Vallejo, "Confianza en el anteojo, no en el ojo"

A poem ("Trust then the glasses, yet trust not the eye") by this Peruvian poet.  You can read the original in this collection.

Trust then the glasses, yet trust not the eye;
Trust but the stairway, never trust the stair;
Trust in the wing, not in the birds to fly,
And trust in you alone, in you alone.

Trust then in evils, not evildoers;
Trust but the cup, but never trust the wine;
Trust in the corpse, not in the man in time;
And trust in you alone, in you alone.

Trust then in many, never in the one;
Trust in the riverbed, never in the tide; 
Trust in the pants, not in the legs to run,
And trust in you alone, in you alone.

Trust in the window, but trust not the door;
Trust in the mother, not in months nine;
Trust destiny, and not the golden die,
And trust in you alone, in you alone.

The Deep Blue Sea

For the first seven and a half minutes of this film, the only spoken words are those of a young woman, and even those are hardly spontaneous since they comprise a letter read aloud. She does not have much to say – the most perfect letter of fifty-six words can hardly say more than a poem of equal length – even if her missive begins with a heartfelt address, "My darling Freddie." It concludes with an admission no less sincere: "I really do want to die."

Our place and time are “London, around 1950,” already imbuing the spectacle with a certain vagueness, as if it were not remembered properly or now no longer important. And, like true Greek tragedy, the events will unfold in a single twenty-four hour period of romance and release. The epicenter of this drama is a lovely thirtysomething by the name of Hester (Rachel Weisz); she will also be known to us as Lady Collyer, and in a lie of convenience, Mrs. Page. When we first see Hester, she stands placidly behind the cage of a wintry window, because she is very much a prisoner, be it in this home, a shabby brown collage she shares with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), or the majestic house she once inhabited as the bride of “the first man who asked me to marry him," Lord William Collyer (a sensational Simon Russell Beale). The namesake of one of the most famous adulteresses in literary history, Hester is most definitely the author of that final message of despair. And if the most mysterious thing in this world is a beautiful woman, such a woman who chooses, at the height of her powers, to leave this world must be of even greater interest. We examine her surroundings and see only darkness, brown or green, earthy colors, the soil to which she will return, and soon she lies down in front of a coin-operated gas furnace (I have never really understood how such devices work, much less kill, but we do see her wedding band in plain view in the foreground). As she tries to die, her memories stream out of her like that lethal gas: her husband, much older, heavy-set, in a dark library; then the lover outside, young, lean, and light, in motley colors. She beholds both these men, the first with shame, the latter with tender, almost teenage pudeur. Then comes their lovemaking, like a vortex, like a spiral, and Freddie admits he survived this battle, which was excitement and fear. There is "nothing like excitement and fear," and for some, love – especially if streaked with sex – remains the embodiment of excitement and fear. Revived, she is slapped and asked “how many.” She confesses to twelve, which could be lovers (her husband could be asking), or pills (her doctor); it will be the latter, although subsequent hints imply both categories might indeed be applicable.

