The Kaleidoscope Series


Eraserhead - Cinema As Association

This is the first post that will explore some of the films that inspired and informed Book 8 of The DSU.


Eraserhead for me was - as I imagine it was, is and will continue to be for countless others - a game-changer in regards to how I saw film. My personal journey deeper into film started when I began to fully realise that film, like plays and books, could utilise metaphors and symbols. This struck me as I watched Disney's 1950 Cinderella when I was maybe 14 or 15. Seeing the film for the umpteenth time, I all of a sudden saw the function of not just the fantasy and the fairy tale, but the selection of characters as symbolic and reflective of Cinderella and her lost parents. And so what I was trying to bring out of my unconscious was the seemingly natural relationship between a poor girl, a cat, dog, horse and a selection of mice and birds. Grappling with these entities in a conscious frame of mind, I stumbled upon a subjective reading and retelling of the film. It is due to this that I began to fall in love with film as a kind of poetry.

The next key film I saw as a 15/16 year old was Donnie Darko. This appeared to me as a film that didn't just have a poetic overtone, a metaphorical super-narrative to be teased out of my own subconscious, but appeared as having knowingly constructed this for discovery. Meaning in cinema suddenly wasn't always hidden; it could be woven into the fabric of a narrative and the world of a story. I'd have to then credit Donnie Darko as being one of the major reasons why I like to base all of my stories in sci-fi.

Cinderella and Donnie Darko are beautiful films in their own regard, and whilst Donnie Darko breaks certain rules and expectations, it is probably not the kind of film that will prepare you for the avant-garde and a class of narrative cinema that exists in a difficult place between the experimental and the classical. It was then my first contact with Polanski, Buñuel, Fellini and Lynch - later, Tarkosvky, Bresson, Dreyer, Bergman, Jodorowsky, Lanthimos and more - that absolutely blew my socks off. The kind of cinema that these filmmakers so often represent is not hiding meaning, nor is it asking you to uncover meaning. Instead, these filmmakers develop a relationship with their audience around meaning. As a consequence, you have to read the likes of Repulsion, Un Chien Andalou, 8 1/2 and Eraserhead as potentially profound pieces of cinematic art, but you also have to sustain humility, have to recognise that you are in a give-and-take relationship with meaning and that you, nor the meaning itself, can figure it out completely. This kind of meaning-making, as we have discussed previously, is bound to our own humanity and our position as individuals with potential who are ultimately looking out into the world with eyes that only want to know more. This kind of filmmaking is exploratory; it explores and it is simultaneously explored, but there is never a given notion of exploration being done. This kind of cinema, we may then suggest, is experiential: you just have to watch the films, again and again and again, that is their purpose and that is the joy of being a film nerd.

Whilst Eraserhead is a film that you can only ever seemingly watch, it is possible to say something about it. In fact, it is maybe impossible to not want to gather and say something. Eraserhead was then such an important film to me as I was beginning to investigate film seriously because it was simultaneously opaque and entirely transparent; I felt the film made complete sense, but I simply didn't (and still don't to some degree) know how to communicate that sense. This is, on one hand, an off-shoot of the fact that these are films designed to be experienced, but, Eraserhead also has much to do with classical films such as Cinderella. Like great Disney movies, to properly interact and engage Eraserhead, you have to attempt to take all the sense and logic embedded in your subconscious and grapple with it consciously. This is the ultimate and most crucial aspect of reading film in my opinion; film spectatorship and criticism is not about relating content to the real world, but perceiving films as potentially transcendent documents.

Humans are connected, however dubiously, loosely and precariously, to the transcendent insofar as we can actually conceive of such a notion of things being out of our grasp. We are also connected to the transcendent through our unconscious outputs and efforts--by our actions that we do not completely understand. Art and story are just two products of acts that we don't entirely understand the purpose of. Art and story allow us to propel the transcendent element within ourselves out into the domain of the transcendent beyond us. And this is what great movies such as Eraserhead do; they start somewhere lost within a storyteller, an artist, and they somehow struggle to find their way out into the ether, leaving trances of themselves behind on celluloid and in digital code: viewing glasses into the realm of the transcendent where the essence of the film resides.

There is, however, something very specific that Eraserhead does to achieve this, something that Disney films do not necessarily do, that Bergman and Bresson films do not necessarily do either. This something is tied to association.

Association or attribution lie at the base of many theories of perception; we cannot know of something unless we think of it in regards to something else. Such seems to be the reason why humans are so incapable of conceiving of nothing - of death, the end and before the start of all being - but are simultaneously drawn to the concept to a degree that is almost chronic. It is because we are something that so many of our significant actions - science, art, philosophy - are engaged with the nothing, the unknown, we assume must be somewhere or sometime around us. And a primary product of this engagement is the interaction with, and creation of, the transcendent - art, for example, that serves as a vessel that ventures into the nothing and unknown.

Eraserhead is a kind of film that is designed as a construct of complex association; it has content that must be engaged via complex association and a form that mimics the processes of complex association. Most classical films that we engage as primarily entertainment are only designed to be constructs of basic association. By this, I mean that it is overwhelmingly apparent that classical films, let us take Cinderella for example, closely follow pre-established rules and conventions of storytelling and filmmaking (content and form) so that they always feel somewhat familiar. (This does not mean that they can't be transcendent documents). When we watch classical films we associate their cinematic language - their construction - to the majority of films that we have already seen, and thus we watch in regards to how we watch most films. The association is basic and systematised so that the only associational work we have to do is emotional; though there are other opportunities for association (as I discovered with Cinderella) we are expected to only figure out if we like the characters, why and engage how their feelings change over the course of a narrative.

Eraserhead is so different from classical films because it does not want to be seen in regards to any other film. Eraserhead is, in fact, quite a rare film in this regard because other movies that set themselves apart from mainstream filmmaking via complex association are, themselves, associated with movements and waves. Collectively Surrealist or New Wave films become more accessible. Eraserhead is alone - you can't even compare it to other Lynch films, or, at the least, you'd have a hard time about this. Knowing of Surrealist film certainly makes Eraserhead more accessible, but this film shows no real care for psychoanalysis and so cannot be engaged as just Surrealist. In addition to this, Eraserhead is not like many other challenging films, those by Bresson or Bergman for example, because these filmmakers so often work in or near the realm of nuanced, though simple association. Taking The Seventh Seal and Pickpocket as examples, we see films that look and feel like other classical films even though you have to engage the content of the Seventh Seal, and the form of Pickpocket, via complex association. Eraserhead is distinct from these films on the grounds that its form and content are simultaneously in need of complex association. And what this means is that we have to use abstract thought and tune into flares of our subconscious to engage and grasp rare examples of material we have engaged before that can be associated with the film.

