FLM RVW

AS THE BROKEN PIECES WERE HELD TOGETHER IN BETWEEN BY MELATONIN 

by AE PAULINO

Sleeping Beauty (2011) - Written & Directed by Julia Leigh. Starring: Emily Browning, Rachel Blake, and Ewen Leslie

In cognitive science, I am aware of the so-far human phenomenon which allows our brains to collect partial impressions from the external world and internally compile them into one complete picture. We fill in the blanks, connect the dots, continue patterns, draw conclusions, and all from, at times, so limited a quantity or quality of information. Highly useful for brains wired, through survival adaptations, for rational thought and problem solving. No doubt, it paid off, both to our ancestors and eventually us, to daw inferences from clues; say a lion's paw print in mud, a nearby, newly killed antelope, a growl, and then a moving bush, where would we be today if these things remained separate in the brain, never cross-referenced by memory or experience? 

However great this organization of thought and ability to perceive whole forms, whether shapes, ideas, or compositions, from segmented parts, I feel it is exactly this cognitive tendency, that director Julia Leigh takes certain liberties with which to express her story in her 2011 directorial debut, Sleeping Beauty.

The film follows university student, Lucy who struggles with money and works serving tables at some cafe/restaurant, as a receptionist of some sort at an office, and occasionally picks up random men for what I believe would be paid sex. She comes across an ad in the student paper and discovers a highly discreet, upscale erotic gig, that pays well albeit clients not requiring her services as frequent to allow her to quit her other jobs. Lucy is eventually used in an erotic sleep fetish, where she is drugged into somnolent absence and a client may do as he or she pleased with her so long as there is no penetration or marks left on her slumbering body. 

The film was eerie, with a dull, classic-furniture look that is too expensive to touch but really not comfortable or inviting in the first place. To its defense however, any stylistic visuals or change in tone or color would have subtracted from this film, a complimentary atmosphere between the language of image and story. This being said, the scenes never fully informed us, only hinted and assured us time was passing by. Lucy neither grew nor shrunk, even with her slight breakdown at the end, I had no more idea of who she was in the conclusion than I had at the film's commencement. 

It was like being told a story by a secretive person who didn't want to reveal anything. The result, I wouldn't say was a bad one--Just, plenty of questions remained. The main, for me, was that of the main character Lucy--Who was she? What was she really doing? Events happened but what did they do to her, how did they effect her? She carried on, just as the 30 year old referenced in the anecdotal short story  recounted by one of sleep clients. It was as if she was herself was asleep throughout the entire film. Perhaps, this was the point. Its a reminder of how we at times sleep through our lives, omitting the full details when in retrospect we can always reform the full picture from the partial impressions, however altered they may then become. At the risk of not respecting the weight of our many choices and reactions that gather up into the direction we take in life. Or maybe the film is just saying I need to sleep more.  

Ladders

Before reading Jeremy Narby's book, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge--I watched Lars Von Trier's latest film, Melancholy. I dreamt that same night, after being exposed to the reoccurring, almost base image I found in Melancholy. The front lawn.

The characters are set in a manor, and the lovely house has a beautifully simple lawn in which, with a Magritte sense of surrealism, we see a sky with both a moon and a smaller earth-like planet--both casting two shadows onto earth. Much of the character's observations of the planet, Melancholia, occur under this perspective. We, the viewers, are placed with our backs to the front of the house, facing out into the sky, cup-framed by the u-shape green of the lawn and trees. Its this exact view that I saw in my dream that night. In the dream, I can't recall if it was day or night, it probably doesn't matter. In the middle of the lawn, however, I see a ladder. Erect, without any support, the ladder reaches upward. I don't climb it, nor does anyone else. There isn't anyone to climb it, at least I don't remember anyone being present. The ladder is perfectly centered and just stands there, being. This is the only part I remember from the dream.

The following day, a Friday, at work I briefly join a conversation about Time and after my shift has ended I end up in Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers. I am looking for anything on Time and practically have an anxiety attack upon picking up Einstein's work on relativity. The Cosmic Serpent caught my eye. If nothing else, the cover was a whole lot better than some of the other books. Somewhere along my debate on whether or not to purchase the copy, I opened up some pages and immediately found the word LADDERS, actually it was THE LADDERS! (all caps). I had watched a set of youtube videos by Freedom of the Soul, entitled DNA & the Serpent's Lie. These should've been the first to come forward along the forefront of my memory but all that came was the ladder from my dream. This, along with my interest in genes started by Richard Dawkins, lead me to read Narby's work.

I'm not here to review The Cosmic Serpent, which I did in fact enjoy. I'm not here to review Melancholia, which you've by now guessed and which I also did enjoy. I am not going to rant on about coincidences either but the one thing I got from Narby's work, is the idea about flexibility. Be flexible, keep an open mind--don't be afraid to connect things around you. In an Alan Watts jovially british voice, I hear someone say "play with the universe because it certainly wants to play with you."