To be or not to be

PalmPerhaps there is nothing more painful than the death of a child. A man, in despair, on the banks of the River Thames, amidst the dark thicket, cries out to the indifferent stars: to be or not to be, that is the question. To suffer heartbreak, injustice, the deaths that leave us helpless, the calamities of a life that, for at least two centuries, we have known has no order or meaning, is a heavy burden. Why do we endure, William Shakespeare asks us, if death is so near? Albert Camus argued that this is the true question, the one that opens up all possible philosophy: why be instead of die? Sung from different places, the wound of finitude leaves us exposed before life.

Hamnet was Shakespeare's son and died when he was eleven years old. Maggie O'Farrell tells us this story in a book that has moved so many people. Chloé Zhao recently made a fascinating film about it. It is not the mourning but the life that persists that captivates. The forest, the spells, the color, the omens, Agnes, the theater... all blended together to tell us that Shakespeare was able to dedicate himself to creating immortal works because an intelligent woman cared for his three children. Hamnet's death, the inconsolable grief it provokes, widens the chasm between William and Agnes.

To be or not to be is also the dilemma presented in Isabel Coixet's latest film. Tre ciotoleA breakup, heartbreak, triggers a life-altering situation that confronts the protagonist with her own mortality. From a balcony open to the twilight of Rome, Marta hears death's howl, but ready to leap, she finds a reason that binds her to life. After a medical diagnosis that strips her of all hope, indifference and boredom transform into a hunger for being. We cycle with the camera through a city we barely recognize, neither the Colosseum nor the Trevi Fountain, only the light, the flock of birds that break the sky, the narrow streets, the bars we've never entered, and a protagonist who falls in love with life against the clock.

A Tiny Hope

Both stories, told in this hurried way, seem like they've been heard a million times, but the creators' attentive gaze places us at the peak of intensity, because from the "how" of art they gift us ways to persevere in being. They seem to force us toward a tiny hope, devoid of epic grandeur. A precious hope, because we are all capable of it every day, from our own unique perspective. The absurdity of life, its dark, tragic, incomprehensible nature, fades in the face of moments of beauty.

The present is opaque, deaf, insistent; it clips our wings. The genocidal dictators, the tyrants, the cretins—all almost interchangeable—from complicit countries drag us through a desert that never ends. "Why do we endure the scorn of these times, the yoke of the oppressors, the insults of the arrogant, the mocked love, the slowness of justice?" To answer Shakespeare's question, we must point our camera far away, to the sky, and see a bird, a flock of birds that, with the simple gesture of beating their wings, remind us that it is not meaning or order that will make us love life, but the beauty that art evokes, the love that gentle life awakens, a love that naked life awakens, sunset.

To be or not to be? Life tips the scales if we pay attention to the little things.