I Kill Giants movie: Feels personal to me

Sometimes, there are films that connect to you. And this is such a film to me. Seeing it felt like a glimpse of my past. Somehow, it unearthed forgotten memories that included feelings of not belonging not only in school but also at home.

(photos taken from the movie on Netflix)

I found myself going back to my high school days, a kid coming from the province, a newcomer in all girls Catholic school in the city. I was the girl with the white-rimmed thick glasses who cannot fix her necktie properly in her new school uniform. I was surrounded by these “cool” girls, the pretty ones who had their own clique and were admired by the boys outside. Then there were the student leaders, the teachers’ favorites, and the volleyball stars who were also the pretty girls while I belonged to the misfits. My first close friend there had a harelip, Jo. She was the only one who was interested in who I am and where I came from. We were friends with the others who were also “weird” in their own ways. We were just there in the background not making any attention to ourselves.

It’s hard to watch a character that reminded you of the times when you felt so insecure of your looks, of not belonging, of your capabilities. Like the character, who created her world with giants, I also immersed in creating imaginary worlds that time to escape my own reality, of the personal matters I had to deal with not only in school but also at home. During that period, I liked to write in my little notebooks writing juvenile love stories about crushes and making up French sounding names for my characters like Francois which I found in a baby naming book.

I think sometimes we create another world of reality like Barbara, the heroine in the film so we can cope with what is happening outside us. That character was dealing her mother’s sickness which the character does not want to confront. She had this idea that if she conquered her imaginary giants, she would make her mother well.

And it is only when she faced the “giants” of her own realities that truly liberated her from her own fears. For her, it was the illness of her mother and the possibility of her death. It was when she faced that reality and realize that all things in our time is finite like what the "giant" said did she finally open up to the world again. It is important we still embrace life despite this realization like the giant said because it is only then can we truly live it.

But conquering our own fears and insecurities cannot be done alone. Sometimes, we need others to see the beauty and goodness in us not necessarily our family but friends and other adults who can see beyond the wall we put up to hide our own fears and insecurities. For her, it was her friend Sophia and her guidance counselor.

For me that time, it was my friend, Jo and my Aunt Lourdes who had since died. They were the ones who made me feel seen and accepted for who I am.  They helped me during those confusing times. Being a teenager in a new city with parents away from home had been a difficult phase for me and I think that time writing saved me. I was able to do some journaling to untangle my thoughts, escape through the characters and worlds I created and say things I would not have expressed in reality.

Maybe now that I’m adult, writing is still an escape to me, an outlet to the rigors of life but somehow it had been more like a friend I can confide to and a venue to create alternate worlds with characters that people can root for and find hope in. And though there are still parts of me that feel like a misfit in high school, I have embraced it and accepted that I’m different and that’s okay too. We are all unique in our own way, we’re all unique beings. But it doesn’t mean that our differences with others should hinder us from interacting with them because only when we share ourselves and our talents to the world can we fully live this life.