To further specify, in a Bresson film, a hand is a hand. However, because of the way the hand is shot, because of formal techniques, we have to assign it more meaning and associate greater, more abstract meaning to it. In a Bergman film, a man in a cloak is not just a man in a cloak. Because of his position in the narrative, because of the story's content, he is also not just Death, but an entity tied to a more complex network of characters and symbols. In Lynch's Eraserhead, a baby is not a baby and because of the way it is shot and structurally placed into the narrative, we have to do more than just figure out what the baby could be. Whilst form and content interact in the mentioned films of Bresson and Bergman in subtle ways, I do not believe that they interact in a way that is as complex and radical as they do in Eraserhead. The form and the content, individually, in the Bresson and Bergman films is often more complex than the form and content of Eraserhead, but it is their meeting in Lynch's film that is so spectacularly alien and in need of complex association.

It is because of the complex cinema of association that Lynch constructs with Eraserhead that the film has continued to inspire me so profoundly; challenged me to think of cinema as association and see form and content as tools that have a relationship to all other cinematic form and content that can be tweaked and manipulated.


Whiplash - The Voidal Patriarch

A drummer aspires to earn the respect of a tyrannical musical teacher.


There are many intriguing ways to read into and talk about Whiplash. You could explore the brilliant direction, its accumulation of rhythm and bounce, or the sumptuous cinematography, its embrace of the warm and real textures of faces, or even the maniacal and deranged performances. You could also confront the many questions the narrative poses, exploring the film's investigation of art, perfection and greatness. This has been done by many people already, but, there are other perspectives of the narrative. I have previously written about Whiplash as a coming-of-age film, one that plays with the coming as age as the coming of choice; the ability to choose the kind of person you will be. After watching Whiplash today--for the sixth or seventh time--what really jumped out at me were the intense themes of deception, but, more so, the idea of a father-figure.

It is uncoincidental that Whiplash opens with a juxtaposition between a scene with a man Andrew respects, Fletcher, and a man who Andrew certainly seems to feel he has outgrown: his father. With music being the waters in which these characters swim - Andrew's father not understanding his son and waiting to ship him away and Fletcher helming a submarine that Andrew is floundering to board - the unspoken relationship between Fletcher and Andrew's true father is immersed in one definitive step into adulthood: the death of the super-dad. With Andrew clearly having reached an age that allows him to see his father as just a man, not a superhero - a widower and a high school teacher - he clings to him, going to movies every now and then to feel a fleeting sense of home, comfort and childhood, with seeming resentment. This resentment is simultaneously implied and forgotten when Andrew is with Fletcher; we feel that Fletcher is the father that Andrew wishes he had, but Fletcher also becomes the father Andrew is glad he never got when he becomes an unbearable tyrant.

With such a relationship pulled out of the abstract, Whiplash seems to play in this arena of new adulthood, of Andrew searching for a new father. This idea of a new father is found in many archetypal, mythological and fantastical stories. Consider, for instance, Greek mythological tales concerning demi-Gods who come of age and must shed themselves of their mortal parents to reconnect or confront their heavenly parents. Harry Potter, too, deals with such an idea; Harry leaves his uncle and aunt in search of the spirit of his lost parents. Even Superman follows this paradigm as it is only when Ken becomes an adult that he realises his powers truly and must find out who his true parents are. This trope seems to be in many stories because the father or mother figure is something that we utilise throughout our lives, in evolving ways, to conceptualise guidance. Whilst the baby's parents are then literal, an older person's parents can't be. So, whether we honour, prey to, think of, or rely on lost parents, mentors, friends or teachers, they stick with us until we're gone ourselves. It seems, however, that the transition away from the literal parents and towards the abstract ones is a key one, one that we have always dealt with in stories.

Whiplash, a little like Greek myths, Harry Potter and Superman, is concerned with such a transition. More specifically, however, it is concerned with the shape of oneself, and its reflection in who we choose to be our abstract parents (the first kind of parents we have the 'liberty' and seeming freedom to choose). We could then argue that it is partly because Andrew's life and perception are caught in a torrent of thoughts, fears and aspirations that he lands himself with Fletcher; it is because he believes that greatness requires self-flagellation and dire sacrifice that he gravitates towards Fletcher and is forced to confront his ideals; if he wants to be Charlie Parker, he's going to find Jo Jones, and Jo Jones is going to find a cymbal to throw at his head.

This idea is what makes Whiplash such an engaging film and the relationship between Fletcher and Andrew so complex. Not only does this bond come packed with questions of greatness and pain, but it is also a void into which we, along with Andrew, stare. In such, how we feel about Fletcher and Andrew says an awful lot about who we are, who we think we want to be and who we think our parents are. It is then just as important not to forget who Andrew leaves to play his final solo in the end of the story as it is to ponder upon where we think he is going to end up after finishing.


The Piano - Intimate Betrayal

A Scottish single mother is sold into a marriage with a colonist in New Zealand.


The Piano is an unnervingly beautiful film. There is a line within that describes our mute protagonist's playing of the piano, one that follows as such: 'strange, like a mood passing into you'. These very words would do just as well to describe the film itself.

Based entirely upon the concept of intimacy, both in terms of content and form, The Piano invites empathy like very few other films, its warm and quiet colours embracing the gaze, its quietness soothing all tension, its characters in their privacy openly accepting our presence, and ourselves pressing upon a back foot, unsure, pulled, pushed, repulsed and compelled to stay. Such empathy is, of course, in conflict with themes of possession and betrayal. And in a classical, novel-esque manner, this is structured around one undeniable wrong which is complexified and meandered toward and away from by imperfect, human characters. The wrong of The Piano is our main character, Ada, being sold into a marriage. This looms over all questions and conflicts to proceed, but there is nonetheless hubris and fallibility that gives rise to many victims and little innocence. As we then watch Ada's husband float about her, expecting her to act like a wife, but come to realise that she never will, it is hard not to feel for him to some degree; to not see why he, revealed to be a coward, stabbed in the most private of places within his psyche, would lash out. Unforgivable, indeed, it is that he plays a part of the taking of a woman like she were an item to be possessed. Understandable it is that Ada does not love him. And unforgivable, undoubtedly, it is that he retaliates to this with such spite and violence. But, humanity is not lost upon his character - and such is the crux of this film, its anchor-point to near-mastery that more basic films would fail to grasp by creating a pig of a husband, an inhuman caricature for us to so easily hate.

