Comfort Viewings #3: Jason and the Moose
This piece is part of our series Comfort Viewings, where we ask filmmakers, fans, and writers to talk about what they're finding comfort in right now, while we live through a real-life horror film. The third one comes from quarantining cinema guru Tara Judah
This year, March 13th fell on a Friday. It’s the seventh time this has happened in my life. I know because March 13 is my birthday and I was born on a Friday. For years, I’ve asserted that “The next time my birthday is on a Friday, I’m going to watch all of the Friday the 13th movies!” But here I am, awaiting 2026 to make good on this promise.
In 2009, I at least gave it a go: my friend Becky and I watched the first three in the video shop where we worked (20th Century Flicks, Bristol), wearing matching Camp Crystal Lake Counselor t-shirts. I was still in my Twenties, so it was cute. We managed the first three movies before the booze kicked in and our inner Jasons implored us to skip ahead to Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989). After that, we couldn’t go back, and the only option was to get uber into it with Jason X (2001). Then, in 2015, I plain forgot and was in Glasgow at a short film festival. This year should have been my year; I could have watched them all in the comfort of my own home, but anxiety got the better of me as the world outside disappeared.
Now, “the comfort of my own home” means everything; it’s where I watch, read and write, but it’s also where I practice yoga, socialise, participate in activities and classes for my son, cook, clean, eat, sleep and whatever else it is that needs doing. A lot of these things are, now, facilitated by screens and, so my iPhone tells me, my screen time is up somewhere close to 400% on my pre-pandemic usage.
So, what I don’t want to do right now is spend all my (limited) free time watching the endless spate of films nominated for watch parties, or for virtual film festivals or made temporarily free on popular streaming platforms. I get that people are in shock and one response is to shift into neo-liberal overdrive, but, unless you’re channelling that productive work ethic into an essential service or developing a vaccine, I don’t really see the logic or benefit in ramping up capitalism. Productivity, we are encouraged to believe, is what will get us through.
Bullshit.
Even as several film festivals I have always wanted to attend make their programmes freely available online, I haven’t been watching. And, perhaps surprisingly for me, I’m not watching films at all.
Since lockdown started in the UK, I’ve watched the following reality TV shows; American Idol (2019-), RuPaul’s Drag Race (Season 12, 2020) and Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 (2019-). I’ve also watched all three seasons of Ozark (2017-), which I thoroughly enjoyed and definitely recommend: Laura Linney FTW, friends. But such shows can only take me so far – after all, all three reality shows will have to stop filming, stalling the instalments. I’ve still got a season of Westworld (2016-) to catch up on, which is what I plan to turn my attention to, now that I’m up to date with Ozark.
Beyond these shows and the cute animation Mio Mao (1970-2007) that I’m watching with my littlun, the thing I’ve enjoyed the most during lockdown is Den Stora Älgvandringen (2019-), the ultimate in slow cinema. It screens 24/7 and started on April 9th and has no set finish date, because that depends on when “it happens” – it being when the moose finish crossing the Ångermanälven river in Northern Sweden. There’s no date or time for this because the moose move to the beat of their own earthy drum. The telecast was launched in 2019 and was such a hit – it even won a Kristallen, the official Swedish television award (for equivalent think BAFTAs) – that they’ve brought it back for 2020.
What it offers is everything I need right now: wide shots of Swedish sunsets and crisp Spring mornings; close-ups of birds puffing up to keep warm; tracking shots of reindeer venturing out on the ice, only to stop and rest with their group; and, of course, my favourite animal in the world, the beautiful, majestic moose, being not doing life as a moose.
When I tune in every day – sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours at a time – I feel calm, knowing that being is enough right now. And that watching every Friday the 13th movie will one day happen (maybe even in 2026!) But for now, it’s enough just being in lockdown, watching, experiencing a new and present mode of waiting without anticipation, as the moose are moose and the world slowly turns.
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