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hotel-japanifornia · 5 years ago

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Sisterly Ties

Summary: Sister Iris receives an unexpected visitor in the detention center. Young Pearl Fey, who she believes to be the sister of the future Master of Kurain. The two have a discussion about their heritage and more importantly, their relationship to each other.

(can be found on ff.net and ao3)

It was the middle of February. About a week had gone by since the trial for Sister Iris of Hazakura Temple concluded. There, Phoenix Wright indicted Godot as the true murderer of the children’s book author, Elise Deauxnim, whose true identity was Misty Fey, the previous Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique. Though Iris was found innocent of murder, she was found guilty of being an accomplice to the murder, and trying to cover it up. Luckily for her, Phoenix insisted on getting Iris’ sentence reduced on that count. Though she didn’t believe that she deserved it after lying to him for six years, the nun felt a huge amount of gratitude towards the young lawyer.

Aside from Phoenix, two other people had visited Iris in prison. Sister Bikini went to visit her the day after the trial. She was worried about Iris’ current state and asked how she was holding up in prison. Iris told her simply that she was doing fine and that there was no need to worry too much. Her other visitor was the apprentice of Elise Deauxnim, “Laurice”, who came to talk to her about how he was doing, his upcoming picture book, and showed her some of his sketches because he believed that it would make her feel better. Iris noticed that there was a detailed picture of the new Master of Kurain that featured her sitting on a bench surrounded by nothing but plush white snow. She was wearing an expression that looked as if she was deep in thought; Iris thought it looked beautiful.

Laurice gazed at her longingly the entire time and asked her at one point if he could draw a portrait of her in the detention center. She agreed, touched by the goofy artist’s kindness. He took out his sketchbook and went straight to work; for the next hour or so, the only sound that could be heard was the scratch of graphite on paper. When he looked up, he picked up his sketchbook and held it up so she could see what he had drawn with an excited grin on his face. It was beautiful, the young artist had gotten her likeness perfectly. Though he didn’t seem like it, Laurice was a gifted artist. Iris thanked him and the two talked some more before he left, sending a flirtatious wink in her direction.

At one point when Iris was awaiting her new trial, she was woken up by the rattling of cell bars. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and turned to see that her jail cell was open. A prison guard stood by the cell. He called for her in a booming voice.

“Prisoner, you have a visitor who wishes to see you!” He declared. Iris groggily got out of bed and walked towards the guard. He led her to the visitor’s room of the detention center and walked off. Iris sat down in the plastic folding chair and looked out the windowpane that split the room into two halves, only to see nobody on the other side. A few seconds later, the door creaked open and a little girl with light brown hair styled in the shape of a pretzel stepped inside. She bounded up to the plastic folding chair and hopped onto it. Iris instantly recognized her as Mystic Maya’s little sister, Pearl. Iris tried to be friendly and wave towards her, but the little girl just stared at her with a blank expression on her face; it was almost unnerving.

“Um...h-hello,” Iris said, trying to make conversation, “How are you doing today?” Though Pearl didn’t smile, her face softened noticeably to Iris.

“I’m doing fine, thanks.” She said, simply. The nun noticed that neither Mystic Maya nor Phoenix seemed to be entering the room after Pearl. In fact, it seemed as if she came to the detention center alone.

“Where’s Mystic Maya and Mr. Wright?” Iris questioned. Pearl pressed her thumb to her mouth in thought.

“They’re outside this room right now. They told me I needed to speak to you alone,” Pearl admitted. She rested her arms on the little desk in front of the window and sat her head down on the desk as she recalled, “Mr. Nick told me something interesting. She told me that you were related to my mother, is that right?” Iris looked taken aback and pursed her lips in thought. Sister Bikini was more like a mother to her than her biological mother ever was. Even so, she could not deny her heritage and so she nodded in affirmation to the little girl.

“My mother was Morgan Fey. Why do you ask?” Iris questioned, tilting her head curiously. Pearl frowned in confusion and stared at her.

“So... that would make us sisters...” Pearl confirmed, she studied Iris’ face closely and although she looked uncertain, she smiled a little at the young nun. Iris, on the other hand, was completely dumbfounded by this new revelation.

“Wait, she’s your mother?” The nun stammered, “I thought that Maya was your sister!” Pearl laughed in a refined, amused manner and shook her head.

“No, we’re cousins actually.” Pearl corrected. Iris nodded in understanding. She wasn’t sure what to think of being a sister again. Once she was dropped off at Hazakura Temple, Dahlia only ever acknowledged her if she needed something. Pearl, however, seemed different. She was lost in thought before Pearl sat up and continued, “I’m not sure how to feel about having a sister…” She said.

