Suzan Pitt was an animator and painter who suffered a mental breakdown in 1980, when she was in her late 30s. She fled her demons and the city, and traveled into the jungles of Mexico and Guatemala. Her time there inspired the 1995 film Joy Street. It depicts a depressed, solitary woman who lives in a bleak urban environment. Her depression leads her into alcohol addiction, and eventually suicide. Her mouse friend finds her body and mourns her deeply. The footage of the deadly cartoon dream is very sorrowful indeed.
The mouse takes her into the city park, where he attempts to prop her up on a park bench, to no avail. His friend slumps over like a lifeless doll in his arms. He leans her against a tree and has an idea. Instead of trying to bring her back to life in this bleak, monochrome city, what if I turned to color? He contorts his face until his metamorphosis into a colorful being is complete, and uses his newly-acquired color to bind her wounds and bring her back to life.
It works. The woman awakens in a jungle, where apes and dragonflies dance with the ants, and a large gorilla makes a meal out of a flower. Thorns come to life and transform into cute, harmless insects. Ants cut floatation devices out of leaves, and play in the water like children. The vision is colorful and idyllic. When it is complete, the woman finds herself in bed in her urban apartment, watching her mouse friend dancing colorfully on the floor beneath her. She tries to touch him, but he disappears when her hand approaches him.
Reinvigorated, the formerly-suicidal woman opens her window, which takes some effort since it's been closed for so long. Her windows have been welded shut by sorrow and despair. Finally, she succeeds, and her face is flooded with air and light. She sticks her head out of the window. Wind blows through her hair, and she smiles at the outside world.
She has been resurrected.
I gave it a soundtrack, and edited it down to just over 14 minutes, from an original running time of 24 minutes. The songs "Fabulous Dream" and "Time is a Floating Menace" describe the darkness from which "Where I Belong" has been set free. "Where I Belong" is a vision of Heaven, albeit one that is still burdened with a humanist desire for weed and wine. But the vision is pure, even if the windows through which I perceived it are not. Even if the protagonist wants to hang out with his friend and a bottle of wine, he wants to do so in a place bereft of "drunk machines," and "dirty rats." One of the instrumental breaks even consists of the sound of animals and children playing, which begs the question,
"Which is the true music?" Music, or the sound of animals and children playing?
The answer, of course, is both.
"Fabulous Dream" and "Time is a Floating Menace" appear in their entirety, but I had to edit "Where I Belong" down to fit it into the time allotted for heavenly visions within the original film itself. Most of the 10 minutes I cut out are scenes in which the depressed, suicidal woman is languishing about in a state of chemical alteration. The song is posted in its entirety below.
Thanks for listening.
Where I Belong
where I belong
I can't go wrong
where I belong
I'm always strong
where I belong
I'll sing my song
where I belong
it won't be long
where I belong
the girls are nice
no frozen fish
no bags of ice
where I belong
a friendly place
no drunk machines
no human race
where I belong
she's not there
none of her friends
are anywhere
where I belong
it's just me
a jug of wine
& Miss McPhee
where I belong
there's no more death
no more lust
no crystal meth
no cattle prods
no baseball bats
no 'lectric fence
no dirty RATS
where I belong
we can all smoke weed
it won't be weird
it won't be a need
where I belong
we're just friends
happy times
will never end
where I belong
there is no wrong
where I belong
I'm dead & gone
where I belong
I'll sing my song
it won't be long
where I belong
© Nathan Payne
October 2011
