Human Rights Film Festival: Memories Of A Penitent Heart
If you’ve read my earlier post, or are happily reading this one, then you know I went to the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival. A perk of attending the Friday screening was the free film festival t-shirts (yes to free things!). Anyway, I’ll continue my experience and thoughts on the films I saw during the festival with a documentary that premiered July 2017 on PBS, Memories of a Penitent Heart.
“Charting the contours of absence” is how Cecilia Aldarondo described her documentary about her uncle Miguel’s death from AIDS during the post-screening Q&A that I think accurately reflects my viewing experience. One of the initial striking images for me was the home videos and photos from her family presented on screen as a knolled image. Over the course of the film, the photos, home videos, letters, and other memories are unveiled in a way that revealed more not only about her uncle Miguel, but also his relationships with the family, religion, his friends, and then-boyfriend Robert—who has become Father Aquin, a Franciscan monk. Stories about uncle Miguel and the past were woven in-between the present and its attempts at reconciliation. In addition to this, a poignant exploration of the role of religion showed both times when it was used as a source of divine strength, and times when the very essences that were meant to give comfort are instead abused.
This documentary was eerily familiar to me. I don’t have an explicitly parallel plot to the one Aldarondo unveils in discovering who her uncle Miguel really was, but I identified with the secrets, the anguish and the cautionary tale she presented in the documentary. I thought of people, conflicts and mysterious questions within my own family that haven’t been resolved or are met with either a laugh or silence from my own mother when I ask about grandma so-and-so, auntie X or uncle Y.
I also appreciated the fact that Aldarondo was willing to go there, exploring the good, bad and sometimes ugly revelations about the past. There are moments where she asks family members and friends about memories and they become silent, defensive or question why she’s bringing up the past—especially when some of those involved in said memories are now dead. To that point, the story could’ve easily been all about Father Aquin and his grief because he had to carry his feelings for so long in silence, but Aldarondo manages to present his truth and peace in the larger context of Miguel, connecting it to the truths and peace of her grandmother, mother, and other family members.
During the Q&A with Aldarondo, someone made the comment that her story in uncovering uncle Miguel’s death was familiar. Aldarondo agreed that everyone has, in varying degrees, some form of what she displayed onscreen in their family. She kept reiterating the cautionary tale aspect of the film, so what I took from that was not to let conflicts or unresolved issues follow people to the grave. She even discussed how one of the opening lines of the documentary could have been “Maybe I should’ve waited until everyone was dead to make this film” because that’s how she felt at one point with all that she learned and was going to share via this documentary about her family.
More information about the film: http://www.penitentheart.com/
