How did it feel? Completely unknown.

Yesterday I decided to skip out of work and go see a movie.

Oh, I had plenty to finish up before the break - calls to return, final documents to send out to anxious field reps. I just had no motivation. Plenty of apathy to go around, though. You could overflow a sleigh with that. Everyone's just in a weird mood...the stark and worker-free office resembles a ghost town on a Thursday, to where you can almost see tumbleweeds blowing from a cold grey wind, into desolate cubicles. Casual Friday has been expanded to Casual December. The few remaining co-workers complain there's nothing to do, and you realize that, yes, they ARE indeed doing nothing. Nothing but going out to lunch every day and expensing to the Corporate Card, just to keep any budget from being left on the table (or bar stool.) Or making lingering passes through the common area kitchen, just in case someone left out a container of store-bought cookies. Still, It's hard to coerce enthusiasm from a gingersnap.

(And let's not forget all the traditional awkward hugging that inevitably comes with the office parties - do they blitz you with a hug, but you've already read the receiver's eyes and thrown an audible, mid-formation with the handshake?)

So, I just finished some paperwork, threw it at a co-worker, and ran out the door laughing. With the holiday season wrapping frenzy around our necks like traditional ribbon, sometimes we all need a diversion. My solace has always been the movie theater.

But instead of blissfully entering the Yuletide celebration on a high note from some mega-blockbuster offering, or from a glossy, feel-fuzzy romantic syrup fest, I decided to be challenged. To ponder my existential existence. Maybe truly find the reason for the season. And what embodies this spirit more so than...Bob Dylan.

By which I mean, the Todd Haynes-helmed pseudo bio pic, "I'm Not There." Where six actors embody a Dylan-esque character throughout various stages of his life. Not really him, and not called by name, but seriously, with that voice and hair, who else would he be. It's an adventurous, truly risk-taking endeavor, with perhaps some of the finest acting performances committed to celluloid this year. The script is philosophical in tone, pondering the anointing of a man some would call a martyr for his generation, when he sees himself as just an old-souled troubadour, unsure of deserving the title he's been given. Alternating film stock between sharp black-and-white period pieces, and Technicolor dreaminess, the sprawling, experimental film is truly a groundbreaking vision. Mesmerizing in it's ambition and tone, and undeniably thought provoking.

I mostly thought about whether I could make it through the whole two and a half hours without my head exploding. Man, this film was ponderous.

Now, I'm all for artsy indie think pieces. Metaphors, symbolism. Sure, show me what you've brought to the screen, and I'll do my best to attach my own inner meanings. If not, I can just nod and hum. I'm all about something of importance to challenge me, and abhor mile away predictable endings. I don't like to be dumbed down for mass consumption. But just give me some structure! Doesn't even have to be completely linear - I can keep up with time juxtapositions, intertwining story lines, and complex narration. I get it. I'm not a cinema auteur myself, and never will be. I don't begrudge anyone who worked hard on this picture, poured their lives into outputting this singular vision. Awards and accolades are probably inevitable. But who possibly greenlighted this as written? Never have I gotten up to a more satisfying bathroom break, knowing I wouldn't miss any part of the story, because I had no fecking clue what had occurred the hour and a half before.

Now, I knew enough about Dylan to have been able to pick up on the sly references made throughout. Yeah, okay, there's the part where he plugged in his band, turned up his amp, and nothing but shouts of "Judas!" came back from the monitors. Oh right...Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana. (Hey, there they are, rolling around on the ground, in a wacky homage to "A Hard Days Night." Funny.) Oh, now he's found salvation in the seventies. Ha, he even gives one word answers like "Astronaut."; that's because he was a fame-eschewing pariah in his younger days, so there's the surly sneer and now de-rigour sunglasses. Very "Don't Look Back," indeed. Anyone else in the theatre need footnotes? I got you covered.

It was just so abstract, it hurt. Almost to the point of making me angry. Like, "sneaking into 'Enchanted' to punish myself for going to see this film" type of angry. I'm still debating which scene felt more representative of summation for this film to me: Dylan as a circus balloon, hovering listlessly over a cityscape with a big elephant rope tied to his feet. Or Alan Ginsburg rolling up in what appeared to be a golf cart; by this point in the film, a fish could have been pushing him around in a stroller, and I would have nodded to myself and said, "Hm, yes. That feels about right." At one point, Dylan's a cowboy, a young black child at another. Usually intermitant throughout. Keep up, sheep. This is mind bending art you should experience, form your own conclusions to. Not expect to be pandered to.

(Pandered? Sounds like panda. Oh. That's right! Remember that trailer before the movie? Where Jack Black is a talking panda? Is that not the most obvious casting in the world? How has my life progressed this long, and this has not happened already? I gotta see it. Ha.)

Overall, I was more engrossed in my totally missing the trash receptacle and dropping popcorn all over the floor, in my rush to flee once credits rolled.

Great music interpretations, though, of Dylan's songs by other artists. One scene toward the end, where a whiteface- painted Jim James from My Morning Jacket performs "Goin’ to Acapulco" at a funeral, is almost ethereal in it's beauty and sorrow. I actually felt almost redemption bestowed upon me for this cinematic experience nee' excruciating butt numbing, just from this scene. But not enough to forgive another shot of Heath Ledger's arse. Or Cate Blanchett asking a crucifix, "How does it feel?" Cringe.

So, I'm wordy. I respect Todd Haynes work (he nailed fifties melodrama in "Far From Heaven"). Point is, maybe I just wasn't in the mind space to appreciate this film. All the performance elements didn't resonate inside me coherently enough to add up to a satisfying experience.

But I do know, "I'm Not There" = "I Wish I Hadn't Been, Either."