American Quartet (2020)

In a not-too-distant future, people rely on their mobile devices for yet another essential service: a kind of digital diary that lets them unburden their fear and pain to make it through the day. But instead of being the helpful form of emotional release that was intended, the diaries have become a crutch. People dwell in their own stories, longing for excitement, for comfort, for validation. Attention is limited to personal struggles, and so the deeper problems in society fester. Living within this tense societal wound, the film's protagonists gradually discover that their digital diaries can be used not only to store their memories, but to transport other people into them. They realize that in their hands lies the opportunity to live the world through another person's eyes. The real, more challenging, question becomes whether they can muster the courage to do it. Antonin Dvorak's beautiful 'American Quartet' drives the film and allows the characters to tell their stories wordlessly. The film invites viewers to surrender to music as they would surrender to empathy-with vulnerability to intense pain and exquisite joy. And it calls upon us all to see that vulnerability in those we are convinced are our "enemies."