Lilian T. Mehrel's Guide to Living a Cinematic Life
Words: Gina Tonic | Guide: Lilian T Mehrel
“I would give homework to actors to like, eat a peach in the sun with their eyes closed and to try to find the joy in the little sensual pleasures of being alive.” Lilian T. Mehrel, writer and director of Honeyjoon, explains when asked to surmise why she chose the guide topic, and more importantly, how we can go about living a cinematic life. The actors in question are Call Me By Your Name’s Amira Casar and previous Polyester star Ayden Mayeri, who play a mother and daughter duo on a kind of cursed trip to Portugal.
The film itself, Honeyjoon, happened in a whirlwind. For almost a decade, Tribeca Film Festival has paired up with AT&T to provide one winner the largest film production budget prize in the world, and in 2024, filmmaker Lilian T. Mehrel received first place, one million dollars and a deadline of one year to complete the film in order for it to then have its world premiere at Tribeca in 2025.
In many ways, this tale of winning a massive prize and having to make moves quickly and given the time restraints, still producing a film of quality, depth and a delicate balance of humour and grief, is a cinematic story within itself. As the mind behind the magic, who better to teach us about cinematic life than the main character who coined the term.
Embrace Life’s Pleasures
People are surprised that a movie about living with loss can be laugh out loud or funny or sexy. But to me, feeling alive means feeling all of it and looking for the little glimmers of light in the dark. Living a cinematic life to me means feeling joy and pleasure and looking for humour and eating chocolate in the sun - just all the chocolate ice cream you can get ahold of.
Here is your homework: Pick a song that makes you feel like your baddest, baddest self, a bad bitch, and then take a walk listening to that song. Notice the things that delight you, or move you, or make you laugh, and then get a treat - whatever is the most delicious treat for you - and indulge, preferably in the sun, then flirt with someone.
Live Big
Living a cinematic life is different to romanticising your life because in a film, the hero's journey goes up and down. You need the tension and release, and that's so much what I like as a writer director in particular is that blend. I just love that catharsis - a release of laughter, or sometimes tears. And in that way, cinema is a reflection of life.
In a movie, characters will do the things that you want to do and you're sitting in the audience, then you get inspired. You're like, ‘Oh yeah, I can do that too.’ I can go up and tell my crush, or I can go up and do my big dreams. I think a cinematic life is not just looking for the little moments, but it's also living big.
Remember You Are The Main Character
I think we're all the main character. All humans, in our own lives. Even in the scene of the procession in the town in Honeyjoon, even though we barely get to interact with those characters, each one of them and their faces matter, and they have a whole story and a whole life. And we're all connected in our humanness.
Accept Our Differences
Cinema heightens our connections and highlights them, but also it was natural to these characters. We're all our own universe. Even two people in the same family who lost the same person are grieving differently, are communicating differently. All our differences highlight our connections even more. Again, it’s that contrast of light and dark, yin and yang, which is also what the whole film is about. It's like the characters are yin yang, the visuals are yin yang, the themes are yin yang, the light and dark of life.
Flirt :P
People have asked me, why is flirting so important to Honeyjoon and to you and everything? And I was thinking about it like, what's the opposite of death? Actually, it's flirting. It's the most alive thing you can do, and also so inherent in life too. It's also kind of pathetic because you're like trying, you know, and trying so hard sometimes, and that's vulnerable to put yourself out there and try, but that's also living a cinematic life. You got to try, you’ve got to do things. You got to put yourself out there, and have fun with it, and make it sexy.
