So many times, when watching a movie, I experience a sense of frustration: I cannot touch the image, I cannot grasp it, fix it, or retain it (remember that moment in Godard’s “Les Carabiniers” when Michelangelo literally tries to enter the projection screen?) A frame is replaced by another in a way that, although logical… Read More [Blog Cinema] When cinema is no longer needed
The fixity of the frame leads one to see/notice what one normally doesn’t see/notice: a myriad of gestures, facial expressions, the jewelry on the driver’s hands, the play of light on the persons’ bodies and on the inner surface of the car, countless details and events happening outside the car. What one can see through… Read More [Blog Cinema] “Ten” by Abbas Kiarostami
Years ago when I was in high school I watched Epstein’s Le Tempestaire and it left a lasting impression on me. Around about the same time (or maybe a bit later), I found out about Finis Terrae, but I kept postponing watching it for years. A couple weeks ago this movie came back in my… Read More [Blog Cinema] Jean Epstein’s “Finis Terrae” – To navigate one’s emotions
For quite a long time, I didn’t understand what makes Satyajit Ray’s movies feel like home to me and why they gave me what I would call a warm and unromanticised feeling of consistent, fundamental goodness and emotional nourishment. Initially I thought it may simply have something to do with my affinity for the Indian… Read More [Blog Cinema] Satyajit Ray
I don’t believe reality is logical. I believe we rationalize things and that we need to do that – there is a practical utility to it, even when it comes to our emotional life (in fact, in many cases, it’s first of all here that this need becomes vital). But I don’t think reality in… Read More A short note on reality and logic
I ended up doing translation work because I looked for an additional way to earn my living. But in fact there is nothing accidental about it since it fits perfectly with my recurrent obsession about language and how it works. Oftentimes when I translate a text my mind becomes blocked and I experience some sort… Read More A short note on language
“What is [the ceremony’s] real aim? Is it to drive out the genii (…)? Or is it to make them come? (…) To use Luc de Heusch’s terminology, is it exorcism or adorcism? This question, which is posed by so many possession cults, is by no means new (…) Michel Leiris makes the following observation:… Read More Trance, possession, the zār, the Self, the Other
Setting out to “save” the world or other people without having a certain level of self-mastery is a crime. For one thing, it’s unfair to prioritize another’s evolution over your own. Secondly, “saving” others requires a great deal of lucidity, discernment and self-knowledge. Until then, “saving” someone else can do much harm, even when one… Read More I’ve never been interested in being a do-gooder
As with many other things that I write, the following perspective is just one facet of the equation – it is not a generalization and it is not absolute. That being said: There is nothing noble in suffering. What can be noble, dignified, or extraordinary is the way someone approaches suffering, or the fact that… Read More There is nothing noble in suffering
