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It's been a while since the last time I wrote an article of lessons I learned from Kdramas. Today I'm back with a new article in the same format, but this time the lessons are from a movie that I recently watched and really touched me.

A Monster Calls is the story of a 12-year-old boy that unknowingly calls for a monster who tells him stories while his mother slowly dies of cancer. The stories the monster tells him seem irrelevant to him at first, but as it happens with life, sometimes we only see the lessons when we look back.

Before reading the rest of the article I recommend you listen to Tear Up This Town by Keane if you haven't already. The song is part of the movie soundtrack and it has a lot of lessons in itself, but paired with the movie it's just so amazing it gives me the chills. I played it on repeat while writing this article, so if you want, you can do the same while you read some of the lessons I learned from watching this movie.

1. All Stories Start and End with Myself

The first few lines of the movie state that this story starts like many others; with a boy.

That is just the opening, and afterwards, we get to know the story of Connor O'Malley, his mother who has terminal cancer, his strict grandmother with whom he can't get along, his estranged father who only gives what is convenient to him, and his bully at school who beats him up and picks on him. But the story starts with him.

Likewise, if my life were a movie, it would start with me.

Anything that happens in my life is my story. I am the protagonist of my own life. There are supporting characters, villains and sub-plots. But they only are because I have assigned them roles in my life. It is how I react to the things that happen around me that create the story and develop my character.

As soon as someone else tells their version of the story, even if we were both there, they're telling their movie and they are the main character now. What they make up in their mind is their own story and their own character, and it has little to do with me. In their story, I might be a supporting character, I might be a villain. I can't tell them what role to assign me, but knowing this, there are actions I can take to at least make sure that I'm not a villain in someone else's story. Or if I happen to be so, be the kind that makes the main character grow, not the kind that puts them down and steps on them. I have those kinds of good villains in my story too, and I remember them fondly. The lessons they left behind for me were worth it.

If your life were a movie, it would start with you and it would end with you. As soon as someone else steps in, it's their story. What kind of characters live in your story? And what kind of character are you in someone else's story?

2. Evil Witches Deserve to Be Saved

The first story that the monster tells Connor amazed me for several reasons. One, Liam Neeson voices the monster; two, the animation they use for the story is beautiful; three, it has a lot of lessons.

As soon as the monster finishes the story, Connor snaps at him, telling him he feels cheated. "A lot of things that are true feel like a cheat."The monster replies. "Kingdoms have the princes they deserve, farmers' daughters die without reason, and sometimes, evil witches deserve to be saved." In short, life's not fair, but what matters is what we do with what we have.

Looking back at my life, there was definitely a time when I was the evil witch in some people's stories, and just like the monster saved her, someone saved me.

When I first started working in customer service I didn't really care what my colleagues thought about me. I was all about doing a perfect work and knowing all that was to know about the service I was giving. I didn't understand that people go through different things and because of that, their common sense could be radically different from mine. In short, I was full of myself. I applied for a promotion but of course I didn't get it. What I did get was feedback, and up until this day, I am grateful for it because that was the monster saving me. My boss at the time told me how others saw me and that gave me a chance to reflect on myself and re-direct what wasn't working for me.

Afterwards, I apologized to my colleagues and tried my best to listen instead of forcing my opinions on them. Not too late after that, my boss asked me if I wanted to cover our supervisor while she was on maternity leave. I didn't know why he had picked me, or why he thought I could do a good job, but he believed in me and that takes us to the next lesson.

3. Belief Is a Strong Thing

I want to break down this lesson into some key points of what the monster tells Connor in the second story to explain it better.

· Belief is half of the healing. Like I said, I had no idea why my boss believed I could do a good job as a supervisor. Wasn't I the evil witch not long ago? But his belief in me made me think I could do it, so I decided to give it a go.

· Anything can be cured if mixed by the right apothecary. At the time I was very insecure, arrogant and closed off. But because someone I looked up to put their belief in me, some of those wounds that I had inflicted on myself, started healing.

· Belief is a valuable thing so you must be careful of where you put it and in who. Having someone that believed in me made me realize this. Somehow that temporary promotion became a permanent one when I was offered another job position, and then another, and another. Looking back I realize that I've come a long way because someone believed in me and there was a whole group of people supporting me. That made me realize I can also have the same effect on other people. I have done great things because someone believed in me, and I would feel very proud if someday someone says they have done great things because I believed in them.

4. Sometimes What We Think Needs Healing Is Not What Actually Needs Healing

From the very start when the monster appears, Connor keeps asking him to save his mom, and the monster tells him he is not there to save her. Connor didn't realize the real reason the monster was there until much later in the movie: the monster was there to heal him.