By the time we reach the end of the story, there accrues a preciousness about the violence and tyranny that we come across. And Ada, it seems, comes to feel this too. This preciousness does not characterise all that we see transpire as positive or negative. Embedded within Ada's punishing ordeal is fear, is exploitation, is humiliation, but also melancholic triumph, love, desire and stoicism. Such seems to leave her time with her 'husband' precious; and such also leaves the final image of watery anaesthetisation and a fatal tie to a spoiled voice soothing to Ada. It is through surviving a confrontation with the most intimate and explosive weakness within so many individuals, and also the most solipsistic and grey elements of herself, that Ada emerges with such peculiar resolve. The heart of this narrative dissonance, buried beneath the film's tonal harmony, is in the intimate depiction of betrayal.

Betrayal is a highly volatile theme in stories, a cornerstone of melodrama and tragedy. What The Piano manages to do so idiosyncratically is subdue and manipulate betrayal into a form of, for lack of a better word, exploration. And I believe the use of intimacy to turn betrayal into exploration is, in fact, a very human and true--but equally troubling--way of representing such actions. Betrayal, after all, seems to be a form of indulgence. This is what all stories with love triangles are trying to play with (but so often fail to do so in a worthwhile manner). The love triangle is so often a paradox of true love, or a dangerous cure to false love. It then emerges in stories where someone falls for a good person, but stumbles upon someone better - or someone they love differently. Exploration here is burdened by the idea of cheating; to even look elsewhere is to betray. The love triangle also forms, and this is often more common, in stories involving arranged or forced marriages; the original love, or an alternate love, provides a counter-point to ideas of the collective purpose of personal love. Exploration is a necessity and a relief here. The Piano, to a degree, deals with the former kind of love triangle, but, also veers from it slightly with our main character not necessarily escaping false love for true love, but finding an alternate kind of love which she comes to value (but that we find hard forgetting started with coercion). Nonetheless, the love triangle is so often a tool of betrayal, one that can deal with a just, or retaliatory, betrayal involving the deception of the 'bad guy', or it can be one that deals with a bitter-sweet or tragic betrayal which is concerned with the betrayal of oneself.

A film such as David Lean's Brief Encounter is a brilliant example of a film that deals with the love triangle as a betrayal of oneself as it tells a story of love at first sight as accidental and out of ones control; listening to the call of love becomes a form of indulgence almost impossible to characterise as either selfish or right; when does one listen to their heart?

The Piano asks similar questions to Brief Encounter, but flips the melodrama on its head, turning the positive emotions negative - the act of falling in love becomes hard to distinguish from coercion - and the negative emotions positive - the resolution of the story, the escape of the love triangle, becomes cathartic, not weighty and bittersweet as in Brief Encounter. Both films, interestingly, deal with the idea of voice at their core; the idea of not being able to speak. However, whilst Brief Encounter has a wife find a new kind of love in an honest, understanding silence with her husband, The Piano forgoes understanding, leaving the love itself as silent and the honesty split between its characters. This calls into question which film has the more cathartic ending, The Piano which ends on thoughts of death, or Brief Encounter, which ends with a loving embrace?

In the end, the comparison between Brief Encounter and The Piano reveals an intrinsic question of intimacy. Intimacy is tangible and between characters in Brief Encounter whilst in The Piano it is abstract and around the characters, a haze we, the audience, gaze through. Such reflects the incredibly significant impact that distance--implied via tone--plays in romances. And such seems to crack open, ever so slightly, the confounding experience that is The Piano.


Autumn Sonata - The Infantalising Mother

A daughter, estranged from her mother for almost 8 years, invites her to stay in her home.


Ingmar Bergman's cinema is truly one of the most terrifying cinemas that have ever manifested in the most pure and existential sense; the horror that shivers from his characters' words so immeasurably penetrating, the truth that emerges from his frames so impossibly heavy, the humanity that looms over his lights so incomprehensibly confounding. Bergman's cinema is just so, as can be best seen in the likes of Cries & Whispers, Scenes From A Marriage and this film, Autumn Sonata, because he was able to show life like no other; life as a sum of all our actions, a network of all our interactions. It is looking over their shoulder and seeing these grotesquely colossal structures made up of all they have done, said and been present through that Bergman's characters are haunted by time's direction itself, by their place in their own messy history, tying to sort through it, to live through the present and build a better future. The sheer insurmountability of life as history, action and interaction is what makes Bergman's drama so dense, impossible, almost, for his characters to lift and impossible, too, for the audience to fully come to terms with.

Autumn Sonata is a true masterwork in respect to this. And in focusing so specifically on character history in this film, Bergman pushes deep into a more theatrical mode - which, he, of course, would be incredibly familiar with having written and directed over 170 plays. We see this theatrical mode with the narrated opening, the confined setting, the sheer volume of dialogue and even much of the wider mise en scène, which is flat and plain faced as if it was on a stage. Railing against the idea that cinematic stories are hinged upon motion and imagery as opposed to sound and imagery, Bergman then forges this masterpiece by simply filming great performances - something that Dreyer did in the likes of Gertrud, Ordet and Day Of Wrath. And, as a side note, Autumn Sonata is certainly thematically in much conversation with Dreyer's Gertrud as both films challenge their female protagonists with a conflict that tears them between sacrificial love and personal desire whilst taking on a deeply theatrical mode of shooting. But, taking a step back to performances, it has to be said that Autumn Sonata captures what is almost undeniably Ingrid Bergman's best performance. Cast, not for her image to carry melodrama, which is how the likes of Hitchcock and Rossellini cast her in slightly different respects, but for her presence as a woman, a mother and a celebrity who would have deeply understood her character, Ingmar allows for such a genuine performance to flow from Ingrid. And what more can be said of Liv Ullmann other than the fact that she remains, to this day, one of the greatest actresses ever to work in film.

