Merry Christmas!

We just finished my favourite musical, and one of my all time favourite movies: Fiddler on the Roof.

It is heart breakingly beautiful. There is, of course, no overt Christmas association: it is about Jews driven out of Greater Russia. Though there is one line, "If God lived among us, people would break his windows."

Also, "Who do you tell your troubles to?"

The film is essentially about loss, and the fact that we can't hold on to happiness in this world. Especially, it is about the loss of tradition: with all our getting of riches in the modern world, we leave so much of who were once were behind. The fiddler, for instance, is a real figure from the world of the past: entertainers and story-tellers who travelled from town to town, now almost all replaced by mass-market professionals. (Except at Christmas.)

His tune also connects the threads of one's life, like the feather in Forrest Gump, creating dramatic continuity of melodic change.

"Sunrise, Sunset" is, from that perspective, the most important song in the movie.