With - A Journey to the Slow Life (2020)
dir. Rami Mekdachi
Rated: N/A
image: ©2020 Indie Rights
Despite my efforts, my cynical tendencies did their best to control my thinking about the music documentary With – A Journey to the Slow Life. I try to stay open to any message a film and a filmmaker are attempting to convey. Sometimes I worry that this approach causes me to shut down my critical thinking. In the end, I enjoyed and respected much of what I saw in With, even while harboring a suspicion that the picture was a clever marketing tool and that the message comes from a place of privilege.
With is a personal project from poly-hyphenate Rami Mekdachi. The Beirut-born perfumer-photographer-musician is based out of Paris. His company, Lola James Harper (his kids came up with the name, and it gets a credit in Mekdachi’s film), sells candles, perfumes, and other hipstery products that promote taking joy in the simple things in life. He’s selling a brand, and his brand is heavily tied into the Slow Movement, which emphasizes exactly that – slowing down, taking time to enjoy and appreciate life instead of hectically running from one thing to the next. As the old cliché goes, “take time to stop and smell the roses.”
Mekdachi’s movie encourages us in it’s brief 75 minutes to live a life that brings us joy. We’re all so busy rushing around in our daily lives with work and other commitments that we’re constantly thinking about the past or the future. We take no time to enjoy and appreciate the present. That’s certainly an ethos I can get behind. There’s nothing I enjoy more than the (all too few) trips I get to take with my wife and two of our best friends to different national parks around the country (eight so far and counting, if/when this damn pandemic is finally over). These communal experiences where we camp and talk and take long drives, and I get to look up at a night sky impossibly brimming with stars, are ones that I cherish.
The issue I take with the movie involves resources. Mekdachi was approached right out of business school in France in the mid-90s by L’Oreal to work for them. He now owns his own company making (what I assume) is a handsome living selling candles and other scented products. I make the assumption because he’s spent the last 25 years, according to the film’s narration, traveling the world with his family and friends making music together and getting the most out of life.
Must be nice.
My main quibble is that, no matter how good and valuable your message is, in a world where a majority of people either scrape by living hand-to-mouth, or thrash around furiously for their employer in order to secure a decent living, what use is the message if so few people can practice it?
Nevertheless, I was enchanted by With. The documentary is a collage of footage from around the world as Mekdachi, his family, and his friends make music together. “Friends are good at sending you a picture of yourself. Friends make you,” as one person says during the film. The people in our lives make it worth living. As South African musician Ulona Hoöman says, “Together we have miracles; together we have with.”
One sentiment I particularly connected with was from musician Karima Adams. She talks about how getting to know yourself is a lifetime job. I wholeheartedly agree. I know myself much better at 40 than I did at 20, and hopefully I’ll think the same thing about myself at 40 when I’m 60.
With also features gorgeous and stunning landscapes from around the world. Some of my favorite moments were simply Mekdachi filming the road as his car moves along it. The towering mountains, blue skies, and even the mundane city scenes called to my love of hitting the road and seeing things I’ve never seen before. The music featured in With also spoke to my sense of wanderlust and my desire for a connected and contemplative life.
Drummer Fred Quota waxes philosophical about the process of making music, and even how the simple act of assembling his drum set is like meditation. In one scene, we see Mekdachi playing in what looks like a small conference room to a select audience. The pure joy of performing is written all over his face in the form of a radiant smile as he makes music with his friends. The same playfulness is present in the scenes featuring Mekdachi’s kids. His son, a drummer, and his daughter, a singer, are encouraged by their father to make the most of every creative moment. And he gets something from them, too. Kids are a gift because they live in the present in a way that adults forget how to do over time. The documentary’s narrator – I’m assuming she is Mekdachi’s wife, although we never see her in the film – tells us as much in one of her stilted, yet still resonant voiceover passages.
Watching With brought to mind one of my all-time favorite song lyrics, from Jeff Mangum of the band Neutral Milk Hotel:
“And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see”
That’s how I strive to live, and it’s a sentiment that would probably resonate with Rami Mekdachi. His film encourages us to slow down and take the time to appreciate how incredible it is to exist at all. Lucky are those of us who have the time, resources, and wherewithal to be able to do so.
Why it got 3.5 stars:
- As much as I enjoyed With – the doc does present a slower, more peaceful, more joyful vision of the world, which I connected to – I could never quite get over the feeling that the movie was a big marketing gimmick for Mekdachi’s company and brand.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- The above statement not withstanding, I suppose it worked. I bought the soundtrack to the film, and it’s quite lovely. Part of its charm is the fact that the songs feel a bit unfinished. They play like first drafts, which makes them more immediate and raw.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
I rented With through Amazon Prime Video. It’s available to rent and buy through most digital streaming platforms.