesis is prey to this phenomena: not everybody knows. However, known mimesis of a certain character and quality binds the spectator to its unknown face, thus producing lyrosophy. One must not known as to understand. But, one can come to fail to know something if it is never shaped to be understood. The situation is sticky. Certain melodrama of a trivial and trite quality corrupts unknown mimetic processes with an overabundance of presumption and contrivance. One screams as such manifest: this is not real, despite what you are showing me...
The problem is simple. The true pattern of how things are cannot be perceived through presumptuous known mimesis. One should never presume to know in the cinema; one should seek to understand. What that means, I do not know. Alas, it is evident.
A return to an antagonising cinematic experience.
This is more ridiculous to me than it could be to anyone else, but, 'teenager makes a lot of stupid mistakes' movies either deeply frustrate me or shake my innards with anxiety. To All The Boys I've Loved Before left me wrought with anxiety - almost profoundly so. So, not a fun cinematic experience, but maybe an affecting one. The reason underlying my almost unbearable discomfort whilst watching this film stems from the fact that I pretty much avoided to make the stupid mistakes that these movies say we all make. It is cognitive dissonance, myself being torn between indifference, a sense that I'm far too weird, yet also a feeling of doom in my own life, that catalyse this overbearing conundrum. Self-indulgently or sadistically, I have to say I appreciate this movie most for putting me through such stress. Objectively I have to say that this is written and directed mediocrely, but performed nicely. That said, there's not much I could be objective about with this. In the end, more a personal therapy session than a film for me, I think I can say I kind of like this.
I wrote this about two years ago. I recently tried to watch the sequel to To All The Boys I've Loved Before. I didn't get through it. But, I approached the film wanting to further investigate the effect that the first film had on me, and I think I found some answers. What I endured two years ago was a suffering of self. I put before myself someone who I was not. I stared into an inky mirror, and through it saw a shadow. Cinema is an imitation of life. It is easy to think of art generally of such. And the concept becomes a trite cliche all to easily. It needs re-evaluation and reconsideration. With deeper thought, the mimetic faculties of cinema reveal themselves to be far more nuanced than the phrase 'cinema is an imitation of life' is often read as encapsulating. Life is a pattern through space and time. It stretches backwards toward a singularity we may only know as Tao. Life is a deep pool of waves and molecular interactions; a vast ocean of resonance and relations that formulate a nexus of a certain logic. To imitate this fabric of space, time, reality and logic, is to create cinema. We reach back towards the singularity of form and the soul with hands only so far from our faces. That is to say that we see and may know what we reach with, but could never come to comprehend that which our tools may touch or even grasp. The disconnect is jarring and poignant. Cinema is made of known and unknown mimesis. Known mimesis is concerned with the logic of conscious humanity. Unknown mimesis evokes the way and intelligence of the pattern of reality. The two have their relationship. I do not understand it. But, it is evident. What has become clear to me of recent, however, is the source of the disconnect between filmic material and spectator produced by certain films - films like To All The Boys I've Loved Before, and its sequel. These are films that present known mimetic material that is not actually knowable; that the individual spectator has no relation to. All known mimesis is prey to this phenomena: not everybody knows. However, known mimesis of a certain character and quality binds the spectator to its unknown face, thus producing lyrosophy. One must not known as to understand. But, one can come to fail to know something if it is never shaped to be understood. The situation is sticky. Certain melodrama of a trivial and trite quality corrupts unknown mimetic processes with an overabundance of presumption and contrivance. One screams as such manifest: this is not real, despite what you are showing me...
The problem is simple. The true pattern of how things are cannot be perceived through presumptuous known mimesis. One should never presume to know in the cinema; one should seek to understand. What that means, I do not know. Alas, it is evident.
