What Hamnet teaches us about life - and death

Interesting the responses to the film Hamnet. I have spoken to people who said they felt it was 'too much', that the second half was exploitative, and that the music was ramped up to manipulate their emotions.

To manipulate their emotions, or perhaps simply an invitation to feel them?

The film, to my mind, invited us to confront the horror of losing a child, and the complexity of grief. How it is messy, exhausting, alienating and frightening. It reminded us that we are all fallible; all subject to random chance and unpredictability. That love cannot protect against death. 

It was not 'grief porn' to be vicariously enjoyed or tutted at and turned from. It was real, but it also offered hope and meaning. The final scene in the theatre showed how no one is immune to loss or grief, but the coming together in grief, the holding of hands out towards it, is perhaps the only thing we can do. 

Director Chloe Zhao posted on Instagram that to recover after shooting those final scenes at The Globe, the cast danced. "We believe emotion is energy in motion. So to discharge, we move, we breathe, we make sound and we dance, so we are never too scared to feel our rawest emotions and we don't store them in our bodies."

We will all suffer losses, but acknowledging this undeniable fact of existence rather than turning from it or denying it can help. And releasing stored and repressed sadness and grief through movement, dance, community, music, art, play and love can save our minds and bodies from the worst of life's sorrow, and point the way to healing.