What Dreams May Dumb

"I had a dream about you, baby
A dream about you, baby"

"Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

This may be one of those posts where people tell me, "I am looking into your soul." Please, I have no soul; at least none that I can detect.

Last night, I had a dream about an old college love. Succinct and sweet, but as with all romantic dreams, it bears no relationship to logic, but to matters of the heart.

The dream was this:
In a classroom, I saw her. We were both avoiding each other. She then approached me and while keeping her eyes averted and her face hidden, she handed me a very small porcelain disc. It was like a coffee saucer and it had some words painted on it. Evidently it was an award she had won. I said something like, "Congratulations. That's great," and then kissed her left cheek. Then I kissed her lips and then her right cheek.

That kiss reminded me why I had fallen so crazy for her many years ago.

 When I woke up, that old haunting feeling was back. No chastisement, I just accepted it. Dreams are wild things, unbidden absurdities and buried truths that we suppress in daylight hours. I had thought that these feelings were long shelved and condemned to history. Evidently not.

The delicate pangs of wanting someone when
they reciprocate not. Nice.

But does this represent a subconscious desire?

 Maybe. The beautiful daylight today reminded me of passions long ago, but it also serves to separate emotion from fact. This amourous episode was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with. Fucking hell. Of how the excitement built until our first kiss and then the painful and destructive havoc of separating a mere eight months later. Due to circumstance, ours was never going to be a healthy and real relationship. It got worse and worse as she slowly pulled away. She made it worse by denying it at first and then lying about her relationship with another man.

 Ah, love. People attribute sarcasm to my demeanor. No fucking wonder.

Dreams like these remind us of our childlike desire to have painful events into perspective; to peer into chaos and find pattern. Or to use a contemporary cliche, closure. Personally, I don't believe in the word closure. Accepted indifference by negligence? Sure. Time doesn't heal anything, it just gives us some distance between today and the pain of yesterdays. There is no closure. We bear up and we live with it.

When you break up with someone on campus, it's not like you're never going to see them again. After some time had passed (and my blinding anger subsided), I let sentiment rule my judgment and talked to her on a few occasions. It felt very awkward with her fake cheerfulness and her acting like we were beginning with a clean slate. Sincerity and honesty were not her strong suits. She was a master of evasion, obfuscation and I believe that she had some serious issues. I pity the poor bastards who followed me.

 

I wanted to go beneath her bullshit and find out many "whys?" This was not going to happen. In the end, as  painful as it was and as uncommunicative as she was, I had to let go of it all. It took a long time.

Evidently, not long enough.  

 

The Silence of Hannibal

It's nearly impossible to make a perfect movie,
but this one comes damn close.

CAVEAT: all my movie stuff has spoilers. Read at your own risk.

This is pretty much going to be on everyone's favorite list, but I must sing the praises of the two great Hannibal Lector movies (Hannibal Rising left me cold and Red Dragon has the wrong actor for Will Graham).

What is it about a well-educated, even polite, incredibly intelligent serial killer? After all, the man eats human flesh. What redeeming qualities could he have?

Plenty.

Dr. Lector's insight into people is remarkable. Instantly he finds Clarice's motives and insecurities and makes her squirm. A compulsion he savors like a fine vintage.

Hannibal is a metaphor for someone who acts upon what may cross our minds in a fit of fury: revenge/murder of those who have wronged us. But it isn't just Hannibal's horrific crimes that draw us to him, it is his unflinching honesty. (And who wouldn't want a mind with that much retention and capacity?)

Unlike us, Hannibal has no filters on his observations and thoughts. He says what we smother with an awkward smile.

If you asked people to quote anything from this movie, you're going to get the old "fave-beans-and-nice-Chianti" bit, but this movie reveals much, much more. When pressed for more information about Buffalo Bill, Dr. Lector reveals his brilliance:

"Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn't born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying."

Boom: sum and substance in five sentences.

Some Lector fans never gave this movie a chance because Jodie Foster bitched out and did not reprise her Clarice. Her reasoning was that "my character wouldn't do that," referring to the book's ending of Clarice and Hannibal becoming romantically involved. As shocking as that was to read, I thought the author wrapped up the story quite convincingly and nicely. And since when does an actor own a character more than the writer who created it?

So what, Julianne Moore is great.


Hannibal is the most elegant of all the Lector movies. Here we are invited into the world of refined taste: delicately nuanced food, musical masterworks, literary treasures and even hand engineered skin lotion. Remember, "it rubs the lotion on its skin"? A nice reference back.

All the symbolism, the literary references, the symbols and metaphors of this magical movie were missed by movie-goers who were only impressed or grossed out by the brain dissection scene. Which proves that directors can lace their work with delightful layers upon layers of richness and Neanderthals will miss it every time.

(heavy sigh)

Again Lector's insight when talking to Clarice about her dismissal from the FBI:

"Would they have you back, you think? The FBI? Those people you despise almost as much as they despise you. Would they give you a medal, Clarice, do you think? Would you have it professionally framed and hang it on your wall to look at and remind you of your courage and incorruptibility? All you would need for that, Clarice, is a mirror."