This is a collection of my writings. The archives of which may be a good place to start reading.

As in a pendulum

There is some kind of mesmerizing charm in the dawdled movement of a pendulum. The endless and profound tic-tac of there and back again. It was not an ideal state, as I reckoned, and I prefer this place to work as originally intended (sans comments). We have seen the arguments against comments; the struggle to keep up with what is said; the hierarchically organized symposium; the filtering of the good, the bad and the ugly; the dilution of interesting points of view… All these is clearly unacceptable, but above all lies the fact that you need time and space to write thoughtful pieces.

pendulumThe ensuing thoughts should be allowed to breathe. You need the room to breathe. Comments do not breathe easily. In some publications the things someone could say in a brief comment do not necessarily matter for advancing the topic. If you dissent with the author you need to construct your ideas, polish them and present them. The medium conforms the message, always, so why not devote time –and space– to elaborate on a given topic?

So the pendulum is now again at the domain of horizontal discussions —conceived by the do it in your own sandbox and through the sand back here frame of mind. We all might imagine a place where beautifully crafted words take a stand to discuss honorably. And so this place is, again, shut to outlanders.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

vickycristina★★★★
Some should ponder whether there is any point in saying «there is no Woody Allen like the old Woody Allen»; but whatever that case may be one thing remains out of doubt: he still can produce captivating cinematographic moments. Vicky Cristina Barcelona —while certainly not A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy— manages to briefly shine at its own pace. The rhythm and atmosphere developed by the montage of close-ups and dialogues (particularly when the trio establishes) construct a subtle and captivating mise-en-scène and that alone makes it stand in its craft.

The dialogues are not traditionally inter-cut but instead their timing allows to grasp things beyond words —a whole dialogue might be edited on one single character; also helped by the English mingled with Spanish. That is the former Woody Allen reflecting his idolizing of Bergman’s work, and while he might not be capable of apprehending the essence of human beings he can at least suggest its shade. When Ana María arrives from her failed attempt at suicide the movie reaches its peak in the construction of this particular setting.

And it does indeed evoke the emptiness of artists (and the lightness of art in general at the pacing of Giulia y Los Tellarini). The veiled suffering in the ignominious pseudo-amorality which —in the end— does not represent freedom at all but a dark cage instead. And therein lies the two stars of this film; in the feeling of solitude and suffering it shows deep beyond the surface as the laugh turns bitter. In the end, however, it does not manage to come to terms with its own proposal and the mise-en-scène dilutes in the wrong way; the resolution through the gunshot feels pale and lacking. The sourness is still there, nonetheless.

Laughing about the woebegone pawn

Once, I thought I did not want comments in the anals of my journal. I thought that, should someone wanted to read something here, they would just read it and leave. Any afterthought that might have sprung up on their minds could be shared with me by email, or what is better, written in another article on their own diaries. There are also many reasons why comments have graciously faded away into a realm of useless piles of words —which, let me say it, is not per se a fault of the commentators themselves.

So, while the discomfort with the state of comments remains, comments are possible now nonetheless. It is not an ideal state, I reckon, but given that I do not have all the time I would like to write articles, I hope the readers could keep the thoughts going. Currently there is no appropiatte way to integrate comments into the flow of the post; what that means is that comments appear as the mere tail of an article —while the same article stares, vertically, at them from above—. And so the article does not keep evolving horizontally through the way of comments and the replies of the author. Comments should find a way to grow horizontally around the post, while the replies of the author keep the flow of the article —not necessarily updating it endlessly, which would be a very unfortunate case.

I wrote in the contact page: What I write here is intended to be read; that kind of goes without saying but —given that I do not allow comments on my articles— I wanted to des-egocentric-fy the appearance of this place. There are no comments in this journal but that does not mean I do not encourage fruitful discussions. I encourage a horizontal discussion, one in which you reply to me by writing another article in your own journal. That gives us more room for developing a discussion a la letter-to-letter.

The thing with it is that it is not real. No discussion will develop like this, at least not until this site establishes a bit. So, without further drum-rolls, I open comments —retrospectively as well— on this site retreat myself to laugh about a woebegone pawn. Yes. That is indeed a perfectly suiting title.