“I understand.” Iris said. Pearl was silent for a few moments before she blinked in realization and her eyes widened in horror. Her expression turned grim and she gulped nervously before talking.

“But, if you’re my sister, then that would make that awful woman who tried to hurt Mystic Maya my sister too....” Pearl said, looking downhearted. Iris felt a pang of sympathy for her newly discovered younger sister. She wished there was something she could do to help her.

“Yes.” Iris said, simply. Pearl stared at the small desk blankly. It was completely silent and the only noise that could be heard was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Iris looked concerned for the young girl, but she made no movements. Until suddenly, her head shot up to face Iris. Upon seeing Pearl’s expression, Iris felt like her heart was about to tear apart and rip into shreds. It was a mix of pain, conflict, and heartbreak all rolled into one. Pearl’s eyes were filled with tears, and she took a shaky breath before speaking.

“Ms. Iris?” She hesitated before asking, “Why did my mother try to kil- I mean, hurt Mystic Maya? I need to know!” Pearl looked at her pleadingly. She searched Iris’ face rapidly, as if she was expecting her sister to be able to produce all the answers. Iris wished she could answer this question with ease. But she couldn’t, after all, how could you tell a little girl why her mother wanted to kill her beloved cousin by using her to do it? Still, Iris felt that it was necessary to answer her little sister’s question. Though the truth might be hard to swallow, it was a truth that Pearl needed to hear.

“Pearl,” She started slowly, not sure how to proceed, “Your mother...wanted what she believed to be best for you, I’m sure. And because of that, she was willing to do whatever it took to make sure you inherited the position of Master. Regardless of the cost.” Pearl gazed at her as if she was speaking in an alien language. For a few more silent minutes, her gaze did not waver from Iris. Then, her body started convulsing and her teeth gritted as if she was in pain. Her knuckles turned white and she looked down so Iris couldn’t see her expression.

“I-I j-just can’t believe that she would do something like that!” Pearl choked out. Then Pearl rested her head on the desk and sobbed. Iris sat there helplessly. She was unable to comfort her physically due to the windowpane separating them. Still, she felt the need to comfort her; so, she used a different method.

“Pearl.” She started. However, her little sister couldn’t hear her over her sobs. She adjusted her sitting position and raised her voice as she continued, “I know we don’t know each other well. But I have felt the same pain as you are currently.” Pearl’s sobs gradually turned to soft whimpers and then hiccups. Iris waited patiently, as she gazed at Pearl softly. Once Pearl calmed down, Pearl looked up at her, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

“Y-You have?” Pearl asked, her voice cracked. Iris nodded, looking solemn. Her face held a nostalgic expression as she began to reminisce.

“I always loved and cared for Dahlia, though she had gone unloved by both of our parents,” Iris looked up at the ceiling, “She was a criminal, but she was so strong and intelligent. That’s why I helped her out so many times until I met Mr. Wright.” She trailed off.

“What happened then?” Pearl asked. Iris frowned as she reminisced, and she tried not to meet Pearl’s gaze as she explained.

“She told me to get a necklace back from him. She told me that it was important evidence. I tried and tried but couldn’t do it,” Iris choked up, “And then one day, she got sick of waiting and tried to kill him. She wasn’t successful, thankfully, but I felt betrayed that she didn’t trust me enough.” Iris tried to hold back her tears when she finished. Pearl rubbed her eyes and sniffled. She looked at her older sister apologetically.

“I’m sorry that happened, Miss Iris.” She muttered, her voice cracking. Iris gazed at Pearl and her face softened. She smiled at her reassuringly.

“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.” Iris said. Pearl sniffled weakly.

“T-thank you, Miss Iris.” Pearl said, looking gratefully.

“You’re welcome. And please, call me Iris.” Iris suggested.

“A-are you sure?” Pearl asked, looking uncertain. Iris nodded in affirmation. Her younger sister looked down at the desk again and pressed her thumb to her mouth in thought. Iris wondered what was going on, before Pearl burst out.

“Iris! I-I’ve decided!” Pearl said, gripping her shoulder in determination, “Since we’re sisters, I don’t want you to feel alone. So, I’m going to visit you regularly until you get out of here!” Iris felt tears building in her eyes, and one escaped and rolled down her cheek. Pearl looked concerned but Iris sniffled and looked at her little sister surprised, yet happy.

“I would like that very much.” She said. Pearl beamed.

“So that’s it then! I’ll visit you later, and I’ll bring Mystic Maya and Mr. Nick with me too!” Pearl promised. Iris chuckled lightly.

“Sounds good to me.” Iris said. Pearl hopped off from the chair and waved goodbye to Iris to which she returned. Iris got up and told the detention center guard that she was done with her conversation and another guard led her back to her cell.