When I started high school my family moved to a different city. I felt like I had lost my place in the world. I changed schools, my friends were far away, and even my siblings were not around anymore. At the time I started reading a lot, much more than I used to. I would lose myself for hours in fantasy worlds because I thought I needed to escape reality. In truth what I needed was someone who showed me that I still had a place in the world. I was lucky enough to have good people around me, but every time I look back, I think of a specific person that helped me heal that wound without me knowing so at the time.

Like I said, I used to read a lot, so at every break I had, I would sit outside the classroom and proceed to ignore the world with a book in my hands and my eyes glued to the pages. But there was this one friend that didn't care how much I ignored him. He would sit down next to me and sometimes we wouldn't even exchange a word. He was patient with me and my scars. His persistence made me realize eventually that there were people next to me. That I wasn't alone. And it was then that I knew I was lonely and the way to stop loneliness was not by drowning myself in other worlds, but to be present and look around me.

The funny thing is that this is a lesson I can't seem to master. He just scolded me for the same reason a couple of months ago. "Stop closing yourself off," he told me. I will be forever thankful to have a friend that can see into my wounds even when I can't, and helps me heal them with just a few words.

5. The Truth Will Set You Free

When the monster first appears, he tells Connor that he will tell him three stories, and then Connor will tell the fourth one, and with it, the truth of his nightmare. When it's time for Connor to tell the story, he refuses to tell the truth almost to the point of preferring death than saying it. But when he finally says it, he realizes it wasn't all that bad, and because he had admitted it, he could now face it properly.

Some years ago I had a relationship that had started out great, but then became uncomfortable. I didn't like the place I was in and I kept denying the truth. I made myself and the other person miserable until I decided to tell him the truth. I no longer felt the same way about him and didn't want to be together anymore. It was hard. It was painful, but facing the truth allowed us to move from that bad place and gave us the chance to heal our wounds.

The truth is very uncomfortable and hard to say sometimes. When you deny it, fear takes over. What if someone finds out my big secret? What if they judge me? But facing it gives you back the power to do something about it. It gives you the chance to grow and to heal. It turns fear into courage.

6. It's Ok to Let Go of Your Suffering

The reason why Connor kept hiding the truth is because he thought it was horrible, when in fact he wasn't even aware of the real truth. He thought he was letting of his mom every time, when he was actually letting go of his suffering. And letting go of the suffering is not only OK, but necessary to survive.

Like the famous adage says, "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional."

When I came out of high school my parents sent me to England to study. It was my dream to go there and I was thrilled... Until I ended up in the hospital with a ruptured appendix and about to die twice. Not only was I in a lot of physical pain, but my dream was crushed. I had to come back to Mexico and was depressed about it all the time. But there came a time when I understood that that's just life, there might or might not be a lesson to it, but that event didn't define my life and I didn't want to miss living anymore. And so I decided to re-tell myself that story from a different point of view. The story of how I almost died in England and my dreams were crushed became the story of how I survived Charlie and the Chocolate Fabric. It became the story of how I literally left a piece of me in the city. It became the story of how amazing coincidences saved my life twice. Because I had to come back, I ended up picking a path that I had not thought of before because it wasn't even in my scope, and that path has taken me to experience a lot of things in my life that I am grateful for. Instead of being black hole in my dreams, that event became a stepping stone to the rest of my life.

7. Our Monsters Can Save Us

Throughout the movie I kept asking myself, who was that monster? Why did it come? Was it a real monster or was it a projection of Connor's feelings? Even thought at the end the movie seems to give an answer on that, the relevant truth is that the monster came for Connor. It came to point out flaws in him and tell him the uncomfortable truth. It came to give him a different point of view and tell him it was OK to choose not suffering. It came to save him from the worst judge Connor had encountered in his short life: himself.

We all have monsters. It might be that little voice that tells you that no one loves you, or it might be that bad habit that drives people away. But I believe that if we pay attention to what our monsters are telling us, we might realize they are not out to get us, but to tell us that uncomfortable truth and to save us from ourselves.

For me, one of my greatest monsters is overthinking. Sometimes I run a situation in my head and imagine so many possible outcomes that I can't even remember what the original story was. Sometimes I over-analyze so much that I can't even make a decision at the end and I'm left paralyzed. Sometimes I overthink so much that I cause myself a migraine.

But sometimes overthinking makes me find lessons where others might think there isn't one. Sometimes running several situations in my head helps me be prepared for moments where something doesn't go smoothly. Sometimes all that analyzing helps me make better decisions and instead of being paralyzed, I charge all the way because I'm sure of the path I took. Sometimes overthinking still gives me a migraine, and that's when I take a step back and realize I still have much to learn.