It is the culmination of performance, direction and Bergman's conception of life as presented by his script that makes for such a staggering film in Autumn Sonata. So, though this film is so often less renowned than both Cries & Whispers and Scenes From A Marriage, I certainly think that Autumn Sonata is almost a conclusion (of sorts - not an absolute one) of both films. With each of these films exploring familial bonds, they are tied together by the discussed idea of life as an individual's history of actions and interactions. It is with Cries & Whispers that Bergman reaches into a selection of sisters' pasts to investigate a sisterly structure of sorts; with Scenes From A Marriage he investigates a marital structure; and with Autumn Sonata, a parent-child structure. Each film talks to one another so well because they form a lineage. Scenes From A Marriage deals with the history of characters that starts in adulthood. Cries & Whispers deals with character history that begins in childhood. And Autumn Sonata deals with character history that essentially transcends birth as sister is not just sister, and wife is not just husband in this film. Rather, our main character, her essential humanity, is bound to her husband, her sister, and  also her mother; she is simultaneously sister, wife and daughter with emphasis on the latter. And so, whilst Scenes From A Marriage deals with bad actions and interactions made as an adult, Cries & Whispers is more focused on a haze of bad actions that stem from further back in childhood. In contrast, Autumn Sonata gazes deep into its main character's present, past and even her mother's past before her to see conflict and troubling drama in her life and beyond her life. And so, one of the main questions that Ullmann's character, Eva, seems to constantly ask her self is: why was I born into this life? In juxtaposition to this, she asks why she did and did not give birth to children. And her mother, surely, asks why she gave birth to a child at all. And it is from these set of questions that comes Bergman's existential horror show that reaches out of the screen like a grotesque hand whose fingers bear a touch of death.

Because Autumn Sonata reaches so far back into Eva's history as a person, it seems to be the most complex of the three Bergman films we have been mentioning. This point could, however, be argued against with the fact that these films do not just deal with the past, but a character's journey into the future. And, in this respect, I think Scenes From A Marriage is more complex than Autumn Sonata. Alas, the draw of Autumn Sonata and the depths of its drama are in the narrative's ability to present a mother as a judgemental force. It is then by seeing the mother and daughter conflict that the daughter's crippling weakness, her inability to express love and feel loved, is revealed to be the consequence of her mother's, Charlotte's, disgust-sensitivity. What's more, the conflict between mother and daughter also reveals Charlotte's crucial weakness to be an inability to look back, over her shoulder, at that structure of her history as action and interaction; an inability to judge herself and a penchant to excessively judge others. It is because Charlotte was then so blind to the present when she was in it (and also is in it) that she has such a skewed view of how her actions impacted her daughter. It is then all too easy to say that Charlotte was selfish, but, empathising with her, you sense that she is a torn woman. She had a gift and she had a craft that she worked her whole life to hone; she was a successful pianist. This took her away from her home. She was hated for leaving and was hated for being there. True, Charlotte made many mistakes, built herself into a nightmare of an oedipal mother who meant to smother her child in her breast with disgust wrought across her face, but, no one was there to save her from herself. You cannot blame the world for what she has done to her child, but, her life carried a momentum that blinded her, which makes it hard to see her as inhuman.

This crucial point of conflict becomes an epicentre from which shock-waves of neglect, isolation, desire, wanting, repulsion, disgust, love, infatuation and hatred pulsate. And this is all so perfectly expressed in a scene in which Eva plays the piano for her mother. This seems to be an act of self-flagellation. And though she is whipping at her own flesh as she plays for her mother, she feels as if it is Charlotte who stands behind her and cracks at her skin. Nonetheless, Eva's mother finds beauty in her daughter's imperfect playing - she is deeply touched. Eva cannot conceive of this, and so she forces her mother to criticise her and overshadow her on the piano. There then comes a look of complete and utter loss and love that simultaneously mingle into one another, reducing Eva to a child in awe of the mother she stares at. As the playing continues, from that childish gaze eventually comes the adult's knowing and hatred. And such is the uncanny cycle that repeats itself across the narrative; there are moments of understanding that complexify themselves - adults becoming children, women becoming mothers, individuals projections of another - into oblivion; into an oblivion tantamount to an answer to the previous existential questions; Why, if we question our lives and births, should we be alive? This seems to be the ultimate question that mother and daughter act out as they fight.

It cannot be overlooked, however, that this self-perpetuating conflict that rises between the two, whilst it tears at the mother and daughter, also breeds truth and reflection; the only possible cures to their relationship and its myriad of troubles. And so this becomes the question of the narrative that projects it into an ambiguous future. Can the infantalised child and the judgemental mother become human?


There Will Be Blood - The Fickle Family Man

A self-made oil man comes upon a small settlement headed by a hysterical cleric.


Almost anyone can tell you this, but There Will Be Blood is truly one of the greatest films to have come out of America in the past decade or two. Each and every time I watch this film, I can't help but be reminded of this fact. The first time you see it, the performances reach out of the screen and throttle you. With a re-watch or two, however, the themes start to resonate all the better, the incredible pacing rings out, the absolutely fantastic direction, as patient as it is subtle, gleams, the film crystallises, and it continues to crystallise further with each and every watch after. Having seen this more than half a dozen times since it has come out, I don't hesitate at all in saying that this is a masterpiece.

As you come to terms with There Will Be Blood, its ideas around capitalism and religion come to the fore. However, I personally think that these themes are white noise that form the context of the story and give it a spine, but are subservient to Anderson's character study, which is far too deep, far too intricate and far too complex to be mapped onto broad ideas of the world. And this is really what Anderson does so well: he creates insular places that are populated by characters alone. There are grand themes and topics hanging over his PTA's characters' heads - in The Master, there is Scientology, Boogie Nights, the porn industry, Magnolia, show-business, etc. - however, like Bergman does, Anderson focuses his lens on faces and, behind the eyes of his tremendous actors, you see theme, you see meaning. Whilst many films have us see the world through the eyes of a character, see them project grand themes, Anderson has us peer into his characters to find theme - and you're not going to pull them out too easily. It is because Anderson is so precise and efficient with this technique of centring his characters that he is arguably one of the greatest filmmakers ever to get us to think as characters do, to ask what is going on their head.

There is a silence about There Will Be Blood that so often facilitates just this. And as I look into Daniel Plainview I can't help but see, somewhat ironically, sensitivity. As much as Daniel hates and lashes out at those around him, he has very soft insides. When characters break his armour and know where to poke him, so much is then exposed. The key moments in which Daniel is exposed are all focused on his child and his future. There is then his business competitors who tells him to quit the oil business and look after his son and Eli who has him admit that he has abandoned his boy. He reacts to both of these men with an anger and disgust so pure and genuine that it is almost child-like. And such is his soft inside.

