Irish Film Institute -THIS MORTAL COIL

THIS MORTAL COIL

Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote that “the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else.” It follows therefore that we naturally shy away from this inevitability and instead focus on the quotidian joys and disappointments of life, the whole of which Nabokov calls “a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” And yet, this awareness of our impermanence – conscious or otherwise – can exert a profound influence on the way we live.  

But it is not just our own mortality that informs our human experience. The loss of a loved one and the grief that follows is an equally inescapable part of life. While grief is an intensely personal experience, it also has a communal role across practically all cultures, met with ritual and even celebration that honour the dead and acknowledge the loss of them. As noted in Marvel’s WandaVision, a thoughtful exploration of this loss, “what is grief, if not love persevering?” 

While religion and spirituality seek to comfort us with the thought that death merely represents a transition from one mode of existence to another, certain schools of philosophy consider the possibility that this brief flicker of being is all that there is, and that it is the knowledge of its end that gives life meaning. This dichotomy has permeated art throughout human history, from the 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh to John Green’s YA novel The Fault In Our Stars (2014); from the familiar hooded figure with a scythe in 14th-century European art to the friendly Goth in the Sandman graphic novels; from Mozart to The Cure; from Bergman’s Cries And Whispers (1972) to Michael Schur’s sitcom The Good Place (2016-20), and countless others besides. 

This season of films takes its cue from thanatology and explores some of the many facets of death and mortality. There are thematic pairings throughout, interspersed with some of cinema’s many contemplations of what, if anything, lies beyond this realm or plane of existence. It is hoped that the work chosen fosters discussion in the communal atmosphere of the cinema, given the universal experience depicted. As Jim Morrison sang, “no one here gets out alive”, but perhaps through the solace afforded by art in giving exposure to the basic, universal idea of the end of our lives, and that it is something we all must face, we can come to accept Murakami’s cathartic insight that “death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

Season Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Season Schedule: 

Ikiru – Sat 2 May (15:30)
My Life Without Me – Sun 3 May (16:00)
Kati Kati – Wed 6 May (18:30)
Amour – Sat 9 May (15:30)
Anxiety + Death & Transfiguration – Sun 10 May (15:40)
A Matter of Life and Death – Wed 13 May (18:20)
Ponette – Sat 16 May (16:10)
The Sweet Hereafter – Sun 17 May (15:45)
 Orphée  – Wed 20 May (18:30)
A Ghost Story – Sat 23 May (16:20)
Lake Mungo – Sun 24 May (16:30)
After Life – Wed 27 May (18:00) 

Amour is available to stream on IFI@Home as part of Complicit: The Films of Michael Haneke until 1 July. 

 

Programme

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