My monster is a double edge sword, but I can chose which side to wield.

Lately my monster and I have been on a roll and it keeps working hard to save me instead of putting me down. I am thankful for my monster because it helps me grow. I am the person who judges me the hardest, but if I pay attention to that little voice, I realize it's not there get me, but to guide me because it is on our best interest that we keep moving forward.

1. All Stories Start and End with Myself

"How does the story ends?" Connor asks at the end of the movie.
It ends however you want it to end.
As the monster told Connor at the beginning of the second story, "Stories are wild creatures. When you let them lose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?"

If my life were a movie, it would start and end with me. If your life were a movie, it would start and end with you. What kind of story do you want to tell?

What do you think of this small jump in genres? I have a list of movies that I'd like to watch and make into articles with lessons, so if you want to read them, please make sure to check back soon!

Other articles about real-life lessons from Korean dramas & movies:
7 Lessons I Learned From Pretty Man 5 Lessons I Learned From Cheongdamdong Alice

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It's been a while since the last time I wrote an article of lessons I learned from Kdramas. Today I'm back with a new article in the same format, but this time the lessons are from a movie that I recently watched and really touched me.

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Keane - Tear Up This Town (From 'A Monster Calls') (Lyrics Video)

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A Monster Calls Movie CLIP - Lunch Room (2016) - Liam Neeson Movie

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Glassworks Barcelona is glad to present the two tales created for the film A Monster Calls by the acclaimed director J. A. Bayona. Together with Headless Productions, an animation studio from Barcelona, our aim was to create something new and visually outstanding. Both pieces had to be linked with the paintings made by Conor, the main character in the movie, and they should also be integrated in his artistic universe, which meant a technical and creative challenge for us. 

For the first tale we used a technique closer to watercolor that has a less realistic design, it’s more flattered and has no textures. The second one is closer to stop motion or miniature, and despite it preserves some craftwork feeling in the painting, some elements have more volumen to make their transition to the real world a bit more organic. 

As there were images not created by Glassworks Barcelona intertwined in the tales, we’ve chosen a black and white effect to distinguish the ones not owned by us. 

Hope you enjoy them!


If you want to know more about these animated sequences, you can check the making of here: https://vimeo.com/204207639

Follow @glassworksbcn on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for more updates.
Website: www.glassworksbarcelona.com
Facebook: facebook.com/glassworksbcn
Twitter: twitter.com/glassworksbcn
Instagram: instagram.com/glassworksvfx


Credits:

GW Executive Producers
Xavi Tribó
David Gómez
Ignacio Muñoz

Creative Technical Director
Javier Verdugo

VFX Supervisor
David Gómez

Talent Recruiter
Joan Amat

GW Producer
Sonia Figuera

VFX Lead
Marco Rossi

3D Animation Lead
Hugo García

3D Artists
Álvaro Gascó
Andrea Giordano
Anthony Vincent
Carlos Cortés
Cat Harris
Daniel Buhigas
David Llopis
Eric Moliner
Ferran Llàcer
Frankie de Leonardis
Gerard Casas
Gerardo del Hierro
Gergely Woostsch
Iván Costarrossa
Jean Vincent Sales
Joan Buhigas
José Luis Estefanía
José Manuel Linares
Kiko Navarro
Kornel Makarowicz
Leire Martín
Llorenç Borràs
Miquel Campos
Salva Borrego
Simon Glas

Digital Compositors
Àlex Blasco
Aurelio Pozas
Carlos de la Sotilla
Daniel López Izquierdo
Edu León
Edu Puertas
Ian Sargent
Pau Minguell
Rubén Llusià

Production
Maria Shovkoplyas
Dani Granado
Clàudia Barbal

IT Manager
Xavi Tribó

IT Support
Washington Neira

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Quote 1 in Words: " Stories are important, the Monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth"  

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Quote 1 in Words: " Stories are important, the Monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth"  

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While Conor thought that the Monster was there for no reason, he was really there to help Conor know the truth. The Monster needed Conor to admit to the truth of his mother.

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As most people help others physically, the best way of helping them is through their mental ability.

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Specific Event 1 in Words: When the Monster appears to tell his first story, Conor's mother is beginning to become very sick.

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Specific Event 1 in Words: When the Monster appears to tell his first story, Conor's mother is beginning to become very sick.

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Summary: The Monster arrives to help Conor get through his tough times.

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The authors message about being helpful, is seen when the Monster tells Conor stories to help prepare him for his mothers death.

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Book: The Monster Calls