Grandma's Bed by Mario Cordina

[SynApsis]

Open with a punchline. This is about the film that nearly got made and a life that passed away in the process.

It is about one striving for knowledge to be crushed to death by a bookcase.

And yet I was still but a child, still oblivious to all this drama and could not understand how my wrinkled, old smiling grandma could have produced 11 children and never thought much of grandpa, a 95% bald silver quiet man, who fell down the stairs after a stroke and became a cripple till he gathered all the family with their children and their children’s children, bred like rabbits, countless and unknown to me at his funeral grave. Grandma survived him for a full 5 years. Yet this story is about her bed, which in Maltese is called “Sodda,” and grandma being “nanna,” ergus “Is-Sodda Tan-Nanna.”

The bed had been her grandma’s, had survived 3 generations and 2 world wars, unlike its owner and found its place in the New Village which by the time I was born was around twenty years old and stretched to the local prison and the dockyard where poor old grandpa used to work during and after the war. It was iron cast with spirals and curls and twists along the rails and legs. It was as inconspicious as the house in a line of similar post war, tasteless but practical architectureless buildings hastily mounted to house the baby boomers of the time. It was a time when one did not pay per metre purchased, so the cheapest marble slabs, two rooms on the groundfloor with a kitchen and a mandatory yard, two rooms upstairs and yet another one leading to the roof. One might be acquainted with Maltese homes to get the whole limestone drab picture, which is now highly prized and sought after by rustic romantics.

Basically, the story hinges on grandma’s bed with grandma’s funeral leading to a tragic end.

The characters include the children of grandma’s oldest daughter Agatha, who like the saint she had been named after slaved her life for an alcoholic husband and her traumatised children, losing her very own self as a result. There was the sexy, cute, black-haired Soraya, short but very pretty and petite. She had a soft spot for red, whether they were ribbons or beads in her hair or lipstick as bright as a pomenagrate down to the nails on her fingers and toes. These were usually complimented with black flashy bangles on her right wrist and ankle. A lizard tatoo scrambled over her left shoulder blade, black with a reddish outline and crimson toes.

David the eldest brother was a wee bit taller but was unfortunate with the genes he had inherited and grew bald, very early on in his life, had a stammer, was not very attractive, had no girlfriend to speak of and sold watches after he returned home from his full time job which was at the local post office and only went out when his sister needed a chaperon or wanted to nurse her brother’s heart, or just had pity on him. David’s latest decoration was a black eye patch which made him look like a harmless black pirate, obtained from a wind lashed day’s sailing accident.

The youngest, well he suffered most, probably or at least that was the neighbours’ version for her turned gay and later decided to have a sex change and he became Mabel to me.

I came as a very late addition to the family and by the time I could comprehend that there was a world beyond my play pen and my mother’s arms, dad was vegitating in bed, smoking the odd cigarrette or two when mum wasn’t looking and when he found the strength to stumble to the drawer where they were hidden. By the time that this story comes to life, Mabel was Mabel, Soraya was working as a waitress on some cruise liner and David had nearly gone blind.

Scene 1: Take 1

Camera = My Eyes

Put a camera on top of a child’s head. Adults turn into faceless giants from below. View the world through his eyes. The words that come through his mouth are uncensored for a child has not yet learnt the art.

Everything is so mysterious to this curiously driven camera. Unstable and causes nausea and yet this makes for a great film. You see, a film that explains everything is disappointing because it excludes us from the process of watching.

Cut, Cut !!!!!!

Pretend to be the actor who just got these lines and see whether they make sense as a story outside the concept of the film.