 Once upon a time, myth was an indispensable part of life. Myths taught us how to live and told us what it means to be human. The modern age impoverished our sense of myth, and the word came to signify everything untrue and irrelevant. The films selected for this year's City of the Angels Film Festival hearken back to that older, richer sense of "myth." A myth is a particular type of story, a particular brand of truth. Yet it remains hard to define. We may call a story a myth because it has woven itself into the fabric of our society, becoming part of our cultural identity. Or perhaps it taps into that timeless catalogue of characters and plots we call archetypes. Maybe it enchants us with fantastic other worlds, somehow more resonant than our own. Or it could explain our common origins, probe the depths of our psyches, or simply recall an ancient tale that refuses to be forgotten. Yet, no matter how we define it, myth bonds diverse peoples in a common narrative, a human story. |