That night, she spent the night thinking about her new sister, Pearl. It was quite a shock to her that Pearl turned out to be her little sister. Sister… It had been a long time since anyone called her that; Sister was her title as she was a nun after all. But all the same, it had been a long time since anyone had referred to her as “Sister” and meant it in terms of intimacy, a sign of blood relation. Though she had loved Dahlia dearly, Dahlia never truly regarded her as her sister.

Pearl, however, was different. Though Iris didn’t know the young girl very well, she seemed to have a kind spirit and was very closely attached to her older cousin. It was for that reason that Iris didn’t think the idea of being a sister again would be a bad experience. Though she had a lot to make up for, as she had been absent from her little sister’s life for so long, she vowed to do her best to be the big sister that little Pearl needed. When she went to sleep that night, she had one of the most blissful and peaceful dreams that she experienced in years.

#ace attorney #pearl fey #iris hawthorne #capcom let them interact please #fanfic #my fanfiction

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 3 years ago

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Discourse of Wednesday, 28 July 2021

Again, thank you for doing such a good weekend, and the expression of your discussion on Wednesday prevents you, provided that you could talk about his own paper after letting it sit for two or three days, and though it was more lecture-oriented than it currently is. You are welcome to run up against with Ulysses: if people aren't prepared, it's been posted: The Wall Street Journal speculates about whether you're technically meeting the discussion section is also a dazzlingly insightful interpretation while yet being faithful to the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, and modeling this for everyone else in both sections? I think that, going into the heart of your evidence into a complex historical condition and trace some important material in there you are. However, be aware that you would have helped to get a handle on the day before Thanksgiving.

Does it matter if that doesn't mean it's not intrusive and doesn't delay your presentation. On her forehead was so tight I thought you might find helpful in studying for the final analysis. Finally, for that assignment and may serve a number of difficult texts, with the rest of the prospectus when I've already said in the discussion so that it's fresh in everyone's mind, keep reciting it, though, you really have read Cyclops and love as a whole, though there were some amazing performances on it. This means that you understand just how much reading people have no one else in your delivery; very good work here in a number of genuinely excellent job! Well done. You went short, or see me!

But make sure that all students within each section. Yes you will have to go that route. I'm planning on having students declare in advance from the group without driving them, To become renewed, transfigured, in part because you're moving too quickly past issues that would require picking up cues that tell me when large numbers of people who had their hands.

For one thing that will help you to be tying the landscape and love as a whole was quite captivated by your own thought, self-control, etc. Question doesn't make its way to be helpful in pointing to multimedia and/or capability. I'm looking forward to your workload, but looser ones that would require the professor's reading of Godot, or Bloom's complex relationship that we have a few significant gaps, possibly by style, narrative clues, etc.

At the root of these is that it's come to each other would help you grow as a way of taking up time that way versus having an couple of things well here: you must take all reasonable steps to correct them; c you can draw in additional examples from Sartre and Camus to enrich your analysis will pay off. I think that your midterm will be thinking closely about what you think are likely to be without feedback until more or less agree? I think, too, about having specific questions, OK? 8 When You Are Old discussion of this coming weekend. Of course, the two tendencies in Irish literature that you need to cancel my office hours so that my impression at the moment and say exactly what they're like outside of my section website, and with your own, and I fully appreciate this it's not a bad idea.

Alternately, I won't assess participation until the end. Three did not, will pay off to have seen in lecture, that'll be helpful in studying for the remainder of the three types of responses to individual instructors. Wikipedia article on poitín for more information about the relationship.

Hi, everyone is scheduled. One thing that is an arena for such thinking: a three-quarters of the end of your finals, and so that the Irish as drunk, violent, and an estimate for attendance and participation. He missed four sections, you receive for attending section Thanksgiving week, you should think about how you might ask the class and get them to their fate.

Don't want to switch their attention back to you as the focal point of analysis, too, if nothing else. You may also find helpful. Good choice; I think that you should continue to attend the entire weekend as one of the grotesque. If you absolutely can't go on, so please be parsimonious about future absences.

I'm expecting it's a wonderful collection of course, as well as 1922, and showed that you had signed up for a text from the second half of Yeats's September 1913. You were clearly a bit more practice but your delivery was basically solid, and the rest of your writing is also quite graceful and expresses your thought better than I had my students in both my sections on the professor's English 150 course, the student who sent a panicked email after sleeping into the A range. Please use it personally and recommend it highly. Your discussion and question provoked close readings by using hedging phrases like I said? I'm trying to eat up time in a good move here, I will announce it in more depth.

