Where Do We Go Now?
Where Do We Go Now?, an astonishing movie by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, begins with a parallel set of scenes. As the film opens, we see a desert landscape. A group of women dressed in black is walking toward us, in dreamlike, ritual step, singing, beating their chests with what turn out to be photos. They turn into the graveyard, where they visit their sons and husbands – casualties of Muslim-Christian warfare.
The second scene is a group of men – mostly boys, although the stout elderly mayor is among them – dangerously clambering up a hill to find a place in this isolated, land-mine surrounded village, where they can have TV reception.
In her director’s statement, Nadine Labaki writes of the TV as a window into a better world:
Living in a country adorned in politics, secular perturbations, and injustice, our lives evolved around continuous wars. Most of our days were spent in confinement behind sacks of sand. . . Early on, I started developing a unique relationship with the TV screen. My only escape became this little box that projected these fascinating images that became my link to the outside world. It used to make me dream of a better life.
But in Labaki's film village, the TV screen instead becomes a conduit of violence. As the people congregate for entertainment, the news comes on. As they hear of fighting between Christians and Muslims in another village, the people begin to shout at one another. Accusations and pranks lead to fist fights. Rifles begin to appear.
What Where Do We Go Now? points out is that it is not really possible to watch violence as entertainment, and not be affected by it. Our mirror neurons track every expression, every gesture, and we internally experience what we see. And once we internally experience it, it becomes much more likely that we will replicate it.
When we track positive things, we are learning to behave in positive ways. But mirror neurons do not pick and choose which experiences we absorb; everything goes in. This is why the entirety of the environment must be taken into account in any learning situation.
When suspense and violence are in the environment, our survival systems generally choose between two reflexive responses. One is Fear Paralysis. We freeze. We may be acting “normal,” but inside, we are checked out. The other is Moro, fight or flight. We may be acting “normal,” but inside, we are agitated.
These primitive reflexes are intrinsic parts of our developmental program, there to help us cope with survival situations. Our biology predates the media. Our bodies don't know that what we see on the screen is not happening right here, right now. When TV brought distant warfare into the hearts and minds of the villagers in Labaki’s film, reflexively, they began to mirror it.
I once worked with a young woman with an anxiety problem. She loved horror movies. She could watch seven at a time and not feel any effects. Except when she watched a different kind of movie afterwards – something a little more emotional, a Disney family movie. Then, she would have horrible nightmares.
Our systems are designed to handle stress as long as it is happening. But let up on the stress, and the system says, Home safe! That’s when we can fall apart if we need to – cry, release, eat, cuddle, sleep. The horror movies probably were, to the young woman’s survival system, like being chased for a really long time by a sabre-tooth tiger. The Disney movie was probably like being back safe in the cave. We need this down time to replenish our adrenal systems, renew our our minds and hearts, come back to homeostasis.
So, even though the young woman’s perception was that the horror movies were OK, as long as she didn’t watch a Disney movie right afterwards . . . she was in my office with an anxiety problem for a reason. There were other reasons in her life for her anxiety, but the movies weren’t helping her release it. Instead, they were adding fuel to the fire.
Constant viewing of that which scares us can eventually cause our brains to reset our survival defaults. Scary and violent things start to seem normal, while calm and peaceful things start to make us anxious! In such a condition, self-regulation becomes almost impossible to understand as a value, because a sense of quietude no longer feels internally right. Impossible-to-calm children – and adults - are constantly fighting this kind of neurological battle. Watching videos is giving ammunition to the enemy.
In Where Do We Go Now?, the women of the village band together across religious lines to de-activate the violence. Their tactics range from sabotaging the TV to hiring a troupe of Ukranian belly-dancers to distract the men. The movie itself is a lesson in releasing primitive reflexes – its many hilarious and beautifully surreal sequences keep taking out of stress. There are many moments when the sabre-tooth tiger is forgotten, and we are back into the cave where we can relax, cry, laugh, appreciate, integrate our experiences – and feel the best of what it is to be human. Where Do We Go Now? (rated PG 13, but in my estimation, not for children under high school age!) is, on the whole a positive influence for our mirror neurons. It keeps bringing us back to real human relationship.
It is inspirational to see the media used in this way. Here is how director Nadine Labaki ends her director’s statement:
With every scene or idea that I wrote, I felt like I wanted to change the world, to express my frustration, my anger, my obsessions, my needs. I worked with actors that were not actors, ordinary people from everyday life, trying to be as close to the truth as possible. They spoke out the desire of every citizen to live in peace.
Film acted as our medium for change, to stand up for the injustice we see around us.
WHERE DO WE GO NOW? became our cry for help. Our hope for change. My message to my son. To all our sons.