This opening is impossible in a play, which is what our original must obviously be given the chalky-talkiness of the rest of the production. Apart from a minor player’s interjection here and there (most notably from William’s dracontine mother) this is a game of three: the beauty, the air force ace, and the moneyed judge who can offer everything a woman could desire except the brawny comfort of a man. What saves it from being a typical love triangle is the rare encounter of the two males (the only time they cross on screen, Freddie struts past his nemesis in fury); this is Hester’s pendulum, one she exposes early on with an ill-advised phone conversation (“Who else do you call darling?” asks an astonished William, recollecting the first line of her near-fatal letter). It is after this call that he is first referred to as Sir William, and their marriage assumes a different tenor, one akin to a contract with a profitable firm. The plot progresses into much more of a stage than a screen production, and by dint of her restraint and old-fashioned good looks, Weisz manages to present a confused, not a promiscuous woman (it is also insinuated that Sir William may never have provided her with any physical alternative). Hiddleston, on the other hand, is unconvincing, both as Freddie and as someone who cannot possibly be Freddie, the happy bourgeois business-type hoping to get hired by a South American firm. Maybe, just maybe, Hiddleston is cloaking his talents, under orders to appear limited to make Hester that much more mysterious: for why on earth would a woman like Hester ever fall for a cardboard cutout like Freddie? Yet of the three, Beale is the ornament, conveying fear (of his mother, of his age, of his marital miscalculation), puerility ("I’ll never give you a divorce"), and pompous pride with the slightest gesture. It is so easy for the cuckold to rage or overact; it is just as easy for him to fall over, dead and dreary. But Sir William sparkles with childish life, thinly-hidden curiosity as to why there ever was a Lady Collyer and why she was so beautiful, so unlike what, he clearly believes, he merited. Why, his tired face asks on numerous occasions, if she was destined to leave him for a man who matches her in age and looks, why did she ever go and shatter his wretched heart? There is a college term paper in the making on how Hester addresses her husband variably as "Bill" or "William," but the more careful viewer will notice the little things the camera and its accomplices do. When the lovers embrace upon Freddie’s return and realization that he forgot Hester’s birthday, her panting sounds more like someone dying; when he reads her horrible letter, the camera stays on her, as if it were she he was reading. And when a whole pub sings a song, only Hester won't know the words, because she is of a different demographic stratum, even if the whole pub is really singing it to her.

While deservingly admired by critics, The Deep Blue Sea was hardly given a chance by everyday filmgoers, many of whom deemed it slow and boring by virtue of its lack of violence, minimal nudity, scarce expletives, and prudent attention to character development. The selfsame dissatisfied lamented that Hester's motives were never revealed, since, for them, every plot detail has to be shown plainly, synchronized to some moronic soundtrack, periodically recapitulated, and crowned with weepy platitudes. The film is effective precisely because Hester's love is mysterious and inexplicable, not unlike the love, or lust, or obsession, in this work of genius. Regarding the film I have but two complaints: that, for a brief minute, "You belong to me" which is sung live (and beautifully) dissolves into a studio, professional recording; and, despite its appropriateness, the too-easy choice of title. Thus, when Hester mentions she is caught between the Devil and a boundless ocean, she is provided with a brief, sad lesson by Freddie’s landlady. Yes, the whole thing is silly; yes, Mrs. Elton seems to know quite well what true love is; but at the end of it all, we feel for Hester: her love is completely irrational, completely inexplicable, completely random, and also complete, and utter, and whole. And we wonder about the two men in her life, both so wrong for her and both so right. We understand being in love with the wrong person is like a chain without a final link, because the person you adore may very well cherish the same unrequited passion for a third, indifferent soul. And because, in many pathetic ways, William is just like Hester. 

Fet, "Я тебе ничего не скажу"

A work ("To you I will say nothing at all") by this Russian poet.  You can read the original here.

To you I will say nothing at all,
And you I will in no way unease;
At what I so in silence do fall,
Never then will I so much as hint.

All day sleep evening flowers in bliss
Past the grove but the sun will ascend;
All the leaves with such quiet dehisce,
And I hear how my heart's joy extends.

In my breast both so sickly and bent
Humid night rages and blows ... yet I stall.
But you I will in no way unease,
To you I will say nothing at all.

Praise of Folly

Nec aliud omnino est vita humana, quam stultitiæ lusus quidam.

                                                                                                 Desiderius Erasmus

Those of us who pursue wisdom for its own glorious sake have often been chastised for being far too serious to be good company – good company in the very modern definition of someone who is pointedly irreverent, somewhat silly, and somewhat dangerous. Although we should never let popular definitions get in the way of who we really are, a kernel of a basic, ungnawed truth persists: along the way to our private destinies we had better have some fun. Why fun? Isn't fun a purely relative term? Am I not absurd for spending my free time reading and writing when I could just as easily be snowboarding, grilling steaks, and drinking myself to Valhalla? Isn't that what hopelessly conventional fun is all about? Fun is indeed one of those few things that do vary from mind to mind, but the variation should not keep us from profiling its partner in crime, foolishness, because when we are not practical and efficient we are to one degree or another fools. An important corollary as we consider this famous book.

