Le bal des actrices

I just watched Le Bal des Actrices. A French film directed by Maiwenn which catches candid moments of the life of 15 actresses. Looking like a part documentary fiction in a fiction film, part musical, the film is meant to be an ode to female actresses in France with their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, contradictions… and neuroses. Some of the scenes couldn’t help but recall my latest film casting experience for ‘The Translators’. Whether I got the part is still a mystery, but I guess that silence from their side means that they have found somebody else. But who knows? After I did the first test, I was convinced I was so bad that I wouldn’t hear from them and I got a message a couple of weeks later...

‘Le Bal des Actrices’ however touched the main core of all the questions that have been deeply troubling me in recent months, to which the gods of the BaoAn temple gave me the simple answer: to learn to truly enjoy myself because that is simply what I have to do. Watching those actresses in the film, I also had a look at my own neuroses, self doubts, longing for love and recognition, fear of not being good enough – never good enough, the acute awareness of time going by inexorably… I found some consolation in the fact that I am not an actor, so didn’t expect much. But still, the excitement to be cast in a film at this stage of my life was starting to rise to the surface. The one consolation is that experience has hardened me a little more and that I don’t let myself be defeated by disappointment, be it love, work or friendship.

There are always some new music to discover, some new sights to photograph, so new faces to contemplate, even briefly.

I just replied to a message by Jan who is throwing himself in escapism, going out at night and getting drunk, feeling down and guilty the next day, going out again, repeating the same cycle… To learn to enjoy oneself freely, without guilt seems like the hardest thing to do in a world where entertainment and fun consumerism have been turned into the only reward – or salvation, for an otherwise dull and distressing life. But enjoying oneself just for the sake of it isn’t something we are usually being taught, or told to do.  

But I am my best enemy and my mind knows exactly what to do to ambush me and the past year has showed how tricky and skilled I was at creating impossible situations.

I am dropping my old skins. My mind doesn’t want to be naked and desperately tries to cling on them. The process is exhausting.

My stay in Tokyo is a good training.