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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

From the Theoretical Cosmetologist 2

I am watching Solaris - the George Clooney version - for the third time, and I shall probably have to see it twice more before I understand the Language ( story ) behind the Image ( film ).
It is interesting how films can make you ignore the story, as Avatar did, where the story was old and derivative, yet the film still fascinated.

In Avatar, the Image dominates the Language, and the Image is wonderful.
In Solaris, the Language dominates Image, but it is hard to disentangle them, and find the story with all its implications and themes. I would say the Story is wonderful, but it is not easy to get a grasp on it, certainly it takes more than one viewing. It is uncanny: at first the Images dominate, then on second viewing, they fall back before the advance of the deepness of the Story. After that, the Story is triumphant.

(note: whenever I use the word "triumphant", I invariably think of Lon Chaney playing the organ in "The Phantom of the Opera"; he played "Don Juan Triumphant".)

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