We begin with a disclaimer that, scholars assure us, was typical for the era and subject, although our work is anything but typical. "Since .... the time was hardly suitable for serious meditation, I decided to amuse myself with praise of folly," says Erasmus, who will soon yield the feather to Folly herself. The impetus for the book was a lovely summer spent in the company of this man of letters, a highlight of an English exile that comprised the happiest of Erasmus's life (the book's subtitle moriae encomium refers unsubtly to the creator of Utopia). While the ultimate aim of the treatise may not be immediately obvious, Erasmus and his maid-servant are in no rush to formulate either theories or conclusions. They live in a world apart, one equally distant from the vulgar odors of popular culture and the sublime scent of incense. That Erasmus was also a Catholic priest should not concern us: his goal is to comprehend his own human foibles, his daily urges not to do anything of any particular use to anyone. The hypothesis may not be particularly original, but its introduction has little in the way of the peers. And the slow, rambling display of folly in its myriad literary forms properly reflects what has plagued men of learning since time began:

Those who court immortal fame by writing books ... owe a great deal of me, especially any who blot their pages with unadulerated rubbish. But people who use their erudition to write for a learned minority and are anxious to have either Persius or Laelius pass judgment don't seem to me favored by fortune but rather to be pitied for their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years, and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such a cost – so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish.

The writers devoted to aesthetic perfection may indeed do all these things to themselves, but they can luxuriate in the development of their sensibilities: even if they do not erect anything of commercial success, they will always have their private reserves of flora and fauna of their own image.

Folly continues in the same vein as she irons the corners of her tapestry. We learn that she appeals equally to children and the elderly for "except the old man's wrinkles and the birthdays he has counted, they are exactly alike: white hair, toothless mouth, short stature, liking for milk, babbling, chattering, silliness, forgetfulness, thoughtlessness, in fact, everything." As it were, Folly can make a strong argument for being the alpha and omega of our terrestrial existence, since when "the time comes for [us] to depart this life, again like children, [we are] neither tired of living nor aware of death." Since childhood is our period of innocence and old age our period of solemn reflection and remembrance, it would be simplicity itself to take these years too seriously and squirm at their implications. But this is precisely what we should not do. Instead we nourish a few comforting superstitions in our hearts:   

Man's mind is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth. If anyone wants an immediate, clear example of this he has only to go to church at sermon time, where everyone is asleep or yawning or feeling queasy whenever some serious argument is expounded, but if the preacher starts to rant (I beg your pardon, I mean orate) on some old wives' tale, as he often does, his audience sits up and takes notice open-mouthed.

If we did not know the context, the passage above might be catnip for the old, snarling agnostic who wishes to harpoon everyone's faith on the same skewer. There is nothing wrong with superstitions provided that we do not use them to account for everything under the sun (the same can be said, as it were, for science, as Erasmus indicates), but we are not talking about mere superstition. A believer may think less of folly because his God has never laughed; or he may think more of it because he can only find his attempts at knowledge ridiculous. Folly suggests that she is holy exactly for this second reason, and as the treatise progresses from encyclopaedic satire to ironic cavilling to stern moralizing, we become far more inclined to believe her.    

