Kodachrome

To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, (and yes it wasn't originally Taylor Swift's lyric). That sentence is probably what I will tell my grandnieces to describe this crazy-odd era of a second-wave pandemic. It's been a while since the last time I write on this blog so a 'reality is the last thing I wanted to write about. Let's write about pleasant things like a movie review and that scientific proof of music can be a painkiller. Interesting enough?

*Disclaimer: spoiler alert

I finally watch Kodachrome after this movie file sits long enough in my folder to the point I forgot the excitement I have when I was looking for it. Kodachrome is this one color film by Kodak which discontinued after about seventy years of use in the analog photography market. This movie follows a story of a young man who reluctantly joins his father's trip to Kansas to develop his last Kodachrome roll films before the process is permanently unavailable at the service. My initial interest when hearing about this movie storyline was because I love analog photos. I'm a little bit of what people said 'old soul' because of my heavy interest in everything that creates over five decades ago. One of them is analog photography. There aren't many movies that particularly take this as a theme, as far as I know (if any of you readers know any recommendations, please do tell me!) so I thought this will be a pretty good movie for all longing old soul like me.

Firstly, I don't expect the movie to be emotional at all. I thought it will be a merry-go-round story with a strong retro aesthetic photographer community in a documentary kind of presentation. But turns out, the core of the story is about love and family or to be exact a father-son relationship with a trip to the last Kodachrome development studio as a background mission. 

Ben Ryder is a well-respected photojournalist but on the contrary, a terrible father. He has liver cancer in which only gives him only two or three months left. He was pictured as this straightforward rude person who can't even express his feelings well. His last wish is to develop those films in Kansas and for his son, Matt Ryder as a company of the trip which also includes his nurse, Zoey.

For me, a good movie is one that has well-curated details. My favorite scene is when Ben capturing a girl in the bus across his car. (minutes 1:50 in the trailer video above)

It was special because that moment was maybe the first time Ben ever smile sincerely since the beginning of the movie. The smile came from 'external factors' from people outside of his family or friends. I got a sense that he is a different person behind the camera. His models and fellow photographers didn't perceive him as an asshole. Well, you love a person because it is easy to love someone when you know only good things about them, you grow to hate them after you know many more things about them. So you can't hate a person you don't know well enough or you do not initially love. (this was my objective from that little scene hehe) 

Another detail that I like is when Ben in an unapologetic manner said something pretty insightful. Like what he said about the digital scene.

Don't you think it's true? One of the things that makes analog cameras special is the frame limitation.  There isn't any urge to capture every little moment and all the limitation makes you value your every shutter click more. And, if the moment passes, we let them be. My second favorite scene was the scene when Ben dies. It pictures in the blink of an eye. Ben felt like he can hear some sound and then that was it. I doubt it at first because the scene was pretty vague but I'm thankful that there wasn't any dying-at-the-hospital-bed scene which sometimes is too painful to watch. (do you remember the last scene from Me Ernie and the dying girl? urgh, not my favorite.. but the movie is GREAT, watch it if you haven't already).

When finally arrived at Parsons after few struggles and got hospitalized, the owner of the store proceeds to save the last dye needed for Kodachrome film for Ben personally. He dropped a total of four roll films that can be picked by tomorrow. Sadly, he races with time and didn't get the chance to see the slide result by himself. But I remember in the middle of the movie he said that he remembers every picture he has ever taken, so I guess Ben just wanted to show Matt the result. There was a part after their drop the films and at the cafe nearby where few photographers gather, Ben was recognized by one of the young fellows that said that Ben Ryder is one of the reasons he got into photography. It didn't take long when suddenly a group of young photographers gathered around him as some kind of role model in their field. I would like to quote what he said to the group.

"We're all so frightened by time, the way it moves on, and the way things disappear. That's why we're photographers. We're preservationists by nature. We take pictures to stop time, to commit moments to eternity."

Lastly, I'm not a photographer by all means but this movie is pretty moving for me. We live in an era that is fast-paced and with the internet and social media and we can get everything, see everything, save everything, showcases everything we wanted as long as we have data and a network. We rarely even pause to be grateful for a moment, to withhold ourselves to share every little details of our life. We lose the poetic part of our daily life, I guess. We can't preserve things that are matter anymore.