nanedenb kenneth adrinah
Karlyn Hemmerling
While there are other nonfiction films depicting coming of age and first love (The Argentinian Lesson is one I often highlight), Only the Young is the best portrait of the confusion and fleetingness of high school relationships.
One of the reasons the story is so important is that it changed the law through a landmark civil rights case. Another reason is that it shows the strength of love to be above the law and prejudice and get us through any obstacles in its way. The documentary itself is also wonderful for making use of footage shot of the Lovings in the 1960s illustrating their genuine affection, which is best seen rather than heard about.
For me, the best documentaries plunge the audience into a subculture we don't know anything about and immerse us in that world for a couple of hours. For one of the most extreme versions of this, check out David Farrier's "Tickled." But Jeff Zimbalist's newest film, "Skywalkers: A Love Story," debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and is another great example of a doc that accomplishes that goal, and it's extreme in a totally different way. This film utilizes jaw-dropping footage of two Russian "rooftoppers" named Angela Nikolau and Ivan "Vanya" Beerkus as they illegally break into skyscrapers and other ludicrously tall buildings, find their way onto the roof or towering construction cranes, and pose for photos and videos, racking up tons of social media clout in the process. Along the way, the duo, who were once rivals in the rooftopping scene, strike up a relationship and fall in love, teaming up for increasingly ambitious climbs in cities around the world and culminating with an attempt to scale Merdeka, a 118-story building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that Angela calls "the last super-skyscraper on the planet."
As you can read in my full review from Sundance, I have some serious ethical qualms with the subjects of this movie and their approach to what they refer to as their art, especially when you compare this movie to another recent climbing doc, 2018's Oscar-winning "Free Solo." But despite those qualms, I can't deny that the footage on display here is un-friggin'-believable, and just like with "Free Solo," my palms were literally sweating and I had an elevated heart rate during certain moments in this movie. Without spoiling anything too specific, I'll just say that the movie has a scene where the fatal stakes of these climbs are laid out extremely clearly, and the effect on the protagonists is palpable. Their love story, which is the true center of the film, is so wrapped up in their passion and profession, and watching their bond be challenged by their ever-growing ambition is another part of the draw of the movie. But hot damn, that incredible footage is the biggest selling point, and when Netflix users see screenshots or a trailer of this plastered across their home screens, I have to imagine a lot of folks will be curious enough to check this out for themselves.
Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn moreMay 5, 2020Share on FacebookShare on TwitterEmail to a friendPrint A few years ago, I was speaking to a group of reform-minded Catholics about what I think is the best part of the Catholic tradition: our sacramental view of the world. That is, our notion that God is everywhere and present and at work in all of creation.
When our conversation turned to a discussion of the church's seven sacraments, someone in the group, playfully acknowledging my years of raging against the ban on women priests, teased that I was only entitled to six of the sacraments.
"Actually," I reminded him, "I'm only entitled to five." A moment of stunned silence came over the mostly straight crowd. They knew, of course, that I am an openly queer woman. But even the most liberal Catholics sometimes forget that LGBTQ people are excluded from one of the church's most sought-after sacraments.
Though they are few and far between, there are parishes that try to make LGBTQ people feel "welcome." But as nice as those efforts are, they sometimes mask the depth of exclusion that we face. The reality is, no matter how hard the parish community may strive to be inclusive, no same-sex couple will be able to get married inside the walls of that church.
On Saturday I watched the new Netflix documentary "A Secret Love," which tells the story of Terry and Pat, a lesbian couple who lived together 62 years before they felt safe enough to tell their families that they were more than just best friends.
When we meet them, they have been together nearly 70 years. The film charts their profound love and enduring devotion to one another. It also shows the sacrifices they made to stay together, including putting off marriage out of fear that some family members might reject them.
Then on Sunday morning, I read a letter from Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr explaining why he decided "to not renew the annual contract of a long-time and highly valued teacher at Archbishop Alter High School." Though he does not say it explicitly in his letter, Schnurr effectively fired the teacher because he is in a same-sex marriage.
