dreams that may never come true

Just a few days ago I thought that I would not mind being single for as long as the world wants me to, but it only took the sight of a few loving couples and one simple dream to shatter my fortitude. This morning, I wish I never woke up.

On the brighter sight, a very generous friend gave me DVD copies of Out 1: Noli me tangere, taped from European TV broadcast. The picture is virtually in black and white. There are constant interlacing issues, as well as shimmering red and blue blobs that one gets occasionally from tube TVs. Of course, there is no subtitle, although it has become less of an issue as I gradually put more heart into learning the language. Despite these foreseeable shortcomings, the DVDs are quite watchable. I have dealt with even poorer picture quality in several old VHS tapes such as Mouchette, Persona, and Satyajit Ray's The Adversary. Nevertheless, the major disappointment comes from the incompleteness of the movie: the running time totals 10.5 hours, which means we are missing 2 hours of content, mostly near end of even-numbered episodes. The last episode, however, is complete, and I could finally see the infamous ending that concludes a 12.5-hour exercise in improvisation and myth-searching.

As one may expect, I naturally tried to look for all of Juliet Berto's segments. Much to my dismay, they are hardly as long as the esoteric rehearsals of the theatre troupes. One of my favorite moments occurs near the end of the first episode, where we look out over the city of Paris from the window of Juliet's room, and then the camera slowly pans back into the room and towards Juliet on the floor, sitting, pondering, and caressing a pistol. Based on the proportional theory, this scene should last at least 3 times longer than what we see in Out 1: Spectre, but alas, or perhaps I should say how fortunate, as Rivette chooses to preserve its fullness in Spectre. Another favorite scene of mine involves Juliet bouncing back and forth several and times in the hallway. Eventually she stops in front of the camera, leans herself against the wall, affects a look of exhaustion, points towards the audience and utters, "Toi... qui gagne." And then she lays her hand on her chest, points to herself, and mumbles, "Moi... qui perds." All this time she puts on a dreamy, lackadaisical look with an intensity that I doubt any other actress in history could convey with such ease and spontaneity.

Whoa, I guess I am really in love with her.

Last night I saw Michael Haneke's The Seventh Continent. What a nasty film! Perhaps one with the most intense atmosphere of hopelessness and destruction that I have ever seen. Of course, the abstract occurrences invite all sorts of interpretation, although it also strikes me that Haneke's focus and concern have not changed much over his 20 years of film-making: television, alienation, repetitiveness, and violence. The role of television almost feels like a cliche, but I need to remember that this movie is his first feature! Not something I would want to see again, definitely.