Out of Egypt:

A seclusion yet greater

After I wrote the last entry, I got sick with the flu (after seeing the Life Aquatic, which I thought was good, but not up to par with his other three films - not focused, and somehow not earnest enough, although Bill Murray is the man). My life's entertainments are going less and less.

But I'm getting better now. Saw Closer on New Year's Day with my erstwhile friend Dagen (not quite sure what "erstwhile" means but I use the term to suggest how rarely I see him now that he lives in Florida). Well-acted, probably the most painful to watch film I've ever seen. Makes The Graduate seem like a happy ending, and almost makes one consider becoming a eunuch. Has definitely killed any vestige of my boyhood Natalie Portman crush (which flared up again briefly after seeing Garden State). I still respect her immensely though. The scene in the strip club makes me question the morality of acting: whether acting out a character's moral degradation, even when it is portrayed as degradation, is degrading to one's own character. Not sure quite what to think about that. I'm glad that's a problem that doesn't come up in my native realm, literature.

Been reading some Rumi, the seventeenth-century Sufi mystic (who had an interesting relationship to Christ) lately. In fact, he inspired the session of thought which inspired the following poem, though it sounds more like the style of a French decadent poet than anything else:

Memory comes when I am ill,
of the days of burlap and the Bride
when I covered myself with abnegation and the Names.
Mysticism led to madness.
The taste of God I found too sweet.

Mark well, all you who seek a world of spirit -
know it brings dread as well as awe.
When you recognize that all is possible
you are near to the abyss.

I sought to speak of Fire, Dark, the Sea -
images of divine Energy but,
not knowing the reality, my soul
sickened with the infusion.

I learned the way of humility
from that first fall in pride.
Yet, death-bent, my lust for knowledge
keeps me stumbling back up that cliff.

I cast myself into a faceless Absolute,
my Saviour's face was underfoot.
I missed the sense of my first vision,
Isaiah at the cleansing throne.

Now I look, blinded, for a guide
back to that mystical Garden.
I indulge my soul's untrained desire -
Like the democratic youth of Plato's dialogue,
first practicing music, then studying philosophy.

The world is a glorious deathly library
in which I wander, flickerings
of my first fire craving to be set ablaze,
yet banked by reason, for I know
some books are magic, and the flames they forge purple,
and their product, only ashes.

If I could confine myself to the Word!
If I had not been touched by the sense of Other,
a rending of the Veil -
If I could wait to see my Redeemer,
and work for Him, not as a Seer, but a slave.

I'd say that I was equally affected by both the tenembaums and life aquatic. Owen Wilson's character grounded me enough to excuse the film's more indulgent moments (sigur ros and a neon shark.) If anything diluded the film it was the expectations: that may not be case for you, but I got the sense that this film was "doomed" the minute it wasn't set in New York.

Also I do not believe there are moral implications when it comes to acting. I imagine any empathy having to do with something morally compromising would jeorpadize the person doing the empathizing (word?.) If Portman and her character should feel compromised then the actors in Equess (the schaffer play that I forgot how to spell) are not in for a treat: I'll tell you. Make sure you email me your address at school so you can hear yourself "bah baahing."

Posted by: Matt at January 11, 2005 1:36 AM