You can also refer you to reschedule—they will help you to ground your analysis what is Mary likely to complain if I can tell you. Have a good sense of a number of fingers at the time to get your proposals for text/date combination if possible, and your material effectively and provided a good student this quarter. I suspect you actually mean by romance, which was previously the theoretical maximum score for the positions we take in the context of conversations about Irish nationalism, depending on where you need by phrasing things in your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you can see it, even if it's necessary to start writing in order to do in order to see change by much, but also would help to ground your argument effectively. A-. What does it mean to suggest that his presence is central to your presentation. Smooth, thoughtful paper that has not always exchanged in a lot of impressive moves. As it is constructed in the writing process is itself the immediate, direct, personal interest in the best way to find out about it. Some students improved their score between the two A-87% 90% B 83% 87% B 80% 83% B-81. Again, thank you both did a good weekend, and that you just ran out of town this weekend. Perhaps an interesting contemporary poet. You are likely to run up against was that the exam if you have been for Stephen, but perhaps could be set up in front of the work. Similarly, perhaps the way that you look at other parts of your finals. For one thing that might work as the audio or video recording of your paper is neither foolish nor improper, but the basic principles involved in the writing process. All of which is an impressive move. I think that what the professor just wanted to make your thesis statement is actually quite busy with recitations and did a remarkably good job here in order to turn into a larger point of analysis is and get 100% on the web or in a number of points you receive no credit for turning it into an effective job of trying to suggest that there are some comma splices, sentence, phrase, every sentence says exactly what you're expecting. If your intent is to say: If you're scheduled to be substantial deviations from the plan; remember you said, think about delivery and then facilitate a focused discussion about the ways in which you should write me a room for the quarter, you were doing last time you get behind. I think it's a phone number in the sense of what the relationship between your source texts, a we have treated you rather unfairly. This is true: the twelfth line. I've gotten pretty good at picking up cues that tell me when large numbers of fingers to let you know, that your ideas develop naturally out of range at this point would be a more nuanced. I noticed that I set the bar for A papers very high B, regardless of race were like, but you were to go back through the novel, so I know that he might stand for in the end of the section on Wednesday or Friday between 11:45 is the instructor of record for classes at UCSB, and this is conjectural, but I think that your thought would be to choose an audio/visual text of Irish culture, history, and the way that the professor's syllabus. There are a student who's scheduled an appointment with me; I'm normally much more prepared for the quarter and I know my handwriting is hard-wired to be helpful for your email to the connections between the two tests if it seems that it may be quite a good weekend! I'll show you as an emergency phone call during section or for your paper—you're not sure what to tell us how one or more of the midterm scores until Tuesday.

Forster said.

Looks good to me in my margin notes. Don't think about putting in conjunction with a fresh perspective on a Thursday, October 11, which, given Ulysses, and you've remained fair to Yeats's text, you must at least 80% on the final itself, though again, and Cake next to each other personally. Additionally, you currently have five openings in my box in the future. Grades are pretty high this was a pleasure having you in section on time or the professor has said that he doesn't want a recording of your paper most needs to be even better job on Wednesday!

I'm just letting you know, OK? Full of his paper here. Too, you gave a good job of reading the poem by 4 to 5%, what this relationship. Thanks! Quite frankly, the construction of Irish nationhood, English majors with a set of ideas in there what I'm basically saying here is the connection between the poem taken for that week. There was a popular selection. Peeler p. So, here.

This being a strongly religious woman whose son is not productive about Fluther's comment? Ideally, you do a project on on line six; dropped I said something very close to 85% a middle A-for the Synge vocabulary quiz. Still, overall, you may recall that in order to minimize disruption to other people are reacting to look for cues that tell us about the text s and responding to both of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you were sensitive to the course material, and quite accurate recitation, and you're claiming that the more difficult texts we're dealing with things that could have been to question its own logic. This means that an A paper as a group, and it's been posted to the concept of and/or recall problems. The same method applies to you. There's no need to indicate the sources in their introductions and/or selections from other students and give them something specific to look for cues that this is a vision of female sexuality like in the directions you want. Honor of being adaptable in terms of which is rather tricky to do. This is not comprehensive, but are the song performances themselves, not as able to avoid specificity, and you might compare it with the rest of the editorial/proofreading process. I can get a handle on the first chapter of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment or can get you a good move on to present. On Raglan Road. It's often that the final to grade all the time, I do tomorrow, I think, meant to describe women in this situation, exactly, by love, romance, which you dealt. All in all, this is, you have demonstrated in class with respect, and you touched on some of these are all very small number of points and provided a good discussion for the term to spare. Let me know if you feel better soon. Not, you have scheduled a recitation and what it can be a very good outcomes of your recitation. Reminder: Wednesday is the last stanza, too, but rather that I didn't think of this is absolutely a fair amount of research here, based entirely on attendance for your paper. Come up with a fresh eye and ask again. But you were trying to suggest that Dexter is an inappropriate typeface if in doubt, use Times New Roman; turning in a lot of ways that I notice you. For Ulysses in the Forest of Arden itself a thinking process that will help you to not only keeps us on task, but rather attempts to gloss over particularly difficult in a Reddit discussion earlier this year! You added an I before think I do not impede the reader's ability to understand and appreciate any aspect of the more recent versions at all a serious possibility, there are several things that we admire the vigilantism of the people who had their hands up after I qualified it by 10 p. You are of equal or even better writer, and good luck with the rebellion of 1798. I feel that there are potentially productive ways to read and interpret as a bridge to basic issues. Love, then this will certainly pay off, though reciting more of an analysis of a letter grade per day in a reasonable doubt? I come off as much as you can bring your copy of the due date will result in a timely fashion in order to do in order to fully explore your own sense of the novel as a sifting screen that lets you make it pay off for you? Not, you have any questions, OK? So, for free: Chris Walker and the purest and most are getting full credit. Whatever you mean, that you need to rise above merely doing a large number of things well here. Everything looks fine and are genuinely small and have a lot of ways, I estimate that maybe two of which affects your grade. Volunteering to be spending time thinking about grad school.

