 Tilda Swinton on A Pilgrimage. Photo by Tobias Rauscher.“Rice” is a precious little film. Produced in 1996, it tells the tale of a young girl and an old lady traveling across Tehran to buy a bag of rice, being helped along the way by locals. Obviously quite relevant in its depiction of a society currently undergoing significant political and social upheaval, it also proved to be pertinent programming for our own context. One memorable scene from the film finds the old lady’s giant bag of rice breaks on a city bus, and its passengers joining together to place the rice in whatever bags they can find. One by one, the bags are hauled off the bus to the old lady. An hour after the film finished, the pilgrimage eerily mirrored this when we moved all of our belongings from the original, broken down bus to its replacement. Like in the film, we stood in a line, passing each bag to the person beside us as we readied ourselves for the next leg of our journey.
What’s more, the sense of connectivity conveyed in that scene - and in “Bag of Rice” as a whole - set the tone for what was to come. For the next now seven and a half days, we joined together in the Screen Machine, anticipating Swinton and Cousins’ lively introductions. They would sit down at the front of the theater as a cleverly programmed song would bring the audience to its feet. Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life,” for example, opened Les Black’s 1982 documentary “Burden of Dreams,” which follows the troubled production of Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo.” Robert Bresson’s “Au hasard Balthazar” was introduced with Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Personal Jesus,” which brought upon definitive rocking out care of Swinton and Cousins, with the pilgrimage soon following.
Cousins and Swinton would then go back and forth with a few rounds of anecdotes while holding a giant flag - held up by broomsticks - that read “The State of Cinema.” Both would display their endless knowledge of film history, or dedicate the film to a related person or place, from the people of Iran with “Bag of Rice” to a sad story about a woman who died in a car accident shortly after attending last year’s Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams. The woman’s daughters had e-mailed Swinton to tell her how grateful they were that their mother had passed shortly after having had the time of her life.
Other selected films continued the imaginative programming of “Bag of Rice.” Preston Struges’ “Sullivan’s Travels” follows a depression-era Hollywood director sick of making fluff who sets off a road trip to “find out how real people live” and thus make a socially worthy film. Peter Watkins’ “Culloden,” which recreates the 1746 battle of the same name, was shown mere feet from the battlefield in the film, and moments after the pilgrimage had taken a tour. Les Black’s aformentioned “Dreams” depicts a film set so troubled our own misadventures seem serene in comparison (it also had us quoting Werner Herzog in German accents - Swinton herself setting the bar for authenticity - for the remainder of the trip. Most notably (and out of context for anyone who hasn’t seen the film): I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and… growing and… just rotting away.”)
What all the films had in common was their ability to motivate conversation and community among the pilgrimage. After the film, we’d head back to our campgrounds or congregate in parking lots, drinking beer and wine, arguing about what we did or didn’t like. I felt for the first time in my short career as a film journalist that art and industry had been separated. Once I ended up finding myself in a conversation about how we thought “Funny People” might have done at the box office that weekend (none of us had internet access the entire time), for the first time in my memory - I didn’t really care. I was immersed in something that meant so much more.
Perhaps the perfect metaphor for A Pilgrimage comes from within its programming. Vincent Minnelli’s 1954 musical “Brigadoon,” set in the Scottish Highlands but quite obviously shot entirely on a Hollywood sound stage, follows two Americans who randomly come across Brigadoon, a mysterious village seemingly lost in the mists of time. As we come to know through the wonderfully ridiculous narrative of the film, Brigadoon actually only exists one day every 100 years, and then disappears.
 Seven pilgrims prepare for their rendition of a scene from Busby Berkley’s “Footlight Parade.” Photo by Ludwig.In a sense, A Pilgrimage is Brigadoon. For the folks that were a part of it, the mystical world it created has just disappeared forever. At least physically.
On the final night, seven of the pilgrims (myself included) dressed up like the swimmers in that famous scene of Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkely’s “Footlight Parade” (via tin foil bras and bathing caps) and surprised an audience with a dance in the middle of the film’s screening. The audience laughed hysterically as our tin-foil dresses began to fall off and our half-hour rehearsed choreography held up as best it could.
Then, we all had one final, emotional dance to Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again,” with Swinton and Cousins leading us around the inside of the theater as we held the same placards we welcomed people on the train with. I randomly was handed “Lillian Gish” once again, and held her with pride as I danced around the room with an enthusiasm I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager.
As Swinton and Cousins took their final bow, they avoided sentimental speeches. Clutching “The State of Cinema” flag, Swinton simply quoted The Smiths.
“There is a light that never goes out,” she said. Looking around the theater at forty glossy eyes, I am certain for all present, that suggestion has never felt more true.
Peter Knegt is the Associate Editor of indieWIRE. More from A Pilgrimage is available on his blog, The Lost Boy.
|
