The World at a Glance

A few weeks ago I discovered the work of graphic illustrator and animator Guy Delisle. During the past few years, in addition to working at various animation studios, he has accompanied his wife, who is a member of the international group Doctors without Borders, to several fascinating international outposts, and has published graphic works that are autobiographical in nature.

For example, the first work that I read details his experiences in North Korea. Given that this country is notorious for its closed society, and for harboring a repressive regime led by the Sung dynasty (the world’s only Communist dynasty), I couldn’t help but be attracted to this work. He promised, after all, an unflinching glimpse into this country, part of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil”, and a country that furthermore has undergone a leadership transition to the third generation of this dynasty.

What he offers in this work, as well as in others, are short episodic narratives that chronicle his own experiences as he attempts to adjust to life in what are inevitably short-term posts. It must be emphasized over and over that he has the luxury of being able to escape whenever he feels like it, and he is furthermore exempt from the limitations and barriers that are enforced among the native citizens. As such, I feel at times that his works devolve into a type of tourism narrative that never fully delves into the complexities of these respective societies, whether they be North Korea, or China, or in the case of his latest work, Israel and the occupied West Bank.

Delisle offers narratives that follow a familiar trajectory. For example, his arrival, with the accompanying first impressions. Since his spouse, once again, is a member of a prestigious NGO, he typically is able to secure housing in areas as well as edifices that are guaranteed, from the outset, to isolate him from the bulk of the population. Part of this is due to a conscious strategy on the part of the authorities, as is the case in North Korea, where foreigners are concentrated in specific building with the understanding that they will be easier to monitor, but part of this is also dictated by his own understandable concerns with obtaining lodgings that will provide a level of comfort suited to someone from a Western country. There are no multi-generational households here. And this thus can’t help but inevitably constrain him, as I feel it must, for not only do linguistic and cultural barriers come into play, but also economic and class differences. He and his family, once again, are not forced to confront and understand the true dynamics at play in these respective societies.

The type of drawing in these books is one that is characterized by a linear style that emphasizes strong lines and little to no shading or color. These are drawings, and he portrays himself as a character with a prominent jaw and sharp nose, earnest, young, in a clean drawing style. Such is also the case with the other characters he encounters, although from time to time the setting is rendered with more texture. Such is particularly the case with the drawing of the monumental and imposing central tower that is found in Pyong-yang, a building that is meant to be North Korea’s equivalent to the prestige buildings that were erected in other Communist societies (such as the Fernsehtür in East Berlin), but that in this case has become this forbidding and uninhabitable structure that is slowly crumbling. One can’t help but view it as a symbol of the Sung dynasty, and the monstrous scale of the building is rendered in a memorable way.

This rendering of the landscape is also evident in the depiction of holy sites in Jerusalem. During his family’s stay in this area, the author lived in the West Bank, and he undertook to travel and sketch not only the dividing wall but also the many famous landmarks that range from the Wailing Wall to St. Lazarus’s Tomb. They are depicted in what seems an authentic style that can be summed up as a pictorial snapshot, for the way that they are framed in pleasing perspectives that would seem to be in accord with the priviledged gaze of the viewer who seeks harmony and a pleasing composition.  And therein lies another of my concerns, for Guy DeLisle is too much of an commercially-oriented illustrator and storyteller and this limits as well his perspective. He approaches these narratives as a traditional artist would approach a composition, trying to portray an organic whole while at the same time missing the jarring elements that one gets the sense are being self-censored.

I wouldn’t claim to say that he is consciously censoring his material, only that the view seems at times too superficial, and conforms too much to the formulas of a conventional travel narrative. In his book detailing his experiences in Burma, for example, he gives us episodes that would seek to describe Buddhist customs in that country. The monks who circulate with their bowls from house to house, receiving gifts of food the giving of which is considered both an honor as well as a duty on the part of average citizens, or the festivities such as the water-drenching that accompanies the celebration of the new year.

In the case of the West Bank, given that he chose very specifically to live in a house owned by a Palestinian, I was hoping that he would venture from his traditional mode and focus more on the dynamic of cultural as well as political conflict that is in play. I wasn’t looking for a description of Muslim customs among the Sunni majority, or of the political strategies of the Fatah party, but more of an openness to see the jarring elements that are evident. And yet, he seems to concentrate once more on places, on buildings and landmarks and on his interactions with other expatriates or with groups who seem more culturally similar.

The settler movement and the tactic of expropriating buildings is relayed in several episodes, but he never truly tries to contact any members of this group to elicit an explanation of their goals or a recognition of the way in which this movement has impacted the peace process so negatively. His explorations seem, once again, to be all to brief and solitary, as are many of his journeys, and when seeing and reading these episodes where he recounts once again driving out into the barren desert, or being stuck in traffic, I can’t help but think that he has chosen to concentrate on the most superficial elements of his experience in these places.