These days Erasmus and other humanists are read mostly by those who are forced to read them, which is both good and bad since so few would appreciate him for what he really is: a blissfully happy Christian apologist with a nasty sense of humor. In this way he is the direct ancestor of this gentleman of letters and this pundit of Catholic ideals.  While Praise of Folly may lose something in translation as a work steeped in the tradition and tongue of Rome, it boils and seethes at the right moments, producing an effect much like the lifting of those fogs that forever strive to cloud our judgments – and our judgment is clouded more often than not. We consecrate ourselves to nothing in particular and deem the whole matter a waste of breath and blood. Yet how are we to know the value of our other actions and thoughts – love, curiosity, nostalgia, friendship, regret, faith, atonement – if not for those odd moments of indigence? How are we to ponder the eternal if we cannot step back and curl our toes in the sumptuous brown earth? It is so very hard to forget that brown earth. It is so warm and solid, a museum to all the skeletons of all the generations that once walked upon it. And like so many of us think ourselves either God or mortal, something in-between may be most appropriate.

La Cérémonie

We will leave an explanation of this film's title to the curious who believe that the Internet could not possibly lie to them. Its translation may indeed shed some light on the plot – that is, if you like your plots brightly lit – yet the English novel on which the film is based is called A Judgement in Stone. And while most movie versions employ a literal translation of the French, German has chosen "Beasts," and Italian, "The Darkness in the Mind." What kind of film could possibly inspire such diverse nomenclature? One most certainly of beasts and judgements, although these labels hang loosely to more than a few objects. And the country home that serves as the centerpiece of our action has more than a few objects to go around. 

Our protagonist is a morose, tomboyish, yet attractive housekeeper with a name out of a socialist realist novel, Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire). When we first see her, she is somewhat late to an appointment with the debonair and rather stunning Catherine Lelièvre (an equally stunning Jacqueline Bisset) at a café that admittedly makes Catherine nervous. Why should a woman of the world, a former model (we are informed later by a dubious source), and a member of the upper crust of society, feel ill at ease in a mediocre little bistro, the likes of which litter France as pigeons occupy Rome? Better to let the events speak for themselves. Catherine warns Sophie – although the warning is like much of Catherine's persona, wholly disingenuous – that the house is remote. "Is that a problem?" she asks, also not caring whether it is. "I don't know," replies Sophie, an answer that startles Catherine. Throughout the film Sophie will recur to this slogan of her ignorance, and on numerous occasions Catherine will be startled either because Sophie should obviously know or because her indifference to that knowledge comes off as terrifying. Catherine's clear, lightly-accented French hints at a privileged life spend abroad in foreign tongues, perhaps indeed very privileged. Alas, she has had little success with domestics of late (such is the curse of the wealthy unable to procure the perfect assistant) and Sophie was laid off after her employer's husband died suddenly. "She's moving to Australia to be with her son," she tells Catherine, who couldn't care less what happens to the former employer provided the reference is solid. Sophie presents her letter of recommendation, but does so in a manner that will strike the careful viewer as unusual. We cannot see Catherine's face at that very moment, so it is impossible to detect whether the same sensation creeps over her features, but the way Sophie points to the name and address on the top of the letter makes us uncomfortable. The two ladies hit it off as much as they can given that they are negotiating the blandest of business deals, Sophie agitatedly mentions her previous salary, Catherine catches on and hikes it by ten percent, and all of a sudden there is nothing more to talk about. For her first day of work, Sophie's employer will fetch her at nine on Tuesday from the local train station. And what day is it today, asks the employee. Saturday, says a startled Mrs. Lelièvre, who doesn't really notice anything wrong although she very well should.  

