Zemletryasenie (The Earthquake)

I like how Sarik Andreasyan's Zemletryasenie (The Earthquake) focuses primarily on rebuilding a town after a massive natural disaster strikes, thereby championing the ways in which local, regional, national, and global citizens gather to respond to crises, the lasting bonds forged thereafter strengthening the endurance of their latent communal resolve, like winter in Canada and Québec, or the logistics of the World Cup of Soccer.

You can also create a bunch of characters and situate them within troubled relationships wherein which stubbornness and idiocy prevent them from appreciating their resounding good fortune, and then have an earthquake destroy their lives, the end, in order to suggest that your audience take some time to reconsider its own stable state of affairs, and perhaps encourage them to engage in random creative acts of kindness in the upcoming months, to prove that people don't require exceptional shocks to demonstrate their love.

That point may be missed, however, and Zemletryasenie actually does demonstrate how Armenia grieves, bleeds, retrieves, constructs post-quake, albeit in an ultra-patriarchal blockbustery fashion, complete with crime, heartbreaking sensation, flourishing hope, and cosmic justice.

It's a shame sophisticated delicate intricate less emotional dramatic tragedies don't make the same impact.

It's like you ignore the simplistic yet worthwhile message from the blockbuster because it's too cheesy, and refuse to accept the complicated ethics of the artistic because they're too serious.

You don't need earthquakes you know, or hurricanes, tornadoes, or ice storms, to show family and friends every once in a while that you're not quite so self-obsessed, it can be done either spontaneously or within a designated time slot every Saturday evening, depending on the dynamics of your sociocultural surroundings, and/or your willingness to express genuine care.

I suppose if someone who's known to be self-obsessed suddenly does have a Scroogesque awakening one day their resulting conduct would generally be regarded tectonically, artistic revelations inspiring thereafter like agile movement on a seismograph, as the tyrant's goodwill resoundingly evokes cheer.

Although when such acts occur interlocutors might reasonably respond suspiciously, thereby frustrating the curmudgeon in mid-reformation.

Wage hikes perhaps placate these tendencies.

Ice cream also.

And dinner at the Keg or Végo.

Money donated to help endangered species.

Grand Marnier.

A blender.

It's kind of fun to hangout with others sometimes and listen to what they have to say.

So many different takes on things.

So much emphatic life.