I suppose it would be unfair to expect that he engage in a form of journalism, but as a graphic animator who specializes in a visual as well as narrative mode that compresses symbols and manipulates them in accord with a special vocabulary that stresses concision, one that at times  breaks modes of static perception, I was looking for narratives that would delve deeper into the respective countries in which he found himself. Narratives that would not end, as they do so frequently, as gags do, with a prompt and simplistic termination that highlights a disparity or ironic element, but one instead that leads to a breakthrough in perception.

Such was undoubtedly the case with Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”, his narrative of the persecution of the Jews in World War Two. The point of view is clear, and the persecutors are portrayed as merciless, grotesque and predatory cats in Nazi unforms, preying on the mice who are unable to defend themselves. This conceit would seem to hark to Kafka’s “The Transformation”, with the portrayal of the salesman who is turned into a cockroach, but it has an ancient history in Western civilization, and it harks back to the earliest fables and myths of classical society, the epics of Homer and the religions of the ancient Middle East. This pictorial language, in other words, refers to an ideological order, and is used to frame stories that seek to question not only the logic of these social and political structures, these being subject to bewildering transformations, but they invite new insights.

Such was very much the case in another graphic work that I recently read, this being the “Illustrated Book of Genesis” that was published by famed counter-culture artist Robert Crumb. In this work, we are treated once again to the hallmarks of a visual style that is able to portray this dynamic, multi-layered approach to representation.  Characters are portrayed with a certain distorted realism, one that seems to inevitably emphasize instincts and impulses that are irrational and as such uncontrollable, and thus we have characters who are at times impossibly sexualized, women who are graced with bursting curves and exhuberant mouthes, as well as those who are gangly and defenceless and awkward, or those that are comical because of the clash in the symbolic language used to represent them (for example, Mr. Natural, the short and impulsive old man with the flowing beard of a biblical patriarch). There are codes that play once again on transitional modes of representation, and these are brought to bear on this work which illustrates the first book of the bible, injecting a note of cynicism and at times irony that can also be viewed as poetic. Graphic representation, to state the obvious, is by no means literalism.

 

In the case of Guy Delisle’s works, and most recently, of “Jerusalem”, one garners the impression of encountering a work that details experiences that are ultimately inconsequential. They are too fragmentary, they are to post-modern, they reveal more of the biases of the author than they do of the experiences and motivations of the people who live in the West Bank, and the motivations that underscore the perennial conflict in this area. Perhaps it is part of the intention of the author not to offer narratives that conform to a distinct ideological program, and instead let the reader thread the bits that are offered here, but what happens is that one feels at times that the bits that are offered never truly penetrate the surface, and instead, what we have in this narrative as we have in so many narratives of Western explorers in travel literature dating back for several centuries, are experiences that fall back on a portrayal of the inscrutable nature of these exotic places. The veil of the Muslim women who occasionally attend his seminars serves to exclude the artist, and it is here, at times, in one memorable episode, that we see how the author is able to communicate his frustration, while offering a critique of a society and culture that does not conform to Western modes of equality of opportunity.

After all, if he has chosen to write and illustrate a book that details his experiences in a region that has been characterized by one of the most intractable conflicts of the modern era, he would do well to focus on the dynamic of power at play, and not to limit himself to what at times seems to be a self-centered narrative of inconsequential episodes that inevitably are concluded with a semi-ironic observation.  This is part of the frustration that I have come to feel with these works, although I appreciate them as individual chronicles that, while signaling no individual transformation as provoked by an unexpected insight, nonetheless offer an engaging look at the surface of what will remain inscrutable societies.

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

Wistful Time-travel (Review of Stephen King's 11/22/63)

The theme of time travel has proved perdurable in science fiction. As we imagine the pageant of time, with the list of noteworthy events and individuals, we are led to believe that our history textbooks in some way have captured the essential moments that constitute the backbone, so to speak, of history. Little do we appreciate that there is more to the past than we imagine, and that is it instead a dynamic web of processes, operating within a matrix of conditions that we can’t really isolate. I am reminded of a quote by Stephen Jay Gould, who said that, if we could turn the tape back several hundreds of millions of years ago, it would be highly improbably that the “movie” of history would repeat itself the way it had. He was referring to evolution, but we can just as fruitfully apply it to the events of human history.

