Our chat turned to dreams. At the Polish Film School, M's thesis comprised a study of the numerous relationships between dream-making and film-making...the comparative roles of the protagonists and creators, the varying natures of the control involved. So fascinating. Being engaged daily, hourly even, in the cause and effect of live performance the vocation of the filmmaker is one I feel both drawn towards and distanced from. If you read in M's book THE RIVER OF ANGRY DOGS the experiences which led to her becoming a filmmaker, you're mind will be opened to how the bredth and deep trauma of war, displacement and loss may alter the link between control, visual sense and bringing themes and experiences to life for the masses.
25 to 85 . . . the difference of 60 years in our ages also makes room for questions where relating to and imparting the senses is concerned. The honed perfectionism of the filmmaker, the spot-on realisation of a moment's interpretation are halted by my youth, shelteredness, impatience or all three. Yet whilst Mira's journey to her vocation as a filmmaker is a complex one, she recounted on Friday one dream memory which makes me think the impetus to impart a vision was always there.
When I was very small, maybe two years old, I remember sitting on our kitchen table. My father was lacing my bootees. He called to my mother, 'what is wrong with the child? why is she so out of sorts?' As was customary, my mother came over and pressed her lips to my forehead, checking for fever. She pronounced me physically fit.
The night before I had dreamed (though I didn't know then quite how to define what a dream was) of walking with our maid Kadja and my sister - she held each of us by the hand - and in the near distance a hearse was approaching. As it got closer I saw it was my father who drove the hearse. He had a whip and pointed it at the numerous passers-by. When he did so they would drop dead. And he was getting closer and closer to us.
Mira has always kept intermittent records of her dreams. Her writing is often inspired or built around them, and the films of hers I have watched TWO WOMEN, SON OR DAUGHTER and FIGHTERS OF THE GHETTO have an indescribable sense of the subconscious. Dreams are not the inspiration for imagination...this is inherent. But they feed and nurture the pictures in our minds as though the levels and colours of what you're watching are being drawn into your brain by the little curiosities you'd put to one side or forgotten. These re-surface in sleep in a deeper memory jolt to those we experience when awake. The sleepful ones are prompted only by the self and the effects I describe of M's films are headed straight for it, to be absorbed and recalled when sleep needs a little extra on the side.
The River Of Angry Dogs is published by Pluto Press and can be ordered on Amazon here
Mary (pictured left), a 33-year-old British factory worker and Hungarian graduate engineer Ssuzsam, 37 were the focus of Mira's documentary TWO WOMEN
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