I feel like the whole experience has been a constant placebo.
I don't know what to believe, don't know how to feel about it.
Feel dirty, like something has gone missing from me now, a strand of naievety or innocence I won't be able to get back.
I said to Chris last night, it's on a moral parallel to losing your virginity.
I felt safe, I felt comfortable.
The past couple of weeks have been a total headfuck as it is, but in the best possible way.
My life is moving unbelievably fast at the moment.
Faster, for that brief second half of the night.
I don't want to think the people that I met weren't amazing.
I didn't feel under any illusion, or euphoria, or I didn't have any kind of ridiculous hallucination or out of body experience.
So therefore... having such a good time shouldn't have to come at such a price where there is so much doubt. It wasn't about fitting in at all - there was no pressure to do or to not. To be fair, I'm not sure if anyone would have noticed. In retrospect though, it will stand me in good stead, not just with Chris' mates, but in my own security about situations like that.
As much as I wasn't willing to embrace it, I did enjoy the feeling of naieveity to it all, and if anything it makes me more confident in Chris as a person - I felt totally secure with using his leg as my comfort blanket, holding his hand was like a life raft that made me realise that even though the situation was a long way out of my comfor zone, there was a definite sense that there wasn't anything wrong about it.
What I have learned, which I probably knew in a sense before, but not with such an immediacy, is that my brain can entirely shut itself off from any other important (or mundane, for that matter) thought as soon as there is an element of conflict or panic.
I wouldn't even call it an argument (another of Chris' bonuses - inability to argue!), more a realisation that I had once again been naieve to a situation. I would love to ideally blame it on the mephadrone and the fact that my mind was racing, but we both honestly knew it was much more deep-set than that. My ability to escalate a situation into a full-scale panic is second to none, and I know it is something I need to control.
Using mephadrone as a trigger to alert me to this has probably been the most helpful aspect of the whole experience. Although I did feel a change, it was almost a sense of clarity - I was far surer about what I wanted, what I was doing, and how I ideally wanted to deal with it. The increased social aspect is an apparent effect, but I felt like it only brought it out of me rather than placing it on me as if it never existed before. I acted like I would with friends who knew me better - therein lies the comfortability, false or not.
I said to Alice this morning - it was as if my brain was functioning perfectly, I was having normal conversation, saying relevant things, being a bit drunk, but in order to recall or replay what I had said, there was almost a 2 second delay. I had to really think about what had just come out of my mouth, but I trusted my own instinct enough to know that it wouldn't be inappropriate. In a sense, I was just watching myself have a good conversation, but I was reading a transcript of it at the same time, so my reading was slightly behind the spoken words. Yeah... I'm sure that makes perfect sense.
Barf.
The one thing I am sure of due to this whole experience is how amazing Chris is.
This boy means an awful lot to me, and I don't think I can stress that enough.
I'm not letting this one go without a fight.
Proper falling.
Firstly... what an incredibly immaculate piece of cinema this is. I am in love with the simplicity of the use of sound. I am in love with the way the locations, even though they are nothing breathtaking or unexpected, are shot in such a way that they add to the reality and intensity of the story. Although saying that, from a viewer who isn't accustomed to such a snowy culture, the whole essence of the film was changed because of the setting and locations.
The relationship between the two characters is so excellently crafted, when the conclusion comes round, it is a given that Eli will save Oskar. But the shocking nature of her rescue is not expected - the ages of the two, coupled with the stark lack of any kind of meaningfully obvious emotional dialogue means you only truly realise the extent to which Oskar is in danger the whole time when Eli actually comes to his aid. Sure, the killings before were shocking, but none of them were made for any reason except hunger and bloodlust, and less so actually in front of Oskar.
I guess the rub comes in the final scene, where Oskar and Eli leave together. While this again was quite an obvious turn to take in terms of plot, it keeps to the general theme of naievety that runs throughout the whole film. You really are led to question how any of this could happen, how anyone could allow events to occur in this was (as Oskar does), and how such young individuals can be so sure of something. What lies beneath the silence and the awkwardly shot relationship between the two is something that is far less obvious - a desperation to move forward in any way possible, regardless of morality or social rule.
