varingblaarDarkest Miriam
Spoiler warning: If you haven't seen Darkest Miriam, I suggest you do so before going any further. If this spoils it for you, it's not my fault.You have been warned.
Additional Warning: This post carries a trigger warning for suicide, grief and depression.
This is Unexpected
When the movie was recommended to me, it came with this synopsis: "The woman from Severance works at the library and deals with grief by people-watching". This is somewhat accurate, but it's missing the majority of the narrative.
We start with Miriam working in the library. She's sort of melancholy, just going about her job. It seems emotionless, just sort of going through the motions. Besides doing her normal work, she also writes incident reports about the little weird things that happen in a public library. A friend of mine used to be a librarian, and the things depicted are on the more normal side of the spectrum. It can get much more weird. But the story saves the weird for other things.
Miriam starts finding notes in different books. They're vaguely aggressive and reference Miriam directly, though I don't think by name. It seems the author of these notes plans to do something harsh to some of the library-goers to "protect" Miriam, but their logic is misguided and the fantasised actions seem extreme.
A Mystery, Unresolved
The letters also mention Rigoletto, which surfaces a few times during the movie. Someone makes copies of the sheet music. Completely unrelated, a girl taking piano lessons plays the piece. Eventually we learn this was a piece Miriam and her father shared. Her father took her to see the opera when she was little. Later he became absent and withdrawn, and ultimately took his own life. The story of Rigoletto is basically the opposite, where Rigoletto indirectly gets Gilda killed because of his overprotective nature. That feels like foreshadowing when it is revealed. Unfortunately this whole line of the story never gets resolved. We never find out who wrote those letters, and other things that happen in the movie distract from the letters.
So the reason Miriam has been working basically on autopilot, is because she recently lost her father. We don't know how long ago, but a love of books plays a big role, so Miriam's work constantly reminds her of him.
Janko
Janko serves as a way to break out of this pattern. Miriam's actions towards him in the beginning seem erratic and inconsistent. Once things settle down, it provides a sense of stability. They see the darkness inside each other, though in different ways. There's a person that understands how you feel, without you having to put it into words. A routine begins to form.
As a romantic relationship forms, the level of conversation slowly deepens. We begin by "getting to know you". Preferences, interests, habits. Then we learn "who you are". We discover identity, passions, points of view. After a while we learn "who do you want to to be someday". This is where Janko and Miriam realise that there's incompatibility. Janko has a darkness inside him, but his vision of the future is to find meaning in the world and "grow out of it". It seems Miriam doesn't see a future where she is anything other than emotionally alone, and can't imagine moving on from the darkness she feels.
Almost to make the point, Miriam loses Janko. The person that helped her forget about her grief, causes more grief. Not directly, obviously he didn't choose to get attacked in the middle of the night, but coincidentally her "crutch" is taken from her.
Moving On
It's not expressly stated, but it seems Miriam had a change of heart. Maybe working through her feelings about Janko helped her process her feelings about her father.
The incident reports at work, that's meant to tell what happens at the library but was always completed without any actions taken, becomes a way of telling what happens in the library and how that changes people's lives. Miriam has gained a broader understanding. Finally she makes the decision to move on, both from this environment that reminds her of her past, but also from the grief that was keeping her trapped.
I Wasn't Sure
As credits rolled, my reaction was muted. I don't think I understood what the movie was telling and it felt incomplete. But over the next few days the movie stayed with me. I found myself thinking about it while doing idle things like driving. Slowly my opinion of the movie grew, and I understood the story they were trying to tell.
It's a good movie. You may not get it immediately, and the subject matter might be a little heavier than expected. Some people recoil from this sort of movie, and that's fine. We don't all have to like the same things. I myself enjoy quietly sitting in that emotional darkness.
