Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic A few years ago, film director Jacob Perlmutter was walking through London when he spotted one of his heroes. The US street photographer Joel Meyerowitz, known for his early adoption of colour film in the 1960s, was wandering in and out of shops. A few weeks later, the same thing happened again. Perlmutter decided to approach the artist, who this time was with his wife Maggie\u00a0Barrett, an English artist and writer. \u201cI spoke to Joel for a moment and then he introduced me to Maggie,\u201d Perlmutter recalls, sitting beside his wife and co-director Manon Ouimet on the sofa of their north\u00a0London flat. \u201cThe way in which he introduced her was so open and beautiful. They seemed to have this aura about them.\u201d It was a kind of \u201celectricity or magnetism\u201d.\u00a0A few years later, having stumbled across Barrett\u2019s blog, it struck him that the couple, so beguiling on the street, would make a good subject for a documentary. Perlmutter, 35, and Ouimet, 34, who would marry after filming completed, became fixed on the same idea: \u201cWhat would this be like for us, as an artist couple, to make a film about\u00a0another artist couple?\u201d says Perlmutter. In late 2021, Ouimet and Perlmutter moved into the couple\u2019s house in Tuscany, an elegantly converted sheep farm, and began to film their daily lives.\u00a0Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other opens in\u00a0cinemas this month.\u00a0Meyorowitz was 84 when filming commenced, and Barrett was 75. To begin, their life, which is split between New York and Tuscany, appears idyllic. Meyerowitz photographs and makes books; Barrett writes, draws and plays piano. They laugh over dinner with their friends, drink tea while scrolling on their respective iPads, dance in the living room and play ping pong in the garden. But a few months into the year, Barrett suffers an injury that renders her bedridden, and overnight Meyerowitz becomes her carer. The shift in dynamic raises to the surface emotions that have long been simmering.\u00a0Where Meyerowitz has had an eminent career, with a MoMA retrospective, a Guggenheim fellowship and more than 50 photography books to his name, Barrett has yet to receive recognition for her painting, and has self-published all of her novels. In the film, we see Meyerowitz busy publishing new work, while Barrett tends to the houses. They are \u201cconstantly in conversation\u201d about the gulf between their creative lives, says Perlmutter. They are \u201cconsciously trying to sort it out before one of them dies. Because after someone dies, if that imbalance isn\u2019t resolved, then it\u2019s really tough for the person left living.\u201d Towards the end of the film, the conversation reaches boiling point, and there follows an existential row about Barrett being made to feel her life matters less than Meyerowitz\u2019s. The film provokes bigger questions about the imbalances that can underline a relationship. Says Ouimet: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be a world-famous photographer and an aspiring artist or an unknown artist. In every relationship, there is a power dynamic that can be difficult.\u201d\u00a0The film is extraordinary to watch for the elegance of the filmmaking, with the long shots of the Tuscan hills at\u00a0golden hour and the intimacy afforded with the artists\u00a0during such a difficult period in their lives (we see\u00a0them lying in bed in the morning, talking about where\u00a0they want their ashes scattered, and clutching one another in a bath surrounded by candles). \u201cTheir courage to keep being totally open in their dialogue is really powerful,\u201d says Perlmutter. And the directors worked hard to show the dynamic as they experienced it. At the end of every edit, says Ouimet, \u201cwe\u2019d ask ourselves, \u2018Is that Maggie and Joel?\u2019 And if it didn\u2019t feel like we represented them as we witnessed them, then we would\u00a0go back in and start again.\u201dThe sensitivity with which the film is made belies the fact that this is their first documentary, the first feature film either has made, and the first longform project on which they have collaborated. Perlmutter, who grew up in London before studying film at Arts University Bournemouth, has directed 20 music videos as well as some short films, including one with the socialite and poet Greta Bellamacina, as well as working as a photographer. Ouimet, also from London, worked as an events manager at nightclubs before doing a masters at University of the West of England, and has gone on to win awards for her photography, which has been exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery, among other locations.Ouimet was also pregnant for most of the filming, which the pair managed between them for the most part: co-directing, with Perlmutter doing the cinematography and Ouimet the sound (despite having never done it before). It had the potential to be an intense time. But in fact, \u201cit was beautiful\u201d, says Ouimet. She and Meyerowitz were \u201cthe chefs in the house\u201d, says Perlmutter, and would cook extravagant dinners. The four of them would spend\u00a0evenings sitting and talking by the fire. \u201cWe were able to coexist in a very fluid, simpatico manner. It was\u00a0very special,\u201d says Ouimet. \u00a0Witnessing the way in which Meyerowitz and Barrett negotiated their difficulties has also been valuable for\u00a0the directors\u2019 own relationship. For Ouimet, for instance, seeing the fiery argument and the way that the couple suddenly snapped out of it by finding something funny was a valuable lesson. \u201cI\u2019ve had a fear of\u00a0anger; I\u00a0think a lot of women can relate to that, and being present in that moment and observing that level of\u00a0confrontation, but also resolution, has given me a sense\u00a0of courage around that \u2013 and around expressing my\u00a0anger with you,\u201d she says, looking at Perlmutter. \u201cBut\u00a0also acknowledging that it can be resolved in a very\u00a0beautiful, playful, kind way.\u201dNeither director feels the imbalance seen in Meyerowitz and Barrett\u2019s creative lives in their own dynamic, but Ouimet \u201crecognised\u201d it, she says. They started a company together for their commercial work before this film, and she \u201chad quite a bit of internal fear\u00a0about that\u201d, she says. \u201cWould one person rise above\u00a0the other and what would be the division of workload and how would we, as two artists with egos, share that space?\u201d But now, after years of working together, she says \u201cit\u2019s never felt like that\u201d; in the course of filming, they were \u201cside by side\u201d.\u00a0Meyerowitz and Barrett have also emerged from the experience with new-found wisdom. \u201cMaggie has said, \u2018Couples shouldn\u2019t do therapy. Every couple should have a documentary made about them,\u2019\u201d laughs Perlmutter. Barrett, they have observed, is freer from the feelings of disappointment in her career. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t feel that so much any more,\u201d Ouimet says. \u201cThis process of filmmaking really gave Maggie a gift of being seen and recognised. That gave her the courage to continue.\u201d\u00a0The four of them remain close: Ouimet and Meyerowitz are currently collaborating on \u201ca very playful experimental photographic project\u201d, she says, while Perlmutter and Barrett are working on \u201ca written something. Or performed\u00a0something\u201d. The couple are also halfway through filming their first fiction feature film, a psychological horror about pregnancy and motherhood. They\u2019ve been working on it late in the evening, after they\u2019ve finished working on\u00a0their respective projects, and once they\u2019ve put their two-year-old daughter to bed.\u00a0\u201cWhen you both love something so much, collaboration is just the best fun thing ever,\u201d Perlmutter says. He remembers reading Patti Smith\u2019s memoir Just Kids, in which she wrote about her relationship with the writer Sam Shepard, and the way they would stay up all night writing plays together. \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s so romantic. How could you possibly find someone like that?\u2019 And here we are.\u201d\u00a0Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other is in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 March<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic A few years ago, film director Jacob Perlmutter was walking through London when he spotted one of his heroes. The US street photographer Joel Meyerowitz, known for his early adoption of colour film in the 1960s, was wandering in and out of shops. A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-226674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226676,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226674\/revisions\/226676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}