I was on my knees in a newly cleared patch of carpet, sorting clothes and generally wondering why I have such strange things collected, (an antique hunting horn from the black forest, a stack of 45’s, boxes of lite-brite pegs, handfuls of black feathers – these are what I have to move before I can go to bed), when James came in, took my hand and pulled me from my room to sit me in front of the television. “If I was going to tell you, I wouldn’t have brought you in here.” Before me unfolded perhaps the most beautiful opening to a film I have ever seen.
It began with two people, a man and a woman, sitting on a blanket. Behind him suddenly floats an unexpected cloud of vivid colour, a silk bubble in trouble that he sees first in her expression. He turns to watch as it bows gracefully to scrape the ground, to wreck itself. He stands, she stands. Shock, and he begins running. We see other witnesses collect from the countryside, a car stops and a driver tumbles out, a farmer abandons the field to begin running. They all converge on the failing balloon. There is a man caught in the anchor rope and a scared boy in the basket. Music plays but lightly, so light as to be unheard. The sound of wind and cloth are overpowering and crisply played. This is reality, surreal and harsh and pretty. The men all catch ahold of the basket and they are dragged, torn, and bruised. After a struggle, they manage to land it but barely. There is a pause, then from over trees there is a wind. It fills the balloon and rushes it upward, the sound filling the screen and out and into the heart, capturing them all and their hands, lifting them up into the air. The boy is still in the basket. The men hang, the ground leaving them or they leaving the ground. There is a sense of weightlessness, of something important. One by one, they let go, falling twenty feet to the ground, but for one man, the original occupant of the basket, who remains still clinging to the end of the rope. They who fell gain their feet and watch as the balloon continues to climb into an empty blue sky. It is almost like the taste of silence, it is almost true. The angle changes, POV shift in beauty and from above, we watch him fall. Too high. We do not see him impact.
Enduring Love.
I want to see it again.
Instead, I will likely be setting up a time to watch Dead Leaves, (a seriously captivating animated film), as Matthew acquired it for me along with this bag. This bag which will now be a fixture on my person when I am out of house. (I would accuse him of having furtive motives for such gifts, but really, they’re all quite apparent). I am curious if I will be approached either more or less now that I’ll be carrying such a thing around. My geekery will be hung around my neck like a sentence of death, but as I said to Inevitable Bill earlier, as long as it doesn’t begin spontaneously creating dice, I suspect I’ll be okay. I had a moment of hesitation, but then I rather strongly realized that, well, it’s not like I don’t already get recognized on the street all the time, and not always for the purple hair, hat, the barefeet, funny clothes or the ferret. Sometimes it’s from this journal. At least being known as the girl with the wretched humour could be a step down the geek hierarchy ladder.
Notice to the locals: Wednesday -> movies at my place.
Six String Samurai, Scratch, and Napoleon Dynamite.
start time currently unknown but early evening suspected