2024 Year in Review: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world

No one who knows me or follows this site will be surprised to learn that on Jan. 7, I was on my way to a movie. I am often on my way to or from a movie, but what made this particular sojourn eventful was that it came amid a historic windstorm here in Los Angeles. That windstorm would lead directly to one of the most catastrophic fire disasters in state history. 

As I type this, those fires continue to burn. The smoke from the nearer of the two major fires – the Eaton Fire, raging in the hills above Pasadena – has clouded my home to one degree or another for seven straight days. It is a cruel irony that I am prepared to brave the smoky conditions because of the facemasks I have left over from the last catastrophic event to destroy lives and shake the foundations of our institutions.

At the time I was headed to the movies on that fateful day, I was aware that the Palisades Fire had begun and that it was getting worse. Thousands were without power, and in fact, the street lights on much of the route to the theater were out. It was dark and eerie. Winds howled and blew debris back and forth across the road. The neighborhood was abnormally vacant.

A view from my office of the Palisades Fire on Day 1, taken by my company's CEO.

This was at the Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock, home of Vidiots, which I have mentioned a number of times before on this site. I was attending a screening of Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s Porcelain War, about a pair of married artists in Ukraine, forced to take up arms to defend their homeland from the Russian invasion. Collaborating with the US-based Bellomo, Leontyev and partner Anya Stasenko document their lives, their work, and their daily experience under constant threat of attack. It is a truly powerful piece of art that offers a firsthand account of a conflict most know only from cable news.

Leontyev, Stasenko, Bellomo, and producer Paula DuPré Presmen were in attendance, along with Leontyev and Stasenko’s small dog, Frodo. If you see the movie, you cannot forget Frodo. I thought on the irony of these real-life heroes sitting before me, having come here from a war zone only to find themselves bit players in a disaster movie.

One woman in the audience stood to ask whether Leontyev and Stasenko were concerned about the incoming US administration – one which has given considerable comfort to the enemy over the years – and the impact that might have on their fight. Leontyev dismissed this notion, suggesting that the Ukrainian people can hardly be bothered with American politics while trapped in their homes and enduring 23 hours a day of shelling. 

Their concerns are much more immediate, and both expressed a firm desire to return home as soon as possible to rejoin the fight for their land, their culture, and their very existence. They talked about participating in the making of Porcelain War because, as artists, they recognize that a people’s culture is equivalent to a people’s history. This film is an everlasting document, recording the Ukrainian people’s struggle and resolve. It cannot be destroyed.

Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and Frodo, after the Jan. 7 screening of Porcelain War

Here, on our shores, the war we wage is not against a threat from without but from within. It is a fight for culture and decency and for a nation’s soul, which may have been sold a very long time ago. Whether it can be retrieved or redeemed remains an open question, and the answer to whether we deserve rescue or redemption may not be one we like.

In this little corner of the world, I will continue to consider these questions through the lens of our cinema. It is an artform with the power to reflect who we are and to demonstrate who we wish we could be. It is a medium more capable than any of sending a message about the lines we draw and the transgressions we abhor. It is our most significant cultural force and most powerful cultural weapon. 

At Last Cinema Standing, we fight to preserve, record, and amplify this medium because as Marshall McLuhan said: “The medium is the message.” In 2024, the message of the best in cinema was clear: recognize and resist. Recognize the forces that seek to divide and destroy us, then resist their every attempt to do so. In many ways, this has always been the mission of this site. Without cinema, there is no history. Without history, there is no identity. Without identity, there is nothing. So, long live cinema.