Plainview, on one level, is a man of simple principals who ultimately only wants a nice house and a family. The sight of this house, the house he dreamed of as a child, however, would make him sick as a man - or so he says. This dichotomy between dream and sickness, this disavowal, reveals the heart of Daniel. Watching him closely over the course of this film, you will see a man who worked for everything he got, who crawls for miles across a desert to cash a small fortune, who adopts an orphan of a man who worked for him, who tries to uplift a small town. When you watch him go through these ordeals, in his silent moments, you see genuine care - and I don't believe this is an illusion. When he first feeds the orphan he adopts, when he enters the town of seemingly good people, there is always the defence that he is just making money at hand; he can tell his son that he was just an orphan, he can take all his money and leave, if he feels threatened. And such seems to be Daniel's complex. It is not that he is a selfish, evil pig, rather, he is scared to not have that persona at hand. There is then always a question mark over every good deed he does; he has to be making money to support others, he has to be spiting one person so he can help another. Daniel can do nothing if he does not have his finger on either an escape button or deep in one of your wounds. And this, it seems, is because he, himself, is so fickle and soft inside.

What There Will Be Blood then transforms into, in my view, is really a film about family. It seems that Daniel makes his money with his dream house and a family in mind. In making the money, however, he transforms. From good intentions emerge, above all else, aggression; Daniel is an angry man. This drives him forward whilst simultaneously steering him away from his initial goal. And thus, it seems, Daniel splits into two. There is his one half who just wants to look after an orphan boy - out of guilt, out of the goodness in himself. However, to look after this boy, he will have to make more money. And so then there opens up another persona; the boy becomes his partner: he is going to give him his company and the skills to have all that he never did - or maybe just duty and burden. Difficulties pull the loving persona and the exploitative Daniel apart. When his boy grows estranged, when he is injured and deafened and Daniel makes a mistake in sending him off - which may have been the better option, but who knows? - his future plans deteriorate. He becomes more fickle. This paradigm plays out with the small town, too. He just wants to help the people and help himself, but, he has to fight for control. And unable to concede to Eli and to a set of ideals (religion) that aren't necessarily his, he stops wanting to help and starts using the excuse of exploitation before only exploiting. In the end, sat in his empty dream house, Daniel has all he wanted apart from a friend, a partner, someone who is not there for money. It is here that his son throws all that was given to him at his father to start off on his own business ventures. However respectfully this is done, the fickle man cannot accept it. He does, however, get his revenge on Eli. He has abandoned his boy, but has no one around to poke at his wounds now.

In the end, There Will Be Blood becomes a tragedy about a man who cannot open himself up to people or risk anything; it shows strength poison a man against himself and a perfect storm around him tear at his personas. Daniel is then much like Day-Lewis' character from The Phantom Thread, incredibly particular and ultimately in search of someone who may destroy him. However, there is a subtlety and a sense of hope and strength embedded into There Will Be Blood that slowly deteriorates. It leaves the picture quietly after never really being there, but, once it is recognised as missing, There Will Be Blood only seems to ask questions: Where does a fickle man find salvation? Is it even possible? Does he deserve it?


Three Colours: Red - Colour Symbolism: Beauty-Complexity

A young model meets a retired judge who spies on his neighbours phone calls.


Kieślowski's Three Colours: Red is a masterpiece of a rare class; a film that is not just as beautiful as it is complex, but one that gives way to beauty through complexity, which is to say, all that makes this film mesmerising is its profundity and existential translucency. You then certainly feel your way into Red, giving thought and assigning meaning to the confusion that Kieślowski's parallelism conjures within you. And in following this through - in questioning your own confusion - Red becomes a film about balance and destiny.

The idea of truth is presented through red as a colour symbolising fraternity. This theme of fraternity is in the relationships that characters form as well as the methods of communication between them. In such, fraternity is split into a dichotomy of intimacy and invasion. The concept of people coming together is then shown as positive and negative through telephones and human contact. Telephones represent invasion. Human contact is intimacy. Watching characters mediate between these two spheres - have arguments over, and spy through, phones; care for and betray one another in person - there forms an abstract commentary on the complexity of fraternity, of relationships, in (what was) the modern day. In one sense, Red shows us that technology arouses anxiety and distrust. In another sense, Red shows that, whilst technology represents a certain kind of invasion, it also reveals the ways in which we are both alone and in yearning in the modern world. We see this with our main character, Valentine, coming into contact with a former judge, Joseph, who spies on people by listening in on their phone conversations. Initially, the situation seems transparent; he is illegally invading privacy. However, as Valentine investigates and questions Joseph and his philosophy/morality, she comes to discover that his invasion is not necessarily malevolent, but tragic. After all, he is alone and, though he reaches out to people, he is also helpless; unable to positively effect their lives. Valentine finds herself in a similar situation; she too is alone in the world and so often fails to reach out to those around her - to, for example, have her boyfriend believe that she is being faithful to him. Alas, it is their meeting, the physical connection that Valentine and Joseph build by coming together in the same spaces, that reveals this truth and simultaneously allows the couple to transcend the tragedy. By realising that they are both alone and helpless, they then find friends in one another and manage to lend a hand in each other's lives. Hence, they surpass the barriers that phones construct which prevent people from helping and bonding with one another. The colour red looms over all of this as to represent both the intimacy of contact and the danger of invasion. Its presence over the complex meeting of invasion of intimacy emphasises the abstract thought-felt truth that the narrative supplies. We see this best with this image:


It is uncoincidental that the most iconic and affecting image of the film is one that has a waving red flag behind Valentine's face. Red in this context represents the simultaneous intimacy she means to project with her acting, but also the invasion she invites. In such, it is ironic that this poster is both art of possible meaning and an advertisement that uses beauty to merely sell a product. Here is invasion and intimacy. But, they are in a balance and so this is what red emphasises: a balance between the two opposing forces, danger on one hand, intimacy on the other; the red light of a traffic signal and the red lips of a woman.

What red ultimately comes to represent in the grander, more abstract scheme of this story is destiny. Arguably, Kieślowski's greatest achievement with Red is his manifestation of 'butterfly montage'. This is a kind of montage that represents connections across time and space, emphasising the effect that, for example, a butterfly's beating wings can have on a storm system on the opposite side of the world. The fundamental base of butterfly montage is parallelism. We see this in Red with the uncanny similarity between the young judge and the old judge, as well as the uncanny similarity between the young judge's thoughts that he is being cheated on and Valentine's boyfriend's thoughts that he is being cheated on. There are many more examples of this: the presence of dogs, the listening to weather reports, to certain music and going certain places (such as a bowling alley), etc. It's this parallelism that relates one time in the past (the old judge's backstory) to the present (the young judge's present story) as well as spaces and lives that are seemingly distinct and individual. It is then almost impossible to tell if each of these characters are related and how; if history and past are colliding, if doubles of individuals are meeting. This is butterfly montage (Kieślowski uses it in many of his films, outside of the Three Colours Trilogy, The Double Life of Veronique is a clear example) and its purpose is to say much about destiny.