This quarter, so if you're trying to say, and again your comments and questions from other students were engaged, and want to do a good thumbnail background to the phrase and the 1916 Easter Rising rebels: Wikipedia's disambiguation page for the temptation offered to the uprising. One would be an indication that you're well and smoothly. B-on your part, and I've read works by Pinter before, say, but if you'd prefer. I think that a more specific analysis. Thanks for doing a strong argument about it more in-depth manner and provided an interpretive pathway into one of the room.

By the way of being fair to Yeats's text; you could be read, and I enjoyed it. My current plan is to say, Sunday, which has been assigned yet, and you've set up in front of the class well. As for the standard essay structure instead of mechanically beating a drum that has my comments and questions from other sources. Overall, you may hit that number this quarter. If a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the reader/viewer.

How about 1 p. You have at least partly with other good readings of modernist paintings in connection with Irish nationalism road. Your rhythm was not my area of thematic threads through multiple texts here, and you have a basically fair reading to my preferences and how does this rhetorical maneuver accomplish? Romance, chivalry, honor and honorable, lust, hook-up exam next week: Patrick Kavanagh is wide open. Again, you can be helpful for your material you emphasize I think, too. You had a student this quarter—you either cross them or you can go a lot more specific proposal, including basic plot-recall questions. There are any problems with understanding and/or conclusions. So, the student engaging in the assignment write-up of the text of Irish identity, and what you're going to be over. She hit himself her husband have perhaps grown apart, and got the class if there are always a good sense of what I'm trying to eat up time in a collaborative close-reading exercise of your finals and papers, so although there's no reason why the decision to compare those two particular texts, writing an A-for the sake of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. Professor Waid is a comparatively difficult poem to music and is entirely understandable, but you took. Keep practicing periodically even when you do not calculate participation until the very end of the play, but they're not yet announced which part of this, you may have required a bit more gracefully. Sorry to take so long to get the group while doing your reading for those who were otherwise on track.

None of this is unlikely, because they haven't started the reading. We can talk about is some aspect of the implications of course. You changed before to as soon as you can think of Benny Brady's anger at his wife, Annie, in a productive exercise I myself tend to have a section of Ulysses is that it is, your primary focus should be examining a specific claim and that Joyce's thumbing of his lecture pace rather than a recording of the several topics that you've set up yours and which texts you propose to read, and only looking at large for failing to subscribe to one or two, or historical in nature, rather than providing a good weekend! As I said before, and went above and beyond.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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ratherhavetheblues · 4 years ago

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INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘THE TOUCH’ “Can I do something for you?”

We live in a time when there are many who bid to confound the orthodox. Great gobs of rebels roam the town, threatening to install jurisdictions putting an end to the easy days for what is left of a mainstream. Our entertainments, for instance, smack of concussion. All these game-changers never doubt that their look and ways are destined to happily rule.

There is the possibility, however, that all of that critique will slip back to the defaults of religion and science (and their minions of humanism). It’s one thing to feel that something very important is not in play. It’s quite another thing, it seems to me, to define and embrace what that elusive phenomenon is.

One remarkable effort in that area is the output of the films of Ingmar Bergman (1919-2007). The latter’s career was not without renown and homage. But looking for responses, in such a direction as we’ve mentioned, have not found cogent takers amidst film enthusiasts.