It has been over a year since I read Stephen King’s novel “11/22/63”. It was fairly well received when it was released in 2011, and I remember putting myself on the wait list at our local library to borrow this book. It represented an exercise in nostalgia for many, for the date, of course, was indelibly marked in the consciousness of so many Americans. It is the date in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

We all have certainly entertained the fantasy that is distilled in the question, “What if?”. It is grounded, of course, in the fallacies of history alluded to in the first paragraph, the idea that, if we knew then what we know now, perhaps we could have changed history. Failing that, if we could travel back into the past, then maybe, just maybe, we could have avoided this national trauma and rescued ourselves from the difficulties in which we currently find ourselves. Be these personal or public, if only we could go back and prevent or change such and such an action, then maybe, just maybe, things would be immeasurably better. Maybe we would still have intact families, maybe we would have saved a loved one, and maybe our country would be on a more positive course. Who is to say, however, that anyone in the past would have bothered to listen to us? And not to be a Pangloss, in reference to Voltaire’s character in his novel Candide, who proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, who is to say that our world would not be worse?

This novel is rooted, I believe, in a form of liberal nostalgia about the Kennedy years. It is a sentiment that I have noticed in a certain sector of our population, the idea that in the last four decades, our country has been fallen prey to the machinations of conservative groups, and that is has become a more divided nation. What if we could somehow avoid this process, and what if we could return to a more hopeful period, to the Camelot that is associated with the fateful presidency of a youthful John F. Kennedy?

Of course, the idea seems foolish. Events are not driven by individuals, that persist fallacy that consumes so many of us, but are instead driven by processes, to adopt a Structuralist point of view that focuses as much on economics and culture as on the role of institutions. This is not to deny the role of individuals, only minimize it to point to the fact that there is a grander dynamic at play. The Kennedy assassination haunts the imagination of liberals (in the modern sense, of course, and not in the classical conception of liberals in the 19^th century), because they view that event as a turning point, one that set the stage for the more energized conservative movement that was supposedly to shift this country to the right.

Stephen King uses this conceit in his novel, one in which he imagines that it is possible for his protagonist to return to the past. As such, his influence would be outsized, because he would be privy to secret knowledge that would change the course of the world, but also, because it represents also what may be termed a quixotic venture. Yes, quixotic, for it is motivated by an impossible idealism, a desire to turn the clock back, and to set in motion new processes. It also represents a novel of encounters, for it gives the author the opportunity to recreate the feel of a period of time that strikes me as incredibly wistful and personal.

There were many experiences during the 60s. It was different for the middle classes, for those who lived in the cities, for those who were members of ethnic minorities, for those who were women and, of course, for those children, to name just a few. As the years pass by, we tend to idealize the period that pertains to our youth, and in my case, this period corresponds to the 70s, a decade that it became customary to dismiss. For the protagonist, a divorced teacher by the name of Jacob Epping, he is able to travel to this period by means of a mysterious transport mechanism that is located in a storage space located in the back of a small and unobtrusive restaurant. We don’t need to speculate on the actual mechanism, because this isn’t important to the story. It is simply there, and the protagonist, a high school teacher, is convinced by the restaurant owner to undertake a mission, that of preventing Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy.

The evocation of the times is one that is invested in a powerful sense of nostalgia. Yes, there are certain stereotypes about this period that are given play in this novel, the sense that we lived in a more cohesive culture, that people were much more trusting and open, that there was more of a business-friendly outlook, but also, behind all of this, the feeling that the international political situation was heating up and that, at any moment, conflict might break out with the socialist block of countries.

But more than just imagining a return to this era, what I found most mesmerizing was the depiction of the character of Lee Harvey Oswald, the unstable, violent, ne’er-do-well loner who moved within different circles, and was able to somehow engineer his defection to the Soviet Union before returning once again. There have been so many conspiracy theories advanced with regards to this individual and the training and help he may or may not have received, in addition to that fact that, so many years later, something within us refuses to believe that such an individual could have carried out his plan to completion. He himself said that he was a “patsy”, alluding to the help of other mysterious entities, but this connection has never been adequately proved and we are left to consider the spectacle of a belligerent and unstable loner who was able to carry out this assassination.

The protagonist feels distinctly like a secondary character when we compare him with the assassin. Jacob Epping follows Oswald, and each time we see the future assassin, there is a certain visceral thrill that I imagine we all feel, this feeling that we are viewing a monster at work, however small and petty he may seem. But the real monster, of course, is another, and it is a testament to Stephen King’s prowess as an author of thrillers and horror novels that he suggests this from an early stage.

