Disturbia and My Dream of America

I have just seen D. J. Caruso's Disturbia (2007), the teen version of Rear Window with Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss and David Morse. It was very entertaining. But Alfred Hitchcock it ain't.

However, the script was funny, tight in structure (as in, well-written for the teen-thriller genre) and boasted a genuinely interesting, intelligent lead (LaBeouf). More importantly, it painted a picture of an American adolescent's life that brought back my own dream of America, and why I had been so eager to find a way there on graduating from a British uni, back in 1997.

Before the smart-asses who've seen the film say: "you mean you dreamed of finding suburban angst, teen boredom and crime?"

No. And I hate the thought of living in the suburbs.

But I did dream of finding a life full of daring, independence, plenty, creativity and self-invention. And yes, a beautiful-limbed American girlfriend.

And to a large extent, I was not disappointed with what I encountered as a post-graduate student in the States, though all experiences, good or bad, did come at a price.

To gain independence in America, there were so often times I had to go beyond the limits of my comfort zone - and not just in my school work.

I tried to be a gentleman scholar - cramming in as many extra-curricular pursuits (namely singing and acting), sports (weight-training, running, fencing) as I could, as well as giving time to my studies.

But I also had to adapt to a car culture when I didn't have a vehicle, and where everything you needed was somewhere down the neverending highway. I had to learn the self-sufficiency borne of being without a family network to look to for guidance or support. I had to adjust to living in a country with extreme weather and vast distances.

I had to experience love and heartbreak.

The plenty, creativity and self-invention were also challenging to aspire to. My area of specialisation was film directing, and noone at film school ever factored in artistic insecurities in giving feedback. New York City was full of actors who expected professionalism from the get-go, even on student projects. I had to find the courage to direct people I hadn't ever met before under the extremely intense conditions of no-budget independent filmmaking. And finding my own niche in the popculturally-savvy, jaded, but opinionated city of Gotham was tricky, too.

All of this wasn't a big deal, it was just life, lots of it, and a pretty good deal, in my opinion, for a sheltered denizen of Cyprus, not to mention, liberating and confidence-building to boot.

Today, having been in Cyprus since 2006, the contrasts between Nicosia and New York have been pretty glaring, and I've had to look at America from a very different, less laudatory perspective.

The USA is still a country that draws me - and there's a deep calling to return to my beloved Manhattan - but now I wonder whether I would see only the wastefulness in the culture where I once saw plenty; whether I would see arrogance and greed where I once saw self-confidence, motivation and initiative; whether I would see provincialism, ignorance and dysfunction where I once saw freedom, generosity and friendliness.

These last three years have wearied me like no other. The pollution of the world, both material and spiritual has taken a very heavy toll.

But, for all of that, for all my doubts as to whether or not I could still be happy in America, the land of the free (though not lately) still occupies my dreamscapes of choice. I can't escape the connection; it's very deep. My psychic - if not familial - roots there go deep, somehow.

Also, the US is still the country that gave us Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, JFK, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot (no, he wasn't English), Emily Dickinson, Lorraine Hansbury, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, not to mention a host of scientists, philosophers, athletes, artists and inventors too numerous to name. And the resonance of that pioneering, revolutionary, visionary spirit in every aspect of civic life is still there, waiting to resurface.

Yes, there has been the (massive) falling short of my dream of America. And I see, from my Cypriot perspective, much more clearly the governmental incompetence, the staggering levels of poverty, the lack of health care for the vast majority unable to afford insurance, the educational failure and the collective paranoia toward The Other (eg. illegal immigrants).

And yes, I realise these occur everywhere, but I hadn't really seen these elements in the States the way I do now. Now that I am far away.

I still dream of America as I once hoped it to be: a beacon of justice, generosity and personal freedom, the latter not gained at the expense of collective responsibility, maturity and innovation.

May I live in that America, some day.