I was the one who suggested that my book club take in Lunafest last week at our beautifully restored Bay City State Theatre. All I knew of the eight short films on the program was that they were directed by women. So after a convivial dinner in front of a warm fire in a nearby restaurant, four of us settled in our padded seats and prepared to be dazzled.
For the most part, we were. Most of the films were very short and international: A couple in China had to decide the fate of a fifth daughter; a young woman in India became a spirited bus driver; a very pregnant Mexican woman struggled to ensure her infant would be born on U.S. soil; a Japanese tourist entertained fantasies of the London underground; and an adopted Chinese girl displayed all-American charm.
Then we were hit with Dear Talula, a 33-minute breast cancer journal directed by a 37-year-old diagnosed fourteen months after the birth of her first child. Poignantly filmed by friends and her documentary-photographer husband, Lori Benson's film spared us little. We accompanied her from the first doctor's appointment to the hospital where one breast was removed, to the oncologist and through chemotherapy. Lori Benson remained incredibly brave, almost cheerful, a veritable warrior, except for a heartbreaking moment when her child (her “dear Talula”), finding no favorite breast to nurse on, screamed inconsolably.
Wow. If I'd known that there'd be a breast cancer film, I'd have pre-checked this event with the friend who was sitting next to me clutching the armrests. She and I, the only two breast cancer survivors in our group, gasped with relief when the film was over. We looked at each other. “I could have lived without that,” she said. I knew what she meant.
What was it about this film that made it so hard for me to watch? Was it the huge but unacknowledged underlying sadness and grief? She was trying so hard. And I don't avoid the subject—I loved reading two recent graphic memoirs about breast cancer—Cancer Vixen and Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person. Maybe I loved their anti-heroes. Maybe their huge emotional range more resembled my own experience, which was often undignified, painful, and, well, outrageous. Cancer humor is pretty raw and maybe you have to have been there to go there, but those authors could laugh, and they made me laugh too.
I'm puzzled: Who is this movie for? Is it for women who need to be scared into taking better care of themselves? For the newly diagnosed? A walk down memory lane for those of us mercifully surviving?
For me, it's simply art: a hard story of a young woman's valor. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought so too—Dear Talula was short-listed for a 2006 Oscar.
