"Rory O'Shea Was Here" and the experience of touch

IN CHURCH THIS Sunday, a dozen of us lay hands on a woman in my small group who is going to have surgery for cancer. It was a particularly moving time as we prayed, not least of which was the power of physical touch in communicating love and affection. In our American society, it's not common to touch each other, but it becomes more acceptable when one is sick or handicapped, when we need help. How odd that strength means we release ourselves from human contact.

I was thinking all this largely because of seeing "Rory O'Shea Was Here" last week. It is a story of two young men who live life in wheelchairs. Rory is paralyzed from the neck down, excluding two fingers on his right hand. In a managed care facility, he befriends a man with cerebral palsy, Michael. Together they begin a quest to move out and live independently of the home.

Touch is explored in many facets -- as an expression of friendship, of flirting, of nursing, of anger, of love. Sometimes the meanings are confused. Sometimes they mean both at the same time. Touch is not the most clear language, which is perhaps why it is so often avoided. But for Michael, who has trouble making himself understood with words, and for Rory with his limited ability to feel, touch becomes an necessary part of interacting with the world.

As children we get a lot of touching -- not only cuddles and roughhousing but combing our hair, wiping food off our face, holding hands as we walk. Then it's gone. We are expected to take care of ourselves. But Rory and Michael can't take care of themselves, and they rely on others. When Rory arrives at the facility he sports elaborately spiked hair, which the nurses refuse to re-sculpt every morning. But Michael is willing to give it a try, cerebral palsy notwithstanding. It doesn't matter how it looks because the process, the bonding between the two, is what's important. As someone whose wife tightens his dreadlocks, I know something about the time and care involved in styling someone's hair.

At other times Rory is after only the experience of touch, hitting up a few women in a bar and trying to beg a kiss off them. At times he just wants to feel that he's there. It's not always admirable, but he has not resigned himself to a life inside his head. It is, however, nearly always funny what kinds of schemes Rory is up to. This is foremost a comedy, even if it is laced with bittersweetness. If there is one thing that works well on Rory, it is his silver tongue, which talks him into and out of all kinds of trouble. He's a quick wit and outrageously entertaining. He's a live wire, full of life, and the joy of the story is how he overflows life into everyone around him.

"Hitch": asking the bigger questions

MORE OFTEN THAN not, I enjoy romantic comedies more for the comedy than the romance. Love is treated either too dreamily or too sexually depending on the target age group. While Hollywood does comedy well, it isn't the best source for trustworthy relationship patterns.

"Hitch," however, impressed me. The four main characters start off, when it comes to love, as a cynic, a realist, a dreamer, and a snob. They're all bad reactions to an idealized version of love. The dreamer worships from afar someone he barely knows. The snob dates only people who are as famous, or ideal, as she is. The cynic disbelieves in ideal love and has closed herself to love altogether, and the realist -- our main character, Alex Hitchins -- believes in love but has made a business out of breaking it down into small, identifiable, repeatable, achievable goals.

Hitchins is a "date doctor," one's own personal Dr. Phil, who can identify exactly where you're going wrong with the opposite sex. He turns helpless cases into ideal mates. It makes for great comedy watching these men fight their natural instincts, and it's an alluring concept -- someone who keeps you from putting your foot in your mouth, from coming off too needy or coming on too strong. We probably all wish we knew someone who had our back like that. But the movie is really about making one's own mistakes, about not listing to all the calculated advice. It's about creating your own happiness rather than lusting after an idealized love.

The best moments in the relationships are long talks into the night, being goofy together, being vulnerable. Unlike most romantic comedies, none of the protagonists have sex or even pine for it; they're more interested in these odd people they find themselves with and trying to see how they can find common ground together. "Hitch" seemed a refreshing and unique take on the genre, one that elevates boy-meets-girl to a more basic question of: how do we relate to other people so unlike ourselves? Do we try to find our way together, or do we search only for the ideal people in this world?

"Born Into Brothels": A Photography Story

I DON'T USUALLY write top ten lists because it seems silly to rank one piece of art against another. But it's worth mentioning that "Born into Brothels", with its power to surprise and delight, is easily the best movie I've seen from 2004 -- the only one, really, that touched me in any significant way.

All I knew going into the movie was that it was a documentary focusing on the children of prostitutes in the slums of Calcutta. It seemed worthy of my time simply for that reason, but what I did not expect was a movie about photography.

Photographer Zana Briski wanted to document life in the red light district of Calcutta, the most stigmatized section of one of the poorest cities on earth. It's a place where cameras are deeply distrusted, so Zana began to live there, to get the people used to her presence. Instead she found herself the one changed, particularly by the children who surrounded her. She began to teach them photography, because it was all she had. To a place closed off by secrecy, she brought creativity, honesty, and light.

But this is not primarily the story of a Westerner sweeping in and saving the day. This is the story of children, still unbeaten by the harsh conditions of their situation, finding a voice through the camera. As we see their photographs, we see their world through their eyes, not the eyes of a distanced documentarian like in the Calcutta sequence of this year's "Five Obstructions". We see sadness and squalor, yes, but we also see kites and animals, colors and smiles. These photographs are not intended to elicit our concern nor abate it; they have no agenda. The photos are simply a record of their world, glorious and broken -- the only one they know.

As it turns out, the photographs are so powerful that they end up being transmitted around the world, from Amnesty International calendars to gallery auctions to global newspapers. It seems like the fame of these photographs will rescue the children. After all, from our Western perspective, what parents wouldn't want their child to have an education, move out of the slums, avoid the work of prostitution? But now we encounter the uglier side of human nature -- the ego, the tight grip of selfishness. Family tradition says these children should follow in their parents' footsteps, bring in money for the clan, not think they are better than their heritage.

Just when the movie finds unexpected light and joy in these slums, the true darkness of them overwhelms us. It's not just the thugs and pimps and outside prejudice that makes life so miserable, but the people inside who seem to have rotted, screaming and beating at anything weak. Relationships are corrupted but bind strongly. Superstition runs high.

Once we understand the environment, the more amazing it is that Zana made an effort to change it. Not only in terms of economics and education, which came later on, but with the simple introduction of a photography course. She gave the kids her time, attention, devotion, love, and the gifts of art and expression. She didn't know it would lead anywhere. She just wanted to offer them her art, to inform, guide, and strengthen their inner life. Even if the children's photographs had never left the red light district, I think she still would have felt she succeeded at something. I have to believe that investing in human beings is noble no matter the return on investment. On that account, the movie has a happy ending because it had a happy beginning.