from Little Gidding

II

Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave. 
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house- 
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse, 
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air. 

There are flood and drouth 
Over the eyes and in the mouth, 
Dead water and dead sand 
Contending for the upper hand. 
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth. 
This is the death of earth. 

Water and fire succeed 
The town, the pasture and the weed. 
Water and fire deride 
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot 
The marred foundations we forgot, 
Of sanctuary and choir. 
This is the death of water and fire. 

In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of interminable night 
At the recurrent end of the unending 
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
Had passed below the horizon of his homing 
While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin 
Over the asphalt where no other sound was 
Between three districts whence the smoke arose
I met one walking, loitering and hurried 
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
Before the urban dawn wind unresisting….

TS Eliot

Frankenfoe.

My quick and lazy review of Poor Things. spoilers fyi

Have been avoiding fictional stories, mostly going for true crime murder mysteries and interspecies adorable friendship videos. But finally decided to watch this after a glass of wine and a frustrating text exchange involving a poorly cared for bicycle that was lent to a friend.

Drink the glass of wine, watch this film/movie? I just came for the puff-sleeve distraction and lacy neck kerchiefs, which you will see a lot of.

Plague vibes in the beginning. Isolated, damaged people, angry and cynical.

Traumatized husk of a dangerously intelligent man (Dafoe) drags a *nearly* dead woman’s body from the water, replaces her brain, brings her back to life, imprisons her, and raises her to be a sexy looking nymph aka manicpixiedreamtard with the mind of a toddler.

He then refers to himself as god, arranges her nuptials, but then inexplicably waves her goodbye as she runs off with a horny creep who was Dafoe’s lawyer for a nanosecond. Creep proceeds to use her as his childlike sex toy, until she becomes even more curious and less malleable (much to his disappointment) and bruises his ego, which of course makes her a challenge, which of course, in the end, makes her evil.

Though she is inconsistently progressing, she really has little interest in anything other than sex, like an 18 year old discovering herself, but clearly not fully functioning. She has vaguely friendly but shallow friendships and changes her outfits, a lot. I wish I could dive deeper, but all I can muster in my dusty brain is that the broken yet brutally honest dialogue is the best part. The overdone world with ambiguous time period: uncomfortable and annoying at times.

Carrying on, to the showboat mid way through, an actual ship that was in there for the visuals mostly, (let us dazzle your eyes so you don’t notice how dumb this movie/film kind of is) I am now descending in interest, lacking much of a story or script.

We now watch Bella fully come into her own and blossom if you will, into a fully autonomous being – but alas, we have now been groomed into thinking her Parisian hooker life is somehow poignant and almost giggly as she rolls around musing and experimenting with the other whores while wearing flowy gowns, which change everyday magically, as if everyone has an infinite wardrobe of quirky couture duds, that they slip into and out of like steam punk avatars.

Don’t try this at home, kids. I have an uneducated but sneaky suspicion that living in a bordello in Paris is probably not as cute as this whole set up makes it. I’m not judging sex workers, but this is a situation with a lot more nuances than this film/movie cares to offer, making it vaguely irresponsible and vacuous.

The surreal time and setting is more like a really cool video game than a film set. The utter chaos of the decor in some scenes makes one feel as if they were lost in an antique consignment shoppe, like a thrift purgatory, if you will, complete with end tables from 2 separate decades that clash horribly. But also like a low budget porn set that’s trying to be victorian – but then, just to keep it extra quirk, throw in an out of place concrete staircase.

I know nothing about the director, but suspect he used to play video games a lot and has weird issues with women. Sorry, that’s just what it seems like.

I guess one should add something here about metaphors and refer to cinematic influences and also swerve it into some sociopolitical commentary, but blah, blah, blah, I don’t care right now.

Bella flits here and there, and then returns to her maker/meddler and all is forgiven, because he too was a victim.

Everyone sips tea and lives happily ever after in an inherited mansion that house all who need it for the rest of their lives. Which is what most people dream of, especially if you live in Hollywood. The end.

2 Stars. Mostly for the costumes, because I am always looking at lines, textiles, and patterns. And there were a lot that I enjoyed. BUT if you are going to put all your extras in rented stock costumes from Ye Olden Days don’t make your main character so avante garde. It gets silly and not in a good way.

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