Indulge me with a Blade for stupidity

One does not need a lot of brain to wonder in silence, utterly muffling incoherent words while bordering panic, about how out of his mind one has to be to think of this. Why? Why the need for a sequel to one of the best science-fiction pictures of all time? To what point? The ending of Blade Runner, the one which does not depict a shallow heavenly world of green, is an excellent ending. Probably one of the best acting sequences for Ford; picking up the origami unicorn, looking backwards and shutting the door. Hey you— he is shutting a door. Doesn’t that ring any bells? He does not want to be followed. We are supposed to remain here.

The ending of Blade Runner is an ending per se —it leaves you on your sit. I quote this, among other thoughtful reasons, from Binary Bonsai:

But more than anything else, consider that we already saw attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion in our minds eye, and it was a sight to see.

Orion is so powerful in our own heads that it shines in its absence; it also constitutes a ground effort to show how film really is about imagination. The often heard cite that “books let you imagine while films don’t” is, for the most part, shattered to pieces with this example. You are seeing Orion in Roy’s eyes and that is its substance; your mind is flying high with all those images you are conjuring while staring at the beauty of a dying Roy. And those images are intended to die, to fade away, out of human reach. What a good way to smash down this pure, and not so often explored, virtue of film; just throw a few wheels of fire and some light bulbs to stand for C-beams and, oh man, we shall enjoy it.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

2001: a nietzschean odyssey

★★★★

2001 does not only constitutes a landmark in film history, but it also makes up a haven for the most distinct kinds of lucubration; a kind of serve as you please amalgam of pictures. Kubrick once said so eloquently – while others echoed it ad infinitum:

You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film —and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level— but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point. — the often cited fragment from a Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick (September 1968).

One. Understanding that speculation is possible due to the film being a coherent piece in its evocative level is our first step. (That they are actually words and not images is somehow important here.) Two. That you are free to speculate does not mean that every speculation you can possibly make is valid in itself. Three. Kubrick did choose Richard Strauss‘ musical poem.

The mischief of the senses.

2001 is regarded in various film contexts as a symphony for the eyes. With that in mind the appreciation of the film was never fully completed as it was often relegated to perception —and a subjective one for that matter— in terms of image-sound, whereas every ulterior interpretation was somehow valid on the ground that validation was not something you could earn but something you already had. And that represents but the first stage in our aesthetic approach to a piece, and while its true that the creator of that piece would be better not outlining the course of thought pertaining to a reflective stage —which, as it needs to be made with words, is not inherently cinematographic— we, on the contrary, cannot elude it.

I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content. (Another fragment from the same Playboy interview.)

I am not denying the possibility of such a film; on the contrary. It is because the film penetrates our perception in its evocative and emotional level that the ulterior speculative stage —about said philosophic content— is even possible. But once we have been affected in our sensibility our understanding wants to start working with the impressions left, organizing them —not as we please but as the representation in synthesis with our understanding is accommodated in a consistent idea. And so I will follow the connection to Friedrich Nietzsche‘s philosophical tract “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, which —if anything else fails— is made evident by the use of Richard Strauss’s musical poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra”.

Of note (from Wikipedia): In an article in the New York Times, Kubrick gave credence to interpretations of 2001 based on Zarathustra when he said: “Man is the missing link between primitive apes and civilised human beings. Man is really in a very unstable condition.”

But let’s suppose he had used another musical piece. 2001 would still clearly be a Nietzschean film as every bit of it resembles –in its poetic way–Nietzsche’s work and ideas. Nietzsche was really an ambiguous thinker (made evident by his often inspiringly unfathomable prose); Space odyssey is no different in that sense.

“Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.”


The Nietzschean idea of a superman is somehow widely known; thus, it is also widely vulgarized and misleading in its use. The übermensch as he wrote is more feasible translated into overman, in a transcendental way. The overman is who transcends Man, not just some present-day man held superior to others but a radically different type of man. Trying to reconstruct the meaning of Nietzsche’s erection by alluding to it as superman is a woebegone effort. Thus, it shall better be paraphrased as over and above man.

