"The Path I Didn't Choose" Director Sally Potter How do we connect with people? [Director's Interview Vol.185]

Why are humans connected?

Q: The relationships between father and daughter, husband and wife, are very impressive and make me think deeply about the community called "family." 

Potter: Leo's mind is not only about his current family, but also about the family he built with his First Love love in Mexico, and he has another divorced wife in New York, where he is currently hospitalized. Actually, I think we have all experienced this as well. Who do you feel closest to right now? Normally, they may become family, but depending on the timing of their lives, they may not.

In the relationship between father and daughter, the parents usually take care of the children, but in the case of Leo and Molly, that is now reversed, and it is as if the children are raising the parents. Complicated things happen in life.

“The path I didn’t choose” © BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION AND THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE AND AP (MOLLY) LTD. 2020

Q: Parents and children are related by blood, but husband and wife are strangers to begin with. Such people become a family and a community. That's also strange.

Potter: Historically, emphasis has been placed on "blood ties" connected by genes and region. However, I think that the family you choose for yourself is much more important. A certain scholar once said that if we trace our roots, we all end up with a common ancestor, but the horizontal connections with others are actually stronger than those vertical connections.

What connects us and how do we connect with people? That's one of the themes I wanted to explore in this movie.

The myth of Ulysses, which can be said to be one of the earliest stories created in Western civilization, is the story of Ulysses trying to return to a place called "home." Where the hell is that? Who can call a place “home”? In other words, it is also a question of what family is and who we are.

Movies have the potential to resonate all over the world.