The idea is, of course, grounded in our understandable need to protect and cherish our most valuable illusions. These correspond to our past, of course, but in this case, the protagonist finds himself seduced by another character, a female teacher by the name of Sadie Dunhill, fleeing a failing relationship, and by an entire small town by the name of Jodie, located in Texas. It is the idea of something that is fleeting, of something more vulnerable than a candle in a gale force storm, of something to which he grows more and more attached to the point that he begins to question his original rationale for traveling to the past. If may be that, for him, his individual interest outweigh those of a certain liberal nostalgia that seems much too abstract when compared to the corporeality of a vulnerable lover who offers him the protection and warmth and companionship he didn’t have in his own future. Is this not the case of a nostalgic idealization? I would have to believe so.

There is another threat that haunts Jacob, and this is the entity that is known as the “Jimla”. The phrase is first heard at a high school football game, and he takes it to refer to the star quarterback, but it resonates with him for it suggests a menace that lurks behind the corners, at the edge of perception, a menace slowly creeping up on him. It is, once again, a testimony to the mastery of the author that the precise nature of this menace is not revealed until the final section of the book, and it has to do, perhaps, with an idea of self-absorption. The Jimla is, indeed, a haunting entity, and it is driven by loss as well, in a way in which we may personify the loss that is felt by many who still mourn the death of an ideal, the destruction of Camelot.

I am fascinated by this attempt to recreate a lost period, one that, furthermore, is not too distant in the past but that is different enough so that it seems more haunting. I can’t imagine us being able to idealize the present year 2013 in the same way, and the presidency of Barack Obama, one that has proven so disappointing to many of us progressives who were hoping for so much more. But then again, this idealization needs the intervention of time, and if our world comes to seem more disorienting and bewildering than it already is, then this period, because it is a period that will come to an artificial conclusion, may be ripe for idealization.

In the novel, we are in for one further treat: we are able to imagine a world in which President Kennedy had not been assassinated on that fateful day. What are the consequences? The author imagines a nightmare scenario that gives much for thought for thought, as if he were purposely trampling the cherished notion that things would be better. The horror of this alternative world, one in which nuclear bombs have actually been exploded in the United States, and in which the country is on the verge of coming apart, is furthermore augmented by a giant “ripping” sound in the fabric of the sky, as if this scenario were so unstable and horrifying that the author were anxious to bring it to a close, to rip up the pages and crumple them, in a sort of metaliterary intervention that is delicious to contemplate.

I conclude with the original thought that I had written in my first note written last year. Nostalgia is, of course, dangerous, and we had best not hesitate or turn to look back, because, like Lot’s wife, we run the risk of turning into stone. And yet, I am immobilized by my own past, and my own “What ifs?”. I have so many regrets, but no time travel open to me other than the fanciful recounting of my own childhood with friends and family members who were with me, or with reruns that leave me trembling with sadness, or ultimately, with essays that I write in an effort to purge myself from the presence of the “Jimla” from which I might never be able to free myself if I were to allow it to capture me.

(Written on July 2, 2013)

 

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Original entry written on May 4, 2012:

It is almost 11:30 p.m., and I just finished reading Stephen King's novel "11/22/63". It was a book that had received much attention in preceding months, and I always intended to read it but somehow postponed my decision for a later day. Despite my early impressions, it turned out to be more emotionally resonant than I had expected. I'll write about it another day, but it does confirm a sentiment that has been obsessing me for the past few decades. Nostalgia is dangerous.
 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

Too small to hope, too big to fail

I couldn't let Mayday pass without commenting on a film I had first seen several years ago. The title of this film is "Bread and Roses", and it depicts the fictionalized struggle of a group of janitors in Los Angeles to unionize. It thus takes its inspiration from the "Justice for Janitors" campaigns that arose almost 25 years ago, but introduces dramatic elements to make an appealing film that portrays a triumpth that is obtained against almost impossible odds.

As is typically the case with most films that deal with Latino life, it begins with the moment of crossing. Maya is smuggled across the border in a journey that, in light of the difficulties of contemporary crossings where the border has become increasingly militarized and the full weight of technology has been brought to bear, seems almost painless. It is still an arduous crossing carried out by dangerous individuals, but it isn't the odyssey that takes contemporary crossers through the scorching hot and barren terrains of Arizona and other border states, where casualty rates have risen dramatically.

The movie is premised on a series of conflicts that seem to succeed each other in rapid succession. Maya moves into her new job after having failed as a waitress and we get a chance to see working conditions that take a heavy spiritual toll. The supervisor or boss, played by George Lopez, is a loud and coarse and paternalistic individual, who browbeats his workers continually. He seems to fire workers almost at will, and revels in his power. While watching his performance I found it impossible to divorce it from his persona as the famous Chicano comedian who tells bitterly honest stories of his childhood, mainly because I don't wish to see him in the role of the "heavy". However, the dynamic is portrayed honestly, and the existence of abusive bosses who take advantage of their largely immigrant workforces is amply confirmed by experiences recounted to me by many friends and family members.

