Confronting Fate in Lucy Walker’s The Lion’s Mouth Opens
Written by Megan Scanlon
The Lion’s Mouth Opens, directed by Lucy Walker, tenderly and bravely confronts the neurodegenerative cognitive and behavioral downward spiral that is Huntington’s Disease. Walker and the subject of the film, actress and filmmaker Marianna Palka, were present for a Q&A in front of a packed DOC NYC audience on Sunday afternoon. Palka, who has the gene, grew up with parents who she said were “very much in a romantic state all the time.” When her father was diagnosed, Palka’s mother said in the film, “the way his body crumbled, one brick at a time, like a castle, they just couldn’t hold it together.”
Made to raise awareness, Walker follows Palka as she faces a disease considered a death sentence. Huntington’s is often called the “orphan disease” because there is no one famous person championing a cure, thus, “people hear about it less,” said Palka. For those who have the gene, there is a 50/50 chance of developing symptoms, the earliest symptoms affecting mood. During the Q&A Palka said a man with early signs of Huntington’s was injured in a tussle with cops “because they thought he was resisting.”
Palka said the process of making the film with Walker was like “facing a wave as opposed to letting it pummel you.”
“I feel like there is a theme through Lucy’s work that is about bravery in times of pain and sharing your pain as opposed to trying to deal with everything by yourself,” she continued. ” I think the film is in a lot of ways about friendship and family and being able to do the difficult things together.”
In the film Palka sits around a dinner table with those nearest and dearest to her, telling a story about a request made to Bob Dylan to speak at Arlo Guthrie’s funeral, who died of Huntington’s. As she recites the five page song he wrote, scenes flash by of those suffering with the disease- people who look trapped in their own bodies and minds, involuntarily thrashing as if grasping at some invisible rope hoping to climb out of the shadowy abyss their mind enters.
Under Walker’s direction, with profound power, grace, sensitivity and courage, Palka’s performance delicately humanized a disease that ravages one’s mind and body and turns those afflicted into what Palka calls “a living ghost.” On confronting her fate, in the film Palka says, “I just wanted to know what my life was, and whatever it’s going be it’ll be beautiful and I’ll serve that life.”
For more about The Lion’s Mouth Opens, visit the film page on the DOC NYC website.
Megan Scanlon is an alum of Hobart & William Smith Colleges and New York University and works in the field of International Education
