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A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Film By: Dito Montiel Robert Downey Jr, Rosario
Dawson, Shia La Beouf, Chaz Palmintari, Dianne Wiest Not
just because I was already feeling a little on the blue, but this film made me
cry for many reasons. I’ve always kept a list of my saints, periodically going
over them and dishing out thank you notes and phone calls . Starting with the
first one, Hazel. She was my protector. The tallest girl in class and she had my
back. Then it was Jaqui and Jennifer…kept all things, truly bad, at arms
length. Then it was George and Roger aka Satan, and most recently Gwen. All
these people in one way or another, stuck up for me when I was at a loss for
words, undoubtedly, at my pussy-ist. They are my saints… The movie, intertwined the nostalgia of youth and the present day life of writer, Dito Montiel. Set against the street corners, subways and public pools of Astoria, Queens in the 80’s, Montiel presents us with the neurosis of his teenage angst. “I’ll leave everybody in this film” he says after the opening credits and ends his autobiography with “No one leaves me.” He justifies the title of the movie poetically through the portrayal of his relationships and the cowardice that is, at times, enabled by them. After tragically losing his friends to the tautologic of revenge, he runs away, writes a book, only to come back 20 years later after a serious seizure leaves his father ill. Perhaps that relationship is better explored in the book but the tension between Dito and his father is never really explored in the film. His father tries to reach out to him, while Dito shrinks back. You get the sense that something went wrong, but he never tells you what happened, I’m not sure Montiel knew either. Perhaps that’s just life. When you are young and have the all the time in the world, the niche of your youth can seem as comforting as heaven. I liked that he describe his childhood neighborhood as heaven, even when the people who inhabited those streets were the impetus that drove him away. The dark essence of his youth is matched by the gray hue of his city. I appreciate the deviance in the story telling of this film. The departure from the norm is refreshing and in my opinion, adds to the neurosis the writer must have felt in the process. I cried, I did. For me and my fallen saints, but more likely for the abundance of estrogen on this particular gloomy evening… |
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