Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

29 March 2003

Lilya 4-Ever

Lilja 4-Ever

2002, Sweden

director: Lukas Moodysson

Like Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark, this movie, despite its merits, seems primarily interested in crushing before our eyes an idealized feminine waif. Its young protagonists are nearly empty vessels for the movie to pour tragedy upon tragedy into. Oksana Akinshina's beautiful smile functions repeatedly as the setup for a cynical anecdote whose resolution is the destruction of whatever she was smiling about. Despite the contrivances, the movie does have its virtues: effective use of both dilapidated and antiseptic settings to depict isolation, an aggressive soundtrack, tender conversations between the two main characters (until the conversations become fantasies), and a moment of poetry near the end in which Lilya imagines reversing certain decisions she's made, to be less callous or less naive. I count this moment among the movie's virtues because it upsets the rhythm of bleakness, but I do so reluctantly, not only because it comes across as somewhat didactic but also because it could be seen as yet another tragedy that we watch Lilya endure: that of blaming herself. I do like the minor theme of being blinded to those around you by a desire to escape — Lilya eventually recognizes that she has left a number of broken people in her wake — but evil all alone, whether seen from the point of view of the perpetrator or, as in this movie, the victim, makes for monotonous histrionics.

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