The Clearing/The Nightmare

Like many people, I think, last week we wanted to watch a Robert Redford movie. After the first one, with "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" echoing in our brains we looked for another. I wanted the "The Way We Were," but Netflix and Prime were being difficult. We then settled on "The Clearing," which we'd not seen before.

* * * Spoilers Ahead * * *

Wayne and Eileen are living their best life with a pair of beautiful, stable adult children, and more money than they really know what to do with. Then Wayne is kidnapped by Arnold, a former employee who tells Wayne that he is working for a larger group of men and once Wayne is delivered to them, Arnold will be paid off and free to go his merry way. The FBI moves into the family home, and Eileen ends up with the job of delivering the ransom. The story is told in two streams: The first takes place over about a week, wherein Eileen learns that Wayne had never really ended the affair he'd had many years prior. The second spans a day, the day Wayne spends with Arnold in the woods. It's a good, if disturbing, movie. 

The pivotal scene is set in a clearing on their journey through the woods. Wayne is temporarily freed from the binding on his hands, but Arnold has a gun in his. Wayne makes a move for the gun and the two end up in a major physical fight, rolling on the forest floor. When the gun flies out of Arnold's hand, Wayne has the upper hand and begins to strangle his adversary. The fight goes on with Wayne putting increasing pressure on Arnold's neck. We're cheering Wayne on, realizing that with Arnold dead, he can perhaps find his way back to the edge of the forest and the happy ending we need will come. But that doesn't happen. Just as Arnold seems to be gasping for his very last breath, Wayne releases the pressure and gets up. He knows that in all likelihood the group of men at the cabin they are walking to will kill him. But he can't do it. He isn't a killer.  Arnold lives to see another day and the happy ending goes away.

The next morning, just before waking, I had the nightmare.

I was in Whole Foods pushing my cart along and apparently offended another, much younger woman in some way that is unclear. She attacked me verbally and foolishly I responded the same way. It continued and eventually push really did come to shove, and we ended up wrestling and punching. If it were a film, the camera would come to a close-up of an octogenarian woman with a minor mobility issue, on the floor of Whole Foods near the bakery department, pressing down with all of her might on a much, much younger woman in a polyester pantsuit. How quickly, how forcefully, the argument had escalated! And that was the realization in the dream, that whatever the precipitating incident had been, it didn't warrant this other woman's death; and like Wayne, I released my grip and fortunately awoke.

The dream was unsettling, to say the least. It stayed with me all day, coloring my mood a murky charcoal gray. I couldn't seem to shake it. I thought that if I told it to someone, it would go away. So at dinner I described it to Joe who listened attentively and pointed out that I wasn't a killer, the take-away was that I had let her go. He was right, partly. I'm not a killer. But I am still disturbed by the intensity of the violence I felt and demonstrated in that dream.

I know that It's not just the movie. It's partly about the bigger backdrop of our country and the passionate feelings we are experiencing. I know that. But it's still alarming.