The Dawn of Man is the first part of the movie. With the longest ellipsis of all time Kubrick is conveying an important idea: from the ape to the astronaut nothing has essentially changed. We could jump from one to the other because everything remained, in essence, identically. A constant pattern. The Eternal Recurrence of the identical. The question is not how much human beings have evolved, but how little. Human being is still an animal. That is what Nietzsche and Kubrick tried to say.

“All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.” ~ Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche’s prose is marvelous in its power and emotion —it is evocative. And it is not coincidence that Kubrick starts the movie like that. It is a movie full of dawns. Opportunities. Mankind has always had plenty of opportunities to overcome itself. Zarathustra speaks about dusks. (As well as Nietzsche in the Dusk of Idols.) Kubrick —in what could be thought as a dialectical dialogue— speaks about dawns. Still, mankind has chosen the path of repeating one time after the other our eternal mistakes.

Near the end of the opus, when the main character travels to the infinite and sees himself as an old man, in the immaculate white of the room, with the wisdom provided by age, the old man is nonetheless utterly clumsy. He breaks the glass of wine on the floor. What has he done to overcome himself? In the last moment of the film, the human being before dying tries to touch the monolith, the absolute (be it a metaphor of wisdom, knowledge or whatever). But he can’t. From his shelter, his bed-of-death, he extends his arm to the black prism. And then the camera goes into de object which, throughout the movie, remained distant and untouchable. Only the camera goes into it.

The light does not die. Man is ready for the next evolutionary step. His body is cast away. And the starchild is born. — reference taken from Kubrick 2001: The space odyssey explained.

Let’s not take the child too literary! The camera —taking us for this last ride— left us in the space. We are seeing a baby while “Also Sprach Zaratustra” screams comprehension. And while a cold quiver comes up our spine we realize it is Nietzsche’s übermensch. A man which could overcome the Eternal Recurrence of our existence. And now the child is seeing us. Confronting us. Staring at our very essence. We meet our eyes and we are seeing everything we are not. Art is standing straight, hieratically, as a mirror of ourselves. The baby is demanding us: “would you let me exist?” Or is it an illusion constructed by art? After all, it was the camera that went into the monolith, not Men. Kubrick presents the ideas but never concludes them. But we are left to wonder: what has happened —given that Man couldn’t get to the monolyte— to warranty the mere existence of the übermensch? What have we done to overcome ourselves? The man of the future may be born, or may be not. It is up to present-day man —and yes, that means us. It is our journey should we dare to take it. That is, if we can say so, the legacy beyond the symphony for the eyes. There is no such thing as “the starchild is born” as if Kubrick as a puppeteer had commanded such an act to happen. The starchild is not born by inertia.

We could, however, still hold 2001 as a mere experiment with images, and it would succeed as such. Because what is important here is that film cannot be the topic of usual semiotics; film is, before everything else, representation —thus its emotional impact. Semiotics come post factum as reinterpretation of the representation which affected us in the first place. That is why a truly cinematographic piece of art has to be pure in its aesthetic representation, otherwise it feels pale and shy. A shy emulation of literary semiotics, a pale impression of cinematographic possibilities.

Indy the fourth

★★★★

This second and short text might appear to be a late call to those reading but —and this is what motivates this article— what a relief to be able to not fully regret your time lost (and money spent) in a cinema nowadays. The opening scene of this movie feels like fresh air into the over-saturated, dull and stiff tone of today’s Hollywood movies.

What is kind of sad though is that Spielberg has lost his capacity to suggest instead of merely show. One has to wonder whether he would have shown the ants devouring his characters in the previous trilogy, or would have made use of the off-screen space, in which the action that is happening is not showed directly but through another subject (as the eyes and expressions of a character viewing the scene and reacting to it). The completion occurs only in our heads. Imagination is always much more powerful, eager and pervert than most explicit images.

Spielberg himself has talked about the reasons behind not showing the shark in Shark due to technical limitations and the unbelievability of the shark–machine used at that time. One has to wonder then, should he get to shoot Shark again in these times, would he show what he so expressively suggested years ago?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)