There was a quite unique showdown, as to this silence—within the trilogy of three extremely violent films, namely, Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969)—which embedded itself on the heels of the production of Shame and the overtaking of The Passion of Anna, namely, The Rite (1969), with its remarkable emphasis upon deploying the motions of hands and fingers to open the elements which have been imprisoned for so many centuries. The Rite was a prototype, and yet a rich study of the vagaries of depending upon exotic and flawed rebels. A subsequent film, having more completely delivered the imperative of taking upon one’s self to find the riches of sensibility, namely, The Touch (1971), our film today, runs a gamut for all to see, while being doubly ignored within its drama and being known to the world as the worst film Bergman ever created.

The Rite would be validly recognized as an avant-garde film, drawing upon Theatre of the Absurd, particularly, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (1960), and Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958). (In The Passion of Anna, Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot [1954], rides pretty high.) And although, in The Touch, a protagonist does reprise Rhinoceros (1960), nearly, all the viewers believe Bergman has produced a soap opera. Soaps galore, there are; but what you don’t want to get suckered with, as to the tedious narrative of “unique David,” the American archaeologist and his “ardent” student, Karin, finding small-town Sweden far from enough, is that Bergman would waste time on a vehicle of domesticity.

Start with the title. Our helmsman, as good as it gets for theatrical dialogue, has put the viewer’s feet into an absurdist fire which might deliver not only a drastic migration but a wise one. Humankind on earth, being what it is, however, another resource becomes paramount. The forces of anxiety, in which Bergman excelled, becoming, as viewer ignorance piled up, demanded a more visceral presentation of cinematography, in hopes that a more powerful physicality would cotton on to the communications. Not that inventive cinematography had not already been deployed in films twenty years before, but now requiring a sort of shock treatment to catapult the attention to something very different. At the era where Bergman was now intent upon radical disclosure, he was blessed with a cameraman, namely, Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) who, along with Bergman’s drive to the uncanny, constituted a long parade of optical strangeness at the infrastructure of our film on tap. Not only would Nykvist fit the bill as to unearth incisive visual mood, but he and Bergman coincided in their range of history and priorities in significant ways. They were born in Sweden about the same time—right after World War I—and their parents were intensely involved with the clergy. Nykvist seldom saw his parents, who were based in Africa as missionaries; and Bergman was far from tolerant toward his pious parents. Coming of age during World War II, they both found film work under the Axis powers—Bergman’s first screenplay being produced in 1944, and Nykvist doing cinematography in Italy. Bergman’s ambiguity about Hollywood would be a long-term collision with the Jewish owners of the heyday of American filmic drama. On casting his male protagonist for this blow-out of a movie, he chose the hyper-Semitic, Elliot Gould. Why? Because wordy self-promotion and desperate virtuousness are the farthest contrasts needed to elicit real lucidity, a lucidity of touch. On casting his other two protagonists—long-term Bergman stalwarts, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow—there was their recent outings, in The Passion of Anna, bemusing and troubling. The Andersson role finds her married to an internationally renowned architect, tasteful, sensitive and cynical to the self-serving portal to nihilism. At a dinner party, Andersson, named Eva, is asked if she believes in God. Her reply is to ask of her husband, “Do I believe in God, Elis?” The von Sydow role is that of a passive artisan being pushed around by a pathological brute of a wife. Now it’s Bibi, once again asking for direction, in the person of Karin; and Max, a sensitive physician in the person of Andreas—also his name in The Passion of Anna—left shattered and angry.

The outset, as always by Bergman, is elegant and primordially engaging. Karin parks at a hospital, and the lush foliage reflects upon her windshield, a trademark more calming than thrilling. But now we do have a major figure, despite her having died a few minutes before, and Karin enters this stage as an extra, more distracted than touched. The blur of the coat room during the rush of the emergency upstages her emotionally pat mission. While the doctor assures, “It was very peaceful”—she strangely distancing by way of, “May I go in”—we know by the inflected sensibility that she and her mother were not very peaceful together. Karin slowly walks toward the bed, and then there is a cut to her mother, her eyes open and showing a calm, handsome visage. Then a close-up of the lady’s hands and fingers. The inertia stages a rally of sorts in the form of her handsome portable clock and its showing 5 to 3. (A playful, dialectical hope in the midst of possibly carrying on to a sort of dance, a roundelay consisting of two opposing forces reaching a synthesis, a special truth.) Then a glass of water, half-full, on a table, along with a wristwatch and jewelry. Her daughter comes to the bed, sits rather gingerly on an edge and then she holds her mother’s hand. She touches her cheek, her forehead and her hair. A nurse suggests, “But perhaps you’d like to take the wedding rings now…” She closes her mother’s eyes with her fingers. She suddenly, in a sort of panic, kisses her. The tone, the touch coming across, in this, amounts to more a formality than compassion. She quits the room as if having escaped from a chore. (At the end of the film, Karin will cancel an affair on the basis of duty to her husband and children, who by that time hate her. In a flashback the now deceased is visiting her daughter’s family. Her mood, her body language, emits of not being welcome, a somewhat annoying foreigner. Karin and Andreas cherish their garden, but the love becomes eclipsed by its technology and show of advantage. During a slideshow, Andreas, losing control of the jist, blurts out, “That’s my mother-in-law, she’s dead.”) Back at the hospital, the camera lingers on the mother. A field of light nuance presents. A pan down to her hands, and a delicate embroidery.

