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Filmmaker Mark Pellington is no stranger to traumatic bereavement. Following the tragic death of his wife in 2005, he made a gripping video documentary for Keane’s song, “Everybody’s Changing,” in which he and members of his grief support group tell their stories of devastating loss and grief (see http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201302/portraits-sorrow).
In his recent film, “Honesty,” the characters are silent, but their faces speak a thousand words. In making this film Pellington intuits what famed psychologist Silvan Tomkins demonstrated decades ago: The human face is the prime communicator of emotion in a prelinguistic or nonlinguistic mode. As I like to say, the body doesn’t lie.
In the film, the faces silently display their sorrow, to the accompaniment of David Whyte’s powerful essay with the same title (see http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-relating-existing/201411/honesty). Both the grieving faces and Whyte’s wise words speak the painful truth of our finite being. Authenticity (existential honesty) owns up both to our own finitude and to the finitude of all those we love, and thus to the inevitability of traumatic loss.
Have a look and a listen: http://www.markpellington.com/new-work-gallery/2014/12/16/honesty-film-by-mark-pellington-words-by-david-whyte-music-by-jeff-rona.
(Copyright Robert Stolorow)