The revelations are paced according to the dictates of a movie that wishes to move the action along at a brisk pace. Maya quite frankly seems to seethe with rebellion, and yet she is tolerated by her boss who otherwise would not seem to tolerate any resistance. She takes the step and invites the labor organizer, Sam Shapiro, to come and address a group of workers that she gathers.

Their is a love triangle that somehow does not ring true. It is hard to believe that she and Sam could have a bout of flirtation, but the bonding that takes place between the workers somehow seems more plausible and, if we had to admit it, more emotionally satisfying. We see them progress from fear and disbelief and almost mute submission to a forthright and energizing hope that gives them confidence, even though they are still in the position of the figurative underdog battling long odds.

Other revelations and consequences ensue, but what strikes me as they proceed is that they don't quite capture the long grind of a process such as this one. The film is compressed to accord with artistic dictates, and in my experience, having lived in Los Angeles and preserving as I do a vague awareness of this struggle during the 90s, I seem to remember a long series of actions that were met with many reverses. The alternative press (The LA Weekly, a publication that is otherwise quick to proclaim conspiracies in the most hyperbolic terms) did devote some coverage to the movement, and it would appear as well from time to time in the regular media. It was a long grind, from what I remember, but in the film the desired result is achieved almost instanteously. Perhaps this serves as well to encourage what might be a misleading but well-intentioned goal, which is that of emphasizing the postive outcome that clearly was not obtained without prolonged pain. Many workers lost their positions, many lost the little security they had, and many quite simply were deported or were forced to leave of their own initiative. The casualties are missing in this film.

And yet, the film is appealing because of the uplifting nature of this narrative. While Maya may prove to be the only casualty of this battle, removed as she is from the group, we are left to harbor the hope that such a story can inspire others. But the climate in this country has turned very ugly in the last ten years, and what seemed plausible back in the 90s seems almost impossible now. Political rhetoric has become even more vitriolic against not only immigrant workers but also the labor movement, and this has served to engender a new nativist movement that, in the wake of the calamitous crash of the economy, has moved public opinion to favor the corporations that have systematically mismanaged our economy. We have this repressive movement now that wishes to remove all regulation, and we have the spectacle of more states such as North Carolina that, to follow the model of other states in the South, have enacted policies that undermine unions, proclaiming themselves "right to work" states. I am astounded at the hypocrisy of these corporations that have been undermining the economy and eliminating jobs for decades, and yet now claim that they should be saved from any regulation in order to allow them to create new jobs.

The problem is not cartoonish goons such as Mr. Perez. It is a system that seems as impregnable as ever, and has harnassed the power of fear on a wider scale, justifying the villification of workers as a hindrance to job creation, but failing to take the blame for their own unrestrained greed and mismanagement. We are more firmly under the control of corporations than ever before, and stories such as this one in which a small group of immigrant workers manage to unionize and gain concessions seems all the more unlikely.

Labor and workers are, as always, an afterthought. Dignity does not accrue to the service or white collar or public sector employees. Now, the Tea Party and other repressive movements have elevated once again the tycoons of business as the paragons of virtue, avators that mesmerize us with their power and their appetite and their unrestrained greed. And, whether they take the form of visionary leaders such as Steve Jobs or more shadowy figures such as the Koch brothers, it is ultimately dangerous to our democracy to invest any group of people with such authority.

Haunted by Memory

One of the compelling illusions about life is that things happen for a reason. We have this deep-seated need to find purpose in life, to take the scattered jumble of pieces that confront us on a daily basis and try to reassemble the puzzle, fearing as we do that which seems random, mysterious and ultimately, unknowable. Thus we impose order on our world, and when we reflect on our lives, we can't resist the temptation to construct narratives in which motives are assigned and certain crossroads are conveniently sketched out out. Such is the construct of memory.

A few weeks ago I had coffee with a friend who I first met in college over twenty years ago. Ours had not been a long-term friendship that could be characterized as fellowship or "brotherhood", and instead, was limited to greeting each other from time to time on campus and chatting briefly in the few classes we shared. I detected in him something of the same feeling of dissatisfaction with our chosen career, someone who knew that the world was a more vibrant and challenging conundrum than that offered by a circuit diagram. After graduation, we lost contact with each other and, as I found out afterward, our lives took different turns. Years later when we met again it seemed as if we were able to seamlessly resume a friendship that was motivated in large part by a shared nostalgia for the mutual friends and for the feeling of being young and dynamic but also disaffected and curious, when we were both in our early 20s. To be truthful, we found ourselves at that mid-life crossroads and, despite the different turns in our lives, it has been the basis for a new friendship.