There is a philosophy of destiny presented through Three Colours: Red, one that you may call a philosophy of 'relative destiny'. In showing intimacy alongside invasion and juxtaposing this with parallelism that leaves you wondering who is who, Kieślowski emphasises the many ways in which his characters are the same and the many ways in which they face the same conflicts. Nonetheless, he also makes clear that, though many people are bound by forces that press upon them, each individual experiences their struggle singularly. Moreover, we are shown that we all have a destiny, but that individual destines conflict. Thus, each destiny is relative to another; the destiny of collectives seemingly too difficult to come to terms with. (An analysis of the Three Colours Trilogy as a whole may provide a picture of collective destiny, but individual films in the trilogy signify its elusiveness). The conflict and relative nature of personal destiny is made clear with the older judge causing the girlfriend of the younger judge to cheat on him. This implies that they are not the same people, despite the innumerable similarities between the two. It also shows the way in which the forces that guide one person can negatively effect the forces that guide another, but nonetheless leave all blame in the hands of the individual. And that is to say, it seems that the judge, Joseph, puts his will upon the young judge by listening in and wanting him to break up with his girlfriend. He then effects the young judge's destiny. And maybe the Joseph can't blame his own destiny for this. Alas, this is where I feel the trilogy becomes too abstract and ambiguous to really make sense of. What matters, however, is that, though destines are relative, they don't always have to conflict. And this is what the final scene signifies. In the end, the forces that be invade Valentine's journey - which the judge and weather reports predicts will be fine. There is then a storm that almost kills Valentine (and the characters from the other films in the trilogy). Nonetheless, she survives, the young judge and Valentine seem to be together and we get this image...


This is a very hard image to decipher. However, it seems to me that the colour red binds this to the rest of the narrative. And in such, we see the conflict between invasion and intimacy. As the judge sees this image on his television, he is seeing his 'younger self' meeting his friend to-be. He is then invading the veil of destiny and time to look back on his life and see an alternate vision and a time of different meaning. From this invasion comes the perception and feeling of intimacy. Moreover, there seems to be a harmony, or a lack of conflict, between individual destinies in this moment. Maybe Joseph is then comforted by witnessing the divergence of the young judge's destiny from his own; the young judge may form a relationship with Valentine instead of pursue his ex-lover to Britain as Joseph did, and thus live a happier life than him. It is hard to say anything concrete about this final image, but, what seems to be true is that the colour symbolism is what mediates the emergence of profound beauty from confounding complexity.


Shutter Island - The Theatre Of The Unconscious

A U.S Marshal searches from a patient escaped from a high security mental institution.


Shutter Island is a true masterpiece. Its use of colour and music, the subtle, subtle cinematic language, the emphasis of elements such as fire and water, the circular, multi-layered plot, the subtext, all come together to forge an immense work of undeniable poise, impact and precision. What makes Shutter Island so intricately complex is its ability to manage the world outside of its story as well as the worlds inside the story. In watching this film you then feel trapped, unable to gaze at the narrative planes above and below yourself, unable to decipher the realities of Teddy's war-fantasies and or see his inner-demons properly unmasked. That is, until the end, and the brilliant, classical Hollywood-esque ending: What is worse, to live a monster or die a hero?

The aphoristic thunder that this sends shuddering from the screen always leaves my thoughts of all that could be written about the film dashed and shattered. It says it all, and it says it better than most essays ever could. However, whilst the film certainly says more than I can, I think there's value in highlighting those two planes of narrative that, though they are revealed in the end, remain somewhat illusive.

The major conflict of Shutter Island is undoubtedly the concept of evil, of being a monster. However, this only presses upon the psyche of Teddy so heavily because he cannot conceive of a world in which he is an anomaly. This is in fact shown to be true with most of the patients at Shutter Island, many of which reference H-bombs and a new post-WWII society as unthinkable. This world that patients have been extracted from, inside looking out, would, somewhat ironically, seem to be one too complex and too explosive for them. There is then a strong sense of institutionalisation embedded into the film via its post-war context. However, for Teddy, the world is not too crazy for him to exist in, rather, it is not chaotic enough. In such, for him to be sane, the government must be overseeing a murderous conspiracy - the likes of which would only be conceived of by comic book evil Nazi scientists.

The fact that Teddy cannot bear to have witnessed his wife murder their three children and, in response to this, can't bear to live in a world where his government isn't at least attempting to stage a eugenic revolution, speaks volumes to the heart of the film: disavowal. How can it be that Teddy was not just apart of a world war, but maybe lead his wife to kill her children? How can one reconcile with themselves in such a situation? How could one want to? And such draws us back to the final question: What is worse, to live a monster or die a hero? Whilst, it is difficult to answer this, what makes this interrogative so important is 'worse'. It is 'worse' that implies that it doesn't necessarily matter if one lives as a monster or dies as a hero. The reality is, one is neither hero or monster. Not strictly. Not definitely. Not nearly.

Upon conclusion, Shutter Island reveals itself to be a very literal game and a theatre of the unconscious where Teddy tries, and fails, to test his faith and hope in unknowing. He tries to become a hero and avoid the monster with himself. However, he is only ever confronted with the incomprehensible truth of his reality. And what can be done in the face of this?


Eraserhead - Into The Anima

This is the final post of the series where we will again look at Lynch's Eraserhead.


To close the Kaleidoscope series, I want to offer my personal interpretation of Lynch's infamous Eraserhead as a film that journeys into a man's psyche, into the element of himself that is, in essence, female: his anima. To provide this commentary we will analyse the symbolic nature of a few key scenes and see how they fit into the wider picture of the narrative. In turn, we will be looking at a few sequences revolving around Henry and the three main women he encounters. To start, we come to the opening:


This tremendous opening shot superimposes Henry's head, his blankly fearful and inherently naive expression, over a shot of an orb in space. This orb seems planet-like, but, equally so, bacterial: it seems like a cell. Through association with this later shot...


