Imagine That

A brief reflection about Mountain Shadow’s film selection for February, 2021, “TOVE”
by John Bennison, Mountain Shadow Director

“I’m enough of an artist to draw freely on my imagination, which I think is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” – John Lennon

Over the years, Mountain Shadow has brought its members and audiences a number of so-called bio-pics about various artists. There was “Loving Vincent” (Van Gogh, 2018), “Paula” (Modersohn-Becker 2019), “Louis” (von Beethoven – 2020), and just last month, “My Rembrandt.”

You might ask, what might all these films have in common, making them so intriguing and enjoyable to watch? Perhaps it’s because the stories about so-called artistic geniuses stir the imagination in each of us; just as the one we typically regard as a scientific genius, Einstein once said about artists in the above quote.

So too, perhaps it’s also because -- like Lennon’s lyrics to his classic song – the world we experience is only the starting point to creatively imagine all the possibilities in the world we know; how it might be otherwise.

And, in each of the film titles listed above, it was the craft of the filmmaker to imagine the world each of those artists inhabited; in order to also portray some very human characteristics with which we could all identify.

Such is the case with the story of Tove Jansson, novelist, illustrator, painter. Her imagination was as creative with a pen as with a brush. She spun children’s tales with comic books to the delight of generations; while simultaneously struggling in the shadow of her father’s success as a painter, seeking his approval instead of criticism and rejection. Her free spirit to seek and find her own identity in loving relationships that would either falter or endure are all too familiar human endeavors.

Tove Jansson died in 2001, at the age of 86. Don’t miss the closing film clip, which is the actual film footage of the real Jansson. It shows the creative imagination at work in the actor’s craft, imitating the character she portrays in the film. jb