This scene, one of the very best opening vignettes you will ever see, foreshadows every detail to come. We may even generously interpret Sophie's listless looks over Catherine's shoulder as symbolizing her gaze at another character, one who hasn't been mentioned but who figures prominently in our story, and one who can also be symbolized by a letter since her work comprises the handling of others' written correspondence. That remarkable shrew is the local postmistress Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). For my money, Huppert and Emily Watson are the world's two most talented actresses, but let us not digress. Catherine returns to her remote manor for a family dinner of moules-frites, without, it appears, the frites. The reactions towards Sophie's hiring are mixed: her recently teen son Gilles (Valentin Merlet) inquires as to her looks (Catherine, of course, "did not notice" anything except that "she wasn't awful"); her nineteen-year-old stepdaughter Melinda (Virginie Ledoyen) wonders as many educated young people do about the wages and conditions of their imminent housekeeper; and her greybeard husband Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel) just wants to eat his mussels, listen to Mozart, and hope it all works out for the best. One may consider this blended quartet a microcosm of upper-class interests – money and labor negotiations, hedonism, overidentification with the less fortunate owing, it is assumed, to guilt, and a Pollyanna-like aversion to conflict coupled with a longing for higher culture – or one may not. Since the confrontations that will arise pit the well-off against those who perform services for the selfsame elite, the most facile of readings will have something to do with the proletariat – but now we must really put a stop to this silliness and return to that train station.   

Somehow we know that when the nine o'clock Tuesday morning train arrives, Sophie won't be on it. We are so sure of this, in fact, that we search for the same intuition in Catherine, who seems to know it as well, although she cannot quite fathom why. Since we are still in that tenebrous age before cell phones, our brooding employer takes out a cigarette and puffs away furiously – that is, until she espies Sophie on the other side of the platform. Sophie, who is wearing exactly what she wore to the bistro, has taken an earlier train with the explanation that she did not want to be late, which may ultimately rank as the most plausible of her countless lies in La Cérémonie. As the two approach Catherine's car, they are accosted by Jeanne looking for a ride to work, and we should say something about this Jeanne. In and around town Jeanne Marcal is known for four things: her gaudy, Pippi Longstocking-like wardrobe; her snooping (in her profession that means rendering unto mail recipients what Caesar's taster used to render unto Caesar); her volunteering for the Church, although she has no evident spirituality and simply desires to help the poor; and her past tragedy, as she once upon a time was acquitted for the negligent death of her small daughter. The description of this dreadful event that she confesses to Sophie omits so much detail as to make us wonder what, if anything, she ever says is true. Everything she utters, be it whimsical, cruel, or objectively intelligent, is punctuated by the same myopic smile. Yet somehow we believe, if for but a moment, that it was society not Jeanne who killed her daughter. Society who made her an outcast and a single mother; society who let her dwell in a tiny apartment with an exposed oven; society that rushed to damn her before she could even muster a defense. Thus ten minutes into our film, we have been sufficiently introduced to the three female leads, all seated in one car and revving off in the same and yet very different directions. When Jeanne smiles at Sophie with that myopic smile, the latter looks perplexed as to why anyone would smile at her. Later, towards the middle of the film, Sophie will finally return the smile and our story assumes a very different tenor.

There is a poorly-kept secret in La Cérémonie that outrattles the other, less consequential skeletons surfacing one after another like zombies. The scene in which the truth is 'revealed' (any half-awake viewer would have reached the same conclusion well before this point) seems overwrought and melodramatic, but the grief and anger that ooze out foretell the wickedness of the tale's end. In more than one scene we see despair, white-man-in-China despair, an abyss of hopelessness that gapes like a leviathan. The secret soon becomes the justification for all of Sophie's passive-aggressive charades, although it should be said that her personality is so damaged to begin with that no excuse will suffice. I have said less about Jeanne, a creature from a very black lagoon, because what is said about her in the film is so clear yet so terrifying that we shudder to consider the fact that we probably all know people just like her. Cheeky, impish, prying, cheerfully mischievous in an effort to mask true malevolence, intelligent in that way unique to very smart people who have come to envy life and all its inhabitants, Jeanne skips around, gleefully pinching fruit from a vendor like some insolent street urchin. We find her so frightening precisely because she is mindfully incalculable. And what about Sophie? In one respect Sophie embodies the plight of the typical domestic servant, who may be likened in this instance to a piece of furniture: something you acquire, place in a comfortable spot, and only notice ever again when you start tripping over it. As for the darkness and the ceremony, well, we would probably be better off just going and helping the poor. Just like Jeanne.