... and, furthermore, the general content of the film, you get the sense that this is an egg. The ambiguous opening then reveals itself to be one depicting impregnation. To return to the opening shot, however...


... what this superimposition implies is that Henry is thinking, and in turn, co-existing with the egg. He conceptualises of it as in a void of space surrounded by distant stars (other eggs possibly). Henry's unconscious then conceptualises the female body as simultaneously full of potential and ambiguously empty; it seems he does not understand it beyond being a matrix of connected femininity. That is, in expanding upon the idea that the other stars are other eggs (possibly of other women), to say that internal female body is not unique: it is merely space that holds an egg. All such spaces are connected, one egg perceivable from another in this infinite realm of feminine internals.

Returning to this shot, we have a fascinating image:


To juxtapose, these, as most will recognise, are the opening lines of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The bible's commentary on life is a dualistic one. From one came two; from God came heaven and earth. That is to say, from the Logos came his own domain (heaven) and a formless void (earth) faced with its own shadow. The earth without form, a void, is pure potential. A darkness, that which manifests seemingly as contrary to heaven, is upon the face of that potential, which suggests that the void bears the probability to become, for lack of a better word, hell. Alas, the Spirit of God, who we can assume is in heaven, is reflected by the void that is the universe, or rather, earth without form. This says that, in facing up, earth can look past darkness and see light. Recognising this to be true, God utters the words, "Let there be light", and so something to confront the darkness was born. God would then divide the good from the bad, the negative from the positive, the yin from the yang, the night from the day, and thus begin shaping the domains he created by populating them with new life forms.

This opening of Genesis provides some fascinating parallels to that of Eraserhead. Henry is in a voidal domain and he speaks into it life:


This domain is feminine, but it remains unnamed. The only name we can attribute to it is Mary X, the girl that Henry impregnates. And it seems quite uncoincidental that Lynch would name his female character Mary. In the bible and beyond, Mary, like Lynch's Mary X, comes to symbolise the eternal female in heaven and upon earth; she is the Mother of God. Fascinatingly, there is no mention of this Mother of God in Genesis - just like there is no mention of Mary in the beginning of Eraserhead. The commentary provided by this collision of the Bible and Eraserhead is one of the unconsciousness' ignorance of the feminine.

As mythology so often suggests, life is feminine, and simultaneously, life just is. However, as such, life's inception is too difficult to grasp. How does one explain how 'is' emerged from a state of 'non-is'? This suggests why there is no Mother of God in the start of the Bible. God creates his mother long after he has established life so he can, retrospectively, begin to define the universe in terms of a syzygy, in terms of masculine and female forces. The universe begins as masculine because we are asking how it came to be. We can only conceptualise of inception, one of the key defining traits of the male, and so characterise the start of everything as the essence of impregnating forces. God creating universe seems to be the manifestation of life force willing life itself to be: the will precedes the being, the son before the mother, for the Bible.

Eraserhead makes a similar statement. However, it deals not with universal fundamentals, the start of space, but, a girl and a boy. In turn, it is a story about failure, one that shows how a boy conceiving of himself as God, as a creative force, without responsibility, knowledge or great words to speak is destined for trouble. The boy does not understand the feminine, thus, he, solipsistically, sees himself to inherently be within the domain of the female. There is then no Mary in the beginning of Eraserhead because Henry cannot recognise her. He will recognise Mary as existing only once his will - which is a sexual one - manifests as a baby. Henry's will manifesting then becomes a seed that he speaks into existence:


This seed is an incomplete form; a reflection of who he is inside; a reflection of his words. It can only be understood, however, by analysing the shots that precede it. So, after Henry thinks of the egg in space...


... it is inspected in closer detail:


It is probably worthwhile here to emphasise the vaginal nature of this cleft or channel. Alas, we then move into a different domain, one that we can't be sure belongs to the egg or Henry, a house of sorts:


We move into this house to find a monster:


This monster, as we soon find out, controls the egg and/or Henry. Thus, after he speaks his seed into existence...


... the monster pulls his lever...


... and the seed shoots off towards these waters...


We cannot know what the lever that is pulled controls. However, it gives incite into who and what the monster is. He seems to be darkness; he is the distorted man with Henry. His distortion is aesthetically bound to the primordial image of the egg - as is the rest of the world of Eraserhead. Everything is piled in dirt and grime, given a crusty bacterial aesthetic. With the juxtaposition of the egg and dirt comes the idea that the specific kind of egg that we are shown, an unnamed egg, an egg in a void of the feminine as presided over by a naive man, bears a burden: is tainted. The man divorced from the feminine, likewise, seems to be tainted. As a result, this monster...


... seems to be the purveyor of the tainting, undeveloped force that is present throughout the film. That is to say that Eraserhead is a film all about underdevelopment; about a boy not ready to become a father, a girl not ready to become a mother and a baby not ready to be human. The monster is the first underdeveloped and tainted figure we see. It manifests as the will of Henry, the winds that carry his words of life into a fertile space, and, in turn, the monster seems to be sexual urge as well as the dark shadow on the face of the created. Such says so much about Eraserhead as a film that very much so appears to be about a boy and a girl who have a baby and can't bear take care of it as it represents all that is dark and mistaken within themselves. Taking Henry's perspective in this domain of story, what is emphasised is his ignorance of the feminine and its capacity to manifest as a reflection of his own inadequacy.

And so this scene is complete with Henry's will accepted into a pool of the feminine under the management of the monster.


We then enter the 'real world' beyond Henry's psychic space by moving into this pool of new, created space and out of the feminine through an unambiguously feminine channel:




Eraserhead then opens with the expulsion of Henry's ego in the ignored feminine domain as controlled by monsters of underdevelopment and tainted naivety. It goes onto to show Henry travel through a decimated and empty industrialised world - one that comes to characterise Henry's view of his surroundings as inaccessible and drenched in his own fear and lack of understanding - to meet his estranged girlfriend and learn of the fact that she is pregnant.

We then get the dinner scene where Henry has to confront his own sexual being alongside the parents of his girlfriend. This scene is particularly ingenious because it holds a deprived concept of sexuality over the heads of two key relationships, that of parent and child and that of mother and father:


This particularly gruesome moment of blood coming out of a micro-chicken seemingly alludes to an infant and menstruation simultaneously. As the blood oozes and bubbles, the mother...


... groans with her tongue extended, semi-sexually, before crying and exiting. She returns to confront Henry about having sex with her daughter before attempting to seduce him.

