A Real Pain

It was a real pain to see A Real Pain. But I think that was the point. It’s been two weeks seen I saw this movie so I don’t think I’m fit to do a deep analysis anymore but I will say this, it behaved in the exact opposite way a movie is supposed to behave. Movies are supposed to create this fantasy world by invoking common symbols at critical times. By this trait they are quite similar to dreams. Despite having many obvious differences, they are both somewhat cohesive narratives that are understandable in an abstract level rather than real.

A Real Pain turns this fundamental idea about movies on its head. The audience gets to only see two cousins in a holocaust trip in Poland. We don’t actually see the dramatic event that their late relationship is shaped around, the suicide attempt of one of them. We only get to hear it through dialogue. The abstraction is left to the audience. How did it actually happen? What exactly pushed him to do it in the moment? What position was he lying when the other cousin found him? etc. And the genius of the movie is using this as an analogy to The Holocaust. An event in the near past that we resist to make a part of our abstract world. That we avoid to dream or imagine. But so painfully there.