The vast resource of foreign films and documentaries from Netflix have been both educational and entertaining for me. I am especially drawn to the ones on artists and writers. Films like Black White + Gray, Camille Claudel, Modigliani, Quills, I the Worst of All, Seraphine are historical dramas I eagerly digest. When Nietzsche Wept is one that stands out among the others. The movie is full of surprises in the way the director handles the two characters: Nietzsche and his doctor, Josef Breuer. But the ultimate kick for me is at the very end, when the two men became friends. Out of Nietzsche’s mouth came a famous poem that I had translated from the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo, entitled “Chance”. Now, Xu was born three years before Nietzsche’s death in 1900. Did Xu lifted Nietzsche’s words, translated it into Chinese and made it his own poem? I don’t read Nietzsche so I can’t be sure. Here is the poem. It has always been credited to Xu Zhimo:
Chance
I am a cloud in the sky/ by chance it casts a shadow in your heart./ Don’t be surprised, or happy,/ in an instant it all vanishes.
We meet at sea, in the night/ traveling in different directions./ You may recall, or perhaps it is better to forget/ the glow when we cross paths.