The mother, triggered by the menstruating infant, seemingly thinks of the careless pleasures of sex before realising that her daughter has not just had sex, but also a baby. Thus the blood of menstruation seemingly does not wash away anything, nor does it cleanse and prepare; it only brings fourth vulgarity of a horrifyingly intimate and disturbing kind. This blood also seems to plant a seed of refusal within Mary and implies that she wishes to abandon her baby because it exists in this strange place between menstruation and infancy; between being destroyed and being raised, between casual sex and procreation. And the manifestation of this seems to be the underdeveloped baby itself:


This baby is the embodiment of all of the conflicts alluded to. It is the word of a naive man, who speaks within the unknown and the undeveloped female. It is the epitome of a mistake.

The sound and world design, in respect to this, impresses Henry's conception of the female as voidal and the meeting of male and female as deformed and perverse onto the world. The world around Henry is then one in which men do not work - in which factories do no function - and that everything from 'Mother Earth', such as the hay and vegetation in his room, is rotten and infesting. The sound design, the wind, shows this voidal world as dangerous and inhospitable. Everything female is tainted, and the males are almost completely absent. Such defines the way in which Henry operates. He is unsure of the feminine around him and scared of the feminine within himself; he does not know how to operate in the world, nor does he know how to take care of his baby alongside the woman he created it with.

Fascinatingly, when the baby speaks, when his will is put into the world, when he cries, his mother, Mary X, is forced to leave. She cannot bear the crying and so Henry must take care of the child himself; he must tend to the baby's words (its cries) and shape them into a kind of speech that the mother can bear to hear. However, in tending to the baby's cries, Henry discovers that it is ill...


What Henry has created, seemingly through impulse and as guided by the monster...


... is unsurprisingly damaged. However, instead of figuring out how to fix the baby, how to take care of it and fix its speech, Henry dreams of his perfect woman:


The Lady In The Radiator is, in my view, Henry's anima manifest. In such, it is the idol and the archetype of his perfect woman. It is a tainted idol, deformed and perverted, but it is nonetheless endearing and, most importantly, has beautiful speech.

The Lady In The Radiator sings of heaven as a place where everything is fine and about the inherent good in both herself and, seemingly, her lover. The Lady In The Radiator then embraces and celebrates a utopian vision for undeveloped individuals seemingly in love. She implies that the perfect woman for Henry is then one who does not test his speech...


... who does not give birth to his children...


... and who does not ask him to know her and to mature. This woman steps on his seed:


In other words, this woman undermines his masculinity and leaves him a boy. And, in Henry's estimation, it seems that the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall is as close to this kind of woman as he will get.


We can estimate this as it is after dreaming of The Lady In The Radiator that he discovers more of his own sperm-like constructs coming from Mary X:


He casts this away, he casts away the chance of having more children with Mary, and finds himself the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall.


The two descend into a pool, igniting thoughts of the first body of water we see in the film:


This pool from the intro seemingly represents the feminine and the unconscious mind simultaneously. Much like one can dive into their unconscious mind, so does one dive into the feminine in the world of Eraserhead, and so this is the journey Henry takes with the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall. With her Henry finds his perfect woman, a sexual lure who seemingly does not want children. Henry has found his heaven. And so The Lady In The Radiator sings again...


Henry, seemingly having found heaven, then meets his anima:


She extends her hands to him, he touches them and she releases a blinding light:





This light is an illumination of sudden truth. The Lady In The Radiator, a little like Mary X, has interacted with Henry's seed - his speech - and from that has come the potential for light - for good. However, no good comes from the world Henry creates. His world disappears - like Mary X, The Lady In The Radiator is suddenly gone - replaced by the monster...


The undeveloped monster stares at Henry. This is who he has been possessed by. And so he realises the dead nature, the deceased feminine, that he projects onto the world in the form of a leafless tree...


The tree is life, it is the feminine. Henry has the ability to call this into being, but, such an act is represented as him losing his head:


A phallic object knocks Henry's head off and it rolls onto a ground of black and white - of masculine and feminine.


Life, the tree, then begins to bleed...


Henry's head is drenched in the blood - which may be considered menstruation blood.


This seemingly symbolises a rejection of the feminine becoming the dark world in which a man's head - his Logos - can exist. The man who wishes he never had children, who wishes his deformed child dead, bathes in the blood of abortion and dead cells. Thus the shadow of a man's sexuality consumes and simultaneously reflects him.


Meanwhile, from the phallus that decapitates Henry comes the undeveloped baby. Creation comes out of him whether he likes it or not and however deformed it must be. Henry's head then re-enters the world...



It falls through the feminine into a wasteland and a boy picks the head up before an elderly man can reach it. The boy takes to a factory and they turn the brains into rubber that is put on the end of a pencil.





This set of events depicts a cycle that the immature masculine mind puts into the world. The underdeveloped man follows an ethos that is easily sold by all - it is one of consumption and irresponsibility. This consumption is detrimental to all. It sees the man's ability to talk and to create manifest and then wiped out. A little like Henry calls his child into existence, but effectively wipes it out, his head is made into an eraser on a pencil - a tool of speech - that will erase the pencil's markings - its words. Henry's mind, which made this eraser, is shown as a destructive force, its remnants like stars in heaven that fall all too easily...


Refusing to acknowledge this vision of his, Henry seeks out the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, but she has moved on. He has nothing but his deformed child, and it laughs at him.



Notably, the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall sees him for who he is: a father to the deformed child...



She rejects him because that is her nature; she wants nothing but pleasure. Henry wants more; we wants companionship and pleasure constantly: a true heaven. He will not get this. Henry is then forced to investigate what this creature that he created is; he must cut it open:


Within his baby he finds only a heart - or organ of some kind...


This represents Henry's anima (his own heart; his masculinity). He sees within the baby himself, vulnerable, weak and deformed. He then decides to destroy it:



Haunted by flashing lights - which symbolise realisation and simultaneously the calling of something into being - and the growing deformed baby, Henry has a final vision. He sees the egg from the beginning again. He realises that it represents his anima, and that, in having a child, he ventured into it. It explodes...


... and Henry sees himself to be the destroyer of his own words...


We cannot know if Henry's journey into his anima was positive or negative. We have witnessed a man realise his weakness and corruption and destroy what he created out of this. Does this mean he will go on to create good? Does this mean that he only failed to turn what was damaged into something good?




A huge thank you to anyone who read all the way down to this point. I don't ever imagine people do make it down here. But, well done and thanks to anyone who got here by reading everything.

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