Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Notes for a Film Review
Monday, January 12th, 2009
There’s still a little behind-the-scenes turbulence here at the cabal in the aftermath of a server migration. (Which would be why you’re seeing Alex’s story for a second day.) Please bear with us for another day or two while thing settle down.
I’ve heard so many comments about The Glass Flames in past months, all opinion without substance: “so strange, so sexy, you must see it.” But my curiosity eventually sent me to the marketplaces where homemade films are sold on DVDs with purple backs.
The opening scene is of a prostitute lying on her back, wearing only jewellery. The camera is from the viewpoint of the person having sex with her, who must be crouching. This continues long enough for me to notice small, red and orange pieces of glass tied into her black hair. The glass flames of the title? And there is a word tangled in jewels around her throat.
After she has come, the scene changes: a drabby block of flats with the title painted on the side. ‘this is a true story’ appears in small letters under the title. (I love fake true stories.)
More instances of the word. I still can’t read it.
The story unfolds: a break-up, a mutual turn to prostitutes, except it’s always the same one. When the girl visits her, they use a two-way glass dildo with small, smooth-tipped flames sculpted up its sides.
Why this repetition of images? A pretence at heat? Hot and fragile at once?
Halfway through the film, I’m thinking that the quality of the film-work speaks of webcams and cameras fastened to necklaces: low quality visuals, shaky camera movements, poor focus. And the dialogue ranges from brilliant to the banality of everyday life.
“I like fire,” she says during one sex scene, and it must be a trick of light but it looks like there’s a brief flame in her hair.
No wonder so many people watch this film: it’s half sex.
Near the ending. She’s masturbating to a camera (on a shelf?). Someone bangs on the door, over and over, shouts in a foreign language. She looks frightened.
She takes the glass flames from her hair and arranges them in a circle around her bed. They turn into fire. (This bit can’t be real.)
“My name is,” she whispers to the camera, and the repeated word comes into focus when spoken: a strange mess of sounds, ‘cz’ and ‘kh’ and ‘fl’, and I can’t say it properly.
She smiles as the flames burn brighter, higher, consuming her bed. Shouts, “I’m running away!”
The final scene: a fireman enters the room and finds no body, only the glass flames and a glass woman-shape, completely hollow.
During the credits, there are photographs: the flames on sale in a charity shop, the hollow woman-shape on display in a gallery, an orange-winged bird perched on a wall. (The bird, like the glass turned to flame, is a marvellous piece of visual fakery, made to seem more real by the lack of CGI/illusion elsewhere in the film.)
We’re Sorry
Friday, January 9th, 2009
Unfortunately, this story is unavailable. If it were available, my best guess is that it would go something like this:
There would be a main character of some kind, trapped in a box about the size of a dishwasher. There would also be an explanation of how this had happened, and maybe some hope that he would get out–but he wouldn’t get out, at least not in the story.
There would be some sort of conversation with a person sitting on the box. The odd thing is that I think the main character would be a close friend of the person sitting on the box, but the person sitting on the box wouldn’t let him out. I don’t know why. I don’t think, in the story, that he would want to be in the box, but I might be wrong.
From there, I’m not sure. It’s possible that he’s a magician who is supposed to do an escape, but who fails. Or possibly he’s being shipped somewhere. Or he might be some kind of yogi, meditating. Actually, I just don’t know: really I’m grasping at straws now.
There would be all kinds of lush description, and while there would only be seven lines of dialog, those seven lines would be exquisitely funny. There would be some kind of pun involving a llama, but it would be a good one, not one of the old, tired ones.
And the thing that would be most striking is that by the end of the story, we wouldn’t mind that he was in the box, and neither would he. He would be happy. His friend would go away, but that would be all right. And though there would be no one there, the last thing he would say in the story would be
“Shhhhh.”