My friend told me during our chat about an Argentinian film called "El secreto de sus ojos", one that had obviously impressed him greatly. It is a recent film, and was nominated for an Academy Award for foreign-language films. He stressed what a visceral impact it had on him, and perhaps because of its melancholic quality, as well as a story that seemed to stress the possibility of overcoming the burden of memory, he though it would appeal to me. He was right.

The film narrates a fictional story of an investigator named Benjamin Espositio who is obsessed with a  homicide case that reached an unforunate end. A young woman by the name of Liliana Colato is found murdered, and in the course of his investigation, he is forced to come to certain truths about his own life. Esposito is a middle-aged man who seems to find himself disengaged from life, going through the motions of a career that seems to offer little satisfaction. He is jarred into the present by the arrival of a new official, a young woman named Irene Menendez Hastings, who has obtained a doctorate in jurisprudence from the US and is assigned to head the department. He is obsessed with her, but unable to act on this impulse, and he transfers this obsession to the case at hand.

Liliana was also an attractive woman who would seem to have been happily married. Her brutal murder somehow affects him deeply precisely because of his own unacknowledged interior crisis. In the course of the investigation, aided as he is by a comical subordinate by the name of Pablo Sandoval, he manages to settle on the identity of the supposed culprite, a man named Gomez. During this pursuit, which ocassions certain comical episodes as well as not-so-comical confrontations, he is left to meditate on the nature of obsession, and this obsession takes the form of a novel which he writes and which he shares with Irene. The movie, as it happens, transpires by juxtaposing two historical moments, that of the mid 70s when the case first occurred, and twenty years later, when Esposito has retired and has all the time in the world to look back and to reflect on a case that was not successfully resolved.

It seems as if there are certain emotional needs that have never been resolved for the main characters as well. What would seem to have been a straightforward murder mystery is one that is sidetracked to investigate instead the way in which we all humans blind themselves to the patterns that characterize us. If investigators make use of the concept of a "tell", an physical sign that reveals inauthenticity, then we are left to ponder the opposite, to ponder if there are signs that are hallmarks of truth, devoid of any ambiguity. The conceit in this movie is that the eyes and, in particular, the gaze is an indication of such a connection, of a truth in need of acknowledgement. And what we have are characters who are unable to acknowledge the truth of their own needs, and the fact that, despite belonging to different generations and different social classes and different psychological characters, Esposito and Irene are madly in love.

The murdered woman, Irene, would seem to have found a husband who reciprocated her own deeply-felt obsession. Her husband, a man by the name of Morales, seems devasted by the news of her murder, and insists on carrying forward with the investigation even when the leads, pointing as they do to the involvment of a childhood friend by the name of Gomez, have grown cold. This obsession, that look of devastation, that idea of time having halted for this man who has lost a wife, haunt the investigator through the intervening years, and he will find himself returned to his department and reaching out to Irene as he embarks on his own journey through the labyrinths of time and memory. And given that memory is an unstable terrain that can easily dissolve underneath one's feet as we reflect on how we all share an elemental need to erect a fiction that will comfort us, we find ourselves sharing in the mystery of a dilemma that remains unresolved, one in which we wonder if haunted people will be able to purge themselves of their ghosts.

And this movie does indeed take a devastating turn when things would seem to have been concluded in a messy fashion. It seems that the guilty man is freed, and justice is, indeed, another quimera that escapes capture. Gomez confesses and is jailed but is then freed, Esposito's sidekick Sandoval is brutally murdered, and the main characters are also left to wonder at how to carry on with, as Esposito expresses it, the charade of an empty life. Is there any conviction that will allow them to find the road out of the respective emotional labyrinth in which they find themeselves?

The ending is gruesome, and it offers a troubling vision of the depths to which obsession and the search for justice may lead. We all write our own fictions, but at a certain point, fiction can be paralyzing because it contributes precisely to a sense of stasis, to the illusion that we can retrace our steps and avoid the feeling of crushing regret that affects so many of us, as if by having made other choices, we would have avoided the endless certainty of new misteps. And in this way, perhaps the ending seems a little too sentimental for me because it conforms one again to old Hollywood formulas (indeed, these are old human verities) of the classic "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl" story. If is a thin veneer that coats the truly frightening aspect of this story, that which will leave the spectator haunted, and which resides in the fates of Morales and Gomez.

Memory perhaps can be prison, but we all need our fictions to convince us of the possibility of escape.


Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

Return to Earthsea

I had a chance recently to reread Ursula K. LeGuin's "Tales from Earthsea", a volume of short stories that represent a return to her fantasy world first presented over forty years ago in her classic "A Wizard of Earth Sea". I first encountered that book in the late 70s as a child, and was seduced by the poetic beauty of the prose and the images, at a time when most children would be deemed to be more immersed in their own vain and somewhat lustful obsession with satisfying their immediate appetives. I was an inveterate reader from an early age, and this world always seemed to be particularly akin to my own contemplative nature, for I too was an outsider. And as such, I was glad that the author decided to return to this world, publishing both the novel "Tehanu" as well as this collection of stories.

It is a world in which both the concepts of equilibrium as well as logos are supreme. As such, these are emblematic of both of limits but also, paradoxically, of power. Knowing a name confers power, and it represents a form of cognitive mastery that is frightening in this world. Characters, as ever, seek to hide their real names, and go instead by their use names, the masks that may reflect a certain quality that distingishes us (for example, the afinity of one character to transform himself into an otter), but also the need to construct a defensive barrier. There is a deep metaphysical issue at play here, for we are forced to consider more deeply what is the nature of this essence that is leaves one vulnerable, but also, when shared freely, is an emblem of love.

The stories range from the mythical past to the era that follows the return of Ged with the new king Lebannen. These stories deal with the founding of Roke and the fellowship of the Hand (this can't help but recall the title of a Michael Mann movie of many years back, Band of the Hand), but also with the search for balance and for a true home for all the characters involved. Irioth, the summoner who was overpowered by his own frailty and fear, wanders through a misty landscape after having challenged two powerful mages of Roke, a damaged man who is forced to follow through on his penance while finding the possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

Other characters are involved in similar searches, and in a sense, we have fables that relate to eternal human verities. The fact that magic is involved serves to give concrete form to a certain metaphorical depth that, as ever, resonates with the mysteries of human emotion and desires. For while magic is subject to analytical study, and spells as well as names may be compiled in books of lore, one is left as ever with a deep consideration of the way in which magic merely reflects human impulses that are, as ever, rooted in deep and primordial urges.

I find myself seduced by the landscape of a wild sea, of exotic peoples, and of dragons taking flight to the west. It is certainly a fable that points to transformation but also, ultimately, reconciliation.

 

 

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

 

 

City of Possibilities

I can’t recall how I first hear of Jason Lutes’ graphic novel, “Berlin: City of Stones”.  As I reflect now, I seem to remember that I had written the name of this work on a scrap of paper, and this scrap must have lain in my drawer for a few months before I actually decided to purchase the book.

Upon first reading it, I was completely entranced. This is a historical narrative that manifests strong literary qualities, investigating as it does the epoch of the Weimar Republic in the late 20s and early 30s. As we well know, this period was marked by grave instability and ongoing conflict in the wake of Germany’s bitter defeat in World War I. It is as such a tragic work because we know that despite this instability the country had for a time been illuminated by a hopeful light, that of the advent of the Republic that put an end to the rule of the Kaiser and his “barons”, those traditional political and economic elites that as reflected in the rumination of selected characters, had such an overwhelming influence on Germany.

This narrative follows the story of several characters to give us a multi-faceted view of life in the city of Berlin. We follow art student Marthe Müller and journalist Kurt Severin, along with many minor characters that represent different economic, social and political groups. As such, this graphic novel very much incorporates a panoptic viewpoint that is characteristic of the realist novels of the 19^th century, recalling the novels of Dickens, Galdós, Balzac and, of course, Döblin, as they examine their respective historical moments.

Throughout this work we are made aware as well of the vitality and excitement of Berlin. This is another paradigmatic city, akin to London or Paris or Madrid, in which the new processes are at work and in which new juxtapositions are evident. And we are made aware as always of the political conflict of this era, and of movements that were to assume central importance and were to lead to the tragedy of the 30s and 40s. Nonetheless, with the evocation of Berlin on a grand scale, we are made aware of similarly pivotal events, and this first book will terminate with the episode of the massacre of protesting workers during the May day rally of 1929.

The characters are nuanced, and they reflect certain ambiguities and uncertainties. They are in no way to be viewed as types, and instead we share in the doubts they feel, conveyed as they are not only in spoken word dialogues but in thought balloons that reveal intriguing contrasts. Thus, we have an old security guard who is assigned to keep public order, and who reflect on the people he sees, revealing a certain wistfulness and desire while at the same time forced to act in the role of a gruff and severe order of agent. In a scene with a prostitute he reveals the need for a certain spiritual comfort and doubt in the fact of the role he will be forced to play. He and other agents will, as suggested by other characters, be forced to entrap the protesting workers in order to cause the massacre that he could certainly foresee on a visceral level. And we feel this unease as readers.