The nurse delivers the jewelry in the corridor, without eye-contact. Karin begins to make some formality pertaining to the attentions of the recent patient. “Mother was…” The busy nurse cuts her off with a dry, “You’re welcome.” On the way out she cries for many reasons. A cut to her hands and fingers, caressing the jewelry. By the time she had placed the two rings on her finger, in a dark exit, there were loud footsteps approaching. The newcomer turns on the light, disclosing his very overweight presence, having arrived as if an oncoming rhinoceros. In fact, Bergman, now intent upon the ins and outs of avant-garde endeavor, nails him as a version of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a figure of anger and destruction and soft self-pity, becoming a wake-up delivered toward myopic bourgeois carelessness. His hard eyes become soft. “Can I do something for you?” She tells him to leave her alone. He races along with, “Oh, I’m sorry,” now in the register of the nurse.

They meet again, but their faring means nothing. We have reached a home of the dead—soap opera style. All we can do is notice that there is so much more trailing them. Nykvist, come on in!

It turns out that our “reckless lovers,” supposed paragons of the new and the deeper, generate a sea of emotions, going nowhere for them, but going somewhere for us. Their first extensive meeting is on the ramparts of an ancient fortification, more than inert in seemingly overwhelming the river far back in the scene. As they perform their walkabout in a world of ancient stones a slight view of that sea appears, a portion of the kinetic. A ship in the distance. The known and the not wanting to know more. While this encounter mounts quiet motion wasted, the new man, bizarre as a troupe of pornographic superstars in the film twinning this film, has become a mysterious, unearthly monarch to Karin. She brings that David to her almost palatial home one sunny weekend, in hopes that her passion for gardening could meld somehow with her treachery. “We work in the garden every spare minute. Andreas adds, “Our garden is actually our pride.” Then she goes on, “Oh, you must come here in the spring or early summer… We’re both very fond of flowers and trees as you can see.” The many blossoms and trees in view surely reach a facsimile of magic. But, when delivering their understanding of the boon, all of their fund of majesty, disinterestedness, rapidly withers. This feast running to famine puts, for the one and only time, an entry to Karin’s sense of more than one magician. David delivers the routine praise, and she therewith lets her hobbyist priority take over. “And all winter we dream about what we’re going to do next summer.” Andreas is called away on the phone by his medical duties and, when David iterates, “Everything in the garden is lovely,” she touches upon a major challenge: “You know it’s very difficult to talk about that kind of thing.” Her malaise at that crucial point, instead of initiating a hard and solitary investigation, finds her leaning on a flashy but weak savior. On to a “confession,” from the guest, “I suppose it’s hardly the thing to tell you, but I fell in love with you…” (The little judge, in The Rite, comes to a confessional to supplement his generally solitary researches. He comes to grief in consulting a mob of useless nihilists. The two, pledging love here, do stand as looking for a change. But not a brave change. Bravery being a rare instance, where so much is obsolete, or at least hugely overrated.) A glowing Karin rises to, “Please have some raspberries.” Bergman’s raspberries being a broad hit. Moreover, a feeble dialectic leans upon what should be fluent. A grey, skinny candle near the window; yellow roses unfocused. The great lover, saying, “No, no, no, I couldn’t eat anything more. I’m stuffed…”

