i am flesh-clad and trembling, caged and affixed to this corporeal form that is not of my own. does this body belong to me? shackled to skin and bone is the one who desires to be free from the confines of this vessel that cannot hold them. i am not a soulless husk but a husk of a shell.
bound by film and bound by want. cinema becomes the vessel of our wanting and contorts into noise that gnaws at the edge of our beings. the god cannot run. the god cannot escape. and neither can we, for the film has made us bear the weight of our longing as if though it were our own broken leg dragging across the floor. and yet we dream. we dream because we must, for the wanting cannot be contained. and so we transform our longing into art, until we are no longer separate from god. we are nothing but the body of desire.
dear little me,
i saw you again tonight. not in a photo, or a dream, or in some fading memory - but in her, in taeko. in the way she smiled when she wanted to cry, in how she always tried to be good, even when the world made it difficult. i watched her remember you, and through her, i remembered you too. you’ve always been here, haven’t you? tucked away in the corners of my heart, still holding your…
you must close your eyes, otherwise you won’t see anything.
wonderland, in svankmajer’s hands, is not a place made of whimsy but of marrow and thread and forgotten things that blink when you aren’t quite looking. nothing here sings, nor does anything try to. the white rabbit is not late but rather long dead - a reanimated taxidermy with glass eyes and sawdust spilling from his seams, and the tea party a mausoleum of porcelain clinks and clock hands that…