The characters are also confronted by dilemmas. Marthe, the older woman in her late 20s who has arrived to undertake studies in an art academy, is immediately seduced by the city. She is unnerved as well, and finds herself lost by the grand scale and by the novelty that presents itself. Thus, we are made aware of her provincial background as a member of what she herself terms the haute bourgeoisie of Köln, wishing perhaps to escape from the role that would be imposed on her. In this sense, this character strikes a deep chord in myself, for I also felt similarly entranced as well as frightened by my first encounter with the big city, in my case, Los Angeles. Our cities are filled with all manner of refugees, and as such, we look for uncertain hospitality.

The journalist Kurt seems to be suffering from disorientation, struggling to overcome a dry writing spell as he reflects on the new and dangerous possibilities that are making themselves manifest. And it is inevitable that Kurt and Marthe will come together as they strive to find their own personal sense of equilibrium, even as everything else falls apart. And, in the gloom that is projected by this entire work, we know that it will not be a durable encounter.

The work as such is infused with a sense of compassion but also, at times, with a severe historical perspective that takes an unblinking look at the processes in play at this moment. We will have several story lines, and a recurring theme would seem to be found in the figure not only of refugees from the past as well as from a provincial mindset, but also of the disenfranchised and those such as the Jews who are shortly to be subject to severe persecution. The liberal view of a Germany that, however much grounded it was in the idea of empire, the conception of artists such as Heine and Goethe, was to crumble under the pressures of this era. We care about these characters, the outsiders, but I wonder at times if this work is not in need of greater balance for it doesn’t seem to incorporate more fully the viewpoint of the ideologues of repression. But then again, this novel takes not an abstract perspective but instead one that evolves on street level, and indeed, it will reflect that sensibility because so many of the events portrayed are conveyed by the movement and reactions of crowds.

I was impressed by this work, and look forward to the next few books in this series. Because we know what will happen in subsequent years, with the triumph of the National Socialist movement and the frightful spectacle of a cowed Germany, we nonetheless feel compelled to follow the narratives as they swirl and cross and coalesce as well as separate, reflecting as they do the dynamism of this city and its population as they respond to these forces of repression as well as expansion and liberation. And if the subtitle “City of Stone” suggests a social matrix that is unyielding and pitiless, it also can be taken to connote durability and resistance, as we end up ascribing to the full panoply of human characters in evidence.

 

 

Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013

A quiet evening

As we careen towards the end of February, I have been left to reflect on the fact that I have been writing very little in this blog. My journals at home receive my semi-regular scrawls fitfully, but somehow I have little interest in continuing to post here. It may soon be an abandoned site on the internet, a useless appendix that may or not be surgically deleted.

The Academy Awards are coming up this Sunday, and I have been thinking about recent films I have seen. I did get a chance to see Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life", and it was film that seemed overly ponderous. The visuals were entrancing at times, and I did identify with the family dynamics that were evident in the story of the three brothers, but more than anything else, I was taken with the idea of eschatology, the desire for a reconcilation and the arrival of meaning, as evident in the journey of the Sean Penn character as he steps through the door in the desert to follow his younger self, encountering loved ones at a beach at the end of time. For it does seem to lead to what feels like a conclusion, where the old encounter the young, where we come into contact with ourselves and hopefully achieve a sense of peace. And it made me think as well of my own desires, one of which is my wish to have spent more time with my paternal grandmother, a person I knew for only a brief interval of time during the decade of the 70s, and who I have missed ever since.

I also recently saw the move "Crazy Heart", with Jeff Bridges doing a wonderful job as an aging country singer, Bad Blake, and his attainment of a certain regeneration. On the other hand, I seem that the tone of the film was too saccharine at time. We all know that these stories are not meant to end in a happy manner. The aging singer would in all probability have continued to drink himself into oblivion, and the happy ending is perhaps a brief fantasy that is the product of a dying mind, of a character who is lying in a cheap motel living the last few seconds of his life after having had a heart attack. That somehow seems truer.

There are other endings to mention. We are almost at the end of February, and we have had a cycle of extreme weather. We had cold that left us walking around with trails of frozen mist in our stead, but also days of extreme warmth such as today. I'm still walking/jogging in the park, but lately, walking more than the other. My body feels exhausted, and I have to bribe myself to go exercise, promising myself a treat in order to motivate myself to go out. Tighter pants and burst buttons on my shirts also serve to motivate me, as well as the fear of a stroke or heart attack, so I proceed on a regimen of fear and embarrasment, trudging and forcing myself ocassionally to pick up the pace.

Coming up next: I'd like to finish re-reading "One Hundred of Solitude". I also have the film "The Big Lebowski" in my DVD player. There are also other books and movies to read and watch, but also, other matters to attend to this evening. Maybe reflecting that I am not where I thought I would be at my age, but then, I do everything else in order not to have to confront this fact.


Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013