The year 2005. I was infatuated with enjoying films from all over the world, not only from Hollywood, and I fell in love with a French film called Le Grand Voyage .
That year marked the next stage of my life: deciding to migrate from Makassar to Jakarta. Leaving all the comforts of life and starting over. But I never gave up my love for movies . Not even once.
I watched Le Grand Voyage at the Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFFest) and this film left a deep impression and wound afterward. Also made me start liking road movies: a kind of travel film that usually reveals the past of the characters.
Le Grand Voyage is the story of a great journey of a father and son from France to Mecca. The religious and hasty father wants to reach the holy city. Meanwhile, the secular child just wanted to have fun along the city they were passing. Two different desires, one journey, in a slow and explosive film tone at the end. Leaving residue in the liver.
One for the Roadfrom Thailand, and can be watched on Netflix, this too is such a film. The film runs slowly, but leaves scars and deep wounds. The kind of film that can without a doubt throw us into the past. Follow it step by step, look back at what has been passed and maybe (later) regret it.
When we reach the age of 40, the journey after the journey that we have been through seems to unfold before us again. Some are sweet to remember, some may be too bitter to remember. A journey through the past is a journey to walk through memories and come to terms with them, for better or for worse.
Horrifyingly Delicious Maybe we are Aaod who are sentenced to die soon. I feel so close to this story because of being in a short-lived family. My mother died in a car accident at the age of 39 and my sister died of AIDS at the age of 27.
Aaod is still in his 30s and has cancer. He doesn’t mind his illness, but he is worried about one thing: he has to make peace with the exes he’s hurt.
During life, how many times do we make love? Once, twice, five times or more than 10 times? How many of them survived and how many of them left scars? How many of us are heartened to meet these exes after all these years and ask to be forgiven?
Not many of us are like Aaod. Who wants to leave the world without leaving a wound for others. Not many of us are like Aaod. Who is willing to travel hundreds of kilometers to apologize.
In our 20s, we will make a lot of mistakes. When we are in a relationship, the more often it occurs, the more likely we are to hurt the other person. We know that. What we never know and imagine is a big event that makes us try to make peace with the past.
Maybe not many of us are like Aaod. Maybe more of us are like Boss. Who is willing to fly far from America to accompany his best friend through town after city in Thailand. Who can just put aside all his routines to accompany his best friend to apologize for the sake of apology.
Aaod would not have expected him to make that trip. He also didn’t expect Boss to just come. Life is often unpredictable. Their journey also leaves a big question for them: can they forgive each other?
Apologize. Forgive. Two things in life that can be very complicated as we get older. When we were children, we were so easily hostile and hurt, but also so easy to apologize and forget. And life can indeed be so complicated when the matter of apologizing and forgiving is dealing with each other’s ego.
Aaod and Boss walk along memory lane. We are thrown back into the past. How many of our exes have we hurt and we never tried to apologize to them?
How many of our exes hold a grudge for years as a result of our hurtful treatment of them? How many of our exes forgive us without even bothering to do it?
That’s life with all its surprises. The issue of apologizing and forgiving can be as complex as that. But life can also be so easy when we try to be honest and at peace with ourselves. Can we do it like Aaod?
