- Analysis of why I don't like Movie Analysis but want to do this one

 Partie de boules and Repas de Bebe- Movie Analysis

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As someone not fond of metaphors, I find it difficult to add/chisel meanings out of someone’s work. Movie analysis also means trying to make sense of someone’s thought process or a potential interpretation of a subject, and here - when the subject happened in my absence. 

I would like to look into the movies and simply narrate what I see, I can further ponder over the why, when, what, where, who, and how of the subject-like a journalist. In this case, the movie analysis of Partie de boules and Repas de Bebe is what I thought was going to be another narration of what is simply happening, but I might have stories to tell aligned with these two.

 I was of the opinion to not derive meanings from a movie, poem, write-up, or any form of art. I have a dislike for poems too, and I have written poems on that, so why not this? - is what makes me want to write this. 

Partie de boules weirdly resonate - as in I have seen this happening around right here. The game of the lawn bawls in the movie where a group of French bourgeois men and women take turns in playing the game of the bowls- is definitely the usual story of the power hierarchy. It might talk about different other stories- I am almost sure that the filmmakers - the Lumiere family might have wanted to simply make a small scripted movie with the technology they have during the time and that’s all, a chronicle (1896). The hierarchy I observe is not amongst the bourgeoisie itself but between the class absent in the movie. It reminds me of the lack of representation of communities (who are pushed to margins due to this systemic powerplay), in spaces including academic spheres today. 

Experimentation, technology, money, power, opportunities, and many other factors that make life easier were and are available to a certain section of society alone. This is most obvious in the outcome of the products they make.

I have felt this in the products made by the able-bodied, the white, and the most privileged in society. I have felt this energy in elite colleges like the one I reside. Had I not been given a scholarship entry into a premise like this, I wouldn't have seen how privilege appropriates every human issue and how performative even analyses like these are. 

The privileged, talk about class struggle- they shed tears over casteism, ableism, and racism- write stories, and make movies on this. They analyse the movies and critique the elements of powerplay in them. What comes out of this and what is in practice are the real questions. In Partie de boules - the bourgie plays with well-rounded stone balls (from what it looks)- a time of leisure captured- by, for, and of the people who can afford them. It reminds me of the very pointless game of golf that the richest of the rich play. 

Whilst in Repas de bebe, the less than a minute movie, of a family- a man, a woman, and a baby- who is likely to be the baby’s parents- the father feeding the baby and the mother making and having some tea for herself- set on a table- is capturing of a well-articulated family moment. 

I liked the way the movie showed- what it is- I did not see the need to derive what it signifies- it was easy to my eye. The crockery they used to the clothes they wear can be put up to analysis though. The movie made me curious, about the infant- where did they go and what was the family like when the infant grew into an adult- what career path did they take and more questions. The movie makes me want to research- it is aligned with the movie Partie de boules since these both have elements of leisure and are light in tone. But, feels completely different to me. 

This is so far the Lumieree movie for some reason that made me want to research the interests and career pathways of the family. The movie starred Augustus Lumiere , Marguerite Lumiere, and Andree Lumiere(infant).

Augustus Lumiere was involved in medical research on tuberculosis and cancer. As a tuberculosis survivor, I am sure how Augustus would have been taken aback by the present mutation of the tuberculosis bacteria to a drug-resistant variant that makes treatment difficult. Augustus Lumier’s work had come across me during my drug-resistant tuberculosis medication - a time when I researched almost everything under the sky that’s related to tuberculosis. 

It is in a way, also relieving how much one can connect with humans and their survival journeys - without minimizing realities. American writer Susan Sontag has pointed out about the enabling of stigma and hate through meaningless metaphors. It’s true in many ways and only people who survived illnesses associated with stigma will understand how important it is to have the root of stigma addressed that way- It is wholly up to the intention of the maker, the interpretation and analysis like these.

Capitalism reduces the worth of something to its productivity and is perpetuated in a system that is inherently ableist, this is why research on works of art often uncovers instances of historical oppression. Every time I am given a piece of art to analyse, I fear the history, people involved, and if at all it was in a time that worked in the framework of justice.

• Athira Elssa Johnson