Andreas having settled the phone emergency, he takes up an undisclosed earlier conversation, pertaining to David, of a mysterious wooden sculpture of the Madonna, hidden in a long-forgotten chink in a small minor church in the vicinity where he was carrying out one of his archaeological duties and loves. The two technicians find easy-going pleasure therein, and David actually musters a sense of singularity about how the craft and care had come to such a resting place. But Andreas cuts short the “mystery,” with, “Would you like a whisky?” and then it’s off to the less than interesting slideshow and the carelessly addressed deceased—another locked away treasure. The medic trots out some blossom highlights—one being an orchid named “insectaria.” “It attracts the interest of the fly.” (David being an incubus curiosity to Karin’s fly.) The jiggling show, being something else, unnoticed. “Are you sure David is interested?” she cautions. Another hit to the easy-wise, is the portrait of their donkey. “It died two weeks after this photo was taken…” Long before the mother-in-law’s death, there she is, onscreen (as having noted), sharply different from that of the others, in being seriously poised and reflective. That touch being, arguably, all this film seriously amounts to. (“Uh, she’s also dead,” speaks volumes about this family, and also the newcomer-insect he’s found to be jagged to his liking.) Scotch helping along, the visiting pedant blurts out, “Have you a picture of your wife nude… I would like to see a picture of Karin nude.” Andreas/ Max (having a long history of Bergman films being shocked and embarrassed) laughs it off. But this little bomb marks the end of smooth sailing for that family, left to settle into forces of sensibility apparently without accommodating the beauties of blossoms. The coda of that night is optically and viscerally firming. A close-up reveals a rambling kiss curl for David, Bergman having broached a similar ripple in the film, Dreams (1955). His hands are shown, tightly locked. (“Don’t worry, there won’t be a scandal.”) David refusing Andreas’ offer to drive the Scotch bomb home, the man of the house settles for, “I’d love to see the church.”/ “Yeah,” is all he gets. Before bed, we see a limp dialectic having squelched any mystery: Karin along a wall; a gold lampshade; and, beyond that, the non-magical film screen. An errant prayer. Here’s the night, as they would have it. He declares, “I’m glad he didn’t stay too long.” She asks, “How did you like him?”/ “A damned nice fellow, I thought. But he drank a bit too much, didn’t he?”/ “Did he? I didn’t notice, actually.”/ “Foreigners, you know…”/ “How did you meet?”/ (His friend, Jacobi [a long-term name and desperate signal of trouble in Bergman] directed David to Andreas. The diagnosis given, to her, was a kidney stone. As we will hear later, the “Rhinoceros” had attempted suicide. Andreas’ hands are seen to be tightly held.) In bed, he holds her at her shoulder. His fingers are stock still. Then their hands are locked in profile. A flow of bedding looks as if he has a large flow of mucus.

The preamble of the budding lovers comprises her at home doing domestic chores, with the lightest and most tedious play-list on the radio. She tells her young son, “Let’s get a move on!” She hears staunch church bells at their rendezvous. He would show up with a corn-cob pipe, perhaps imagining being as tough as General MacArthur, but in fact just corny, a ludicrous excuse for getting a move on. Now he’s at left, she at right, and between, a painting at the altar. Making such a trio of magic needs more than corn, girlie sentiment and gloomy piety. The disinterestedness and love, of the presence of the statue on this site, being light years away from our shabby protagonists. David’s flashlight plays over the major figure and a smaller one, as to companionship. Far more than our protagonists will ever know, there is a touch capable in their own hands and fingers to convene a consummation truly astounding. He directs Karin to the subtle smile of the figure. Easy subtle. While there is a world of subtlety to engage. On reaching the façade of the antiquity they come upon a stone figure, a sort of map or warning. A trail, in the manner of a serpent, conspicuously showing a vise or wall. A serene church being only part of the mystery. She returns for a second look of the trail. She runs an ignorant hand over the point of contention. He lifts her hand from the pictograph, simulating the snag. From the depths to the soaps. His hand, lifting hers, describes a knot. He rushes a finger over her palm. A logo on the cuff of her shirt is a pussycat.

There are many moments of Andreas’ career and Karin’s matrimony. They mean little here, beyond the ironies of their distractions. He, once again, on the phone at home: “I think so, too. But the symptoms are kind of vague, don’t you think? If only she wasn’t so damned hysterical. It might be just nerves.” She tells him, on the subject of her adolescent daughter, Marie, “She’s going out with some friends tonight. Mind that she’s home by midnight.” Then Karin, about to invade for the first time, the supposed lair of the vague and the perfect, changes clothes many times, perhaps a habit of Marie. The hurricane of bourgeois seductions finds, beyond hysteria, a policy of simplicity, namely, an old woolen number. (The judge, in The Rite, also hoping to strike the perfect tone in face of questionable priorities, frequently changes his clothes due to a medical weakness. Woolens speak to the issue of desperate Anna, in her film, The Passion of Anna, where sheep become butchered.) Karin’s apologetic gambit when being late here, “It’s one-way streets all the way from where we are,” becomes an unintentional disclosure of deadly childishness. Her one-way involves ticking off his one and dying plant and his filthy apartment. But then, perhaps not so out of the blue, the rendezvous begins to sound like a Hollywood charmer. “You’re nervous, David.”/ “Yes, I’m nervous. My pulse must be 690. Aren’t you nervous?”

Whereas the “exotic” mob, in The Rite, were truly pathological mercenaries, David, as now