Like the dozens of bishops who have fired teachers and parish workers for the same reason, Schnurr writes the typical gaslighting letter, insisting that this isn't about homophobia, we are all made in the image of God and that every human being has inherent dignity.
Behaviors that are not regrettable mistakes but are rather confirmed life choices contrary to Catholic teaching cannot be offered to young people as a witness to the faith, no matter the many other outstanding attributes a person may possess.
Catholic doctrine bars LGBTQ people from receiving the sacrament of marriage because it teaches that our love is fundamentally invalid and incapable of the goodness and holiness of a heterosexual union. Our relationships are so defective that God cannot possibly be present in them.
Sadly, many bishops are not content to leave it there. According to New Ways Ministry's website, nearly 100 LGBTQ persons have publicly admitted to being fired from Catholic institutions. The bishops who enforced these firings did so because they believe that the decision to enter into a same-sex civil marriage is a declaration of apostasy.
Of course, they would argue that because same-sex couples do not have "genital complementarity" and, therefore, cannot procreate, "there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family," as Pope Francis reiterates in Amoris Laetitia (251).
Terry and Pat, like many same-sex couples, have brought new life into the world by caring for one another, nourishing other relationships, working to mend our broken world, and being an image of faithfulness to their community. They are signs of the power of forgiveness, mercy and unconditional love, and they make sacrifices for one another that incarnate the selfless love to which the Gospel calls us.
Anyone, straight or LGBTQ, who watches "A Secret Love" will come away from the film inspired to deepen their fidelity and devotion to their partners. Terry and Pat's relationship is sacramental in every sense.
In a particularly cruel irony, emblazoned at the bottom of Archbishop Schnurr's letterhead is the phrase, "Radiate Christ." How does the light of the Gospel shine when good people are ripped away from their livelihoods and the jobs that they love because of who they love? What is Christlike about forcing employees to live in fear and loneliness and deny themselves the spiritual and legal benefits of marriage?
If church leaders like Schnurr are truly concerned about being a witness to the faith, they might want to re-read their sacramental theology and reflect on the ways their own actions might be the real threat to the future of Catholic education.
Spoiler Alert: If for some reason you really want to go into Netflix's documentary, "Tell Them You Love Me" completely blind, then don't read this blog. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that. Or how you would even do that. If you've heard of this doc at all, then you probably know the gist of the story.
First things first. Consider this blog a fair warning. Do not under any circumstances let this woman, Dr. Anna Stubblefield anywhere within 100 miles of your non-verbal friends or family.
I watched this full documentary last night. I don't know what the fuck has gotten into Netflix lately, but between this and the horribly unsettling show Baby Reindeer, they seem hell bent on picking up the most disturbing pieces of content they can get their hands on.
I don't just want to sit here and type of the plot of the whole documentary, but in short, it's about a man named Derrick Johnson who is nonverbal, and has cerebral palsy. His whole life he has pretty much been entirely unable to communicate with anyone. Not even to those who spend time with him every day. Then along came Dr. Anna Stubblefield. Dr. Stubblefield claims she could use "facilitated communication" to help Derrick (i.e. D-Man, or DaMan as Anna insists on calling him for some reason), to communicate using a special keyboard. The family is thrilled with the idea at first. But then seemingly overnight, Derrick goes from have zero communication skills to typing out full, intelligent, well-educated sentences via his new keyboard. But since he has cerebral palsy, and has such poor motor skills, he needed Anna's help to physically guide his finger to the letters.
So you can see where a problem lies. Derrick has gone his entire life without being able to communicate. All of the sudden, this complete stranger is able to have highly intelligent conversation with him. But conveniently enough, nobody else in his family can do it. When his mom and brother try to help him use his keyboard, the words he types are nonsense. He can only communicate with Dr. Stubblefield guiding his hand to the letters. So is Derrick really communicating with the world? Or is this Anna bitch just having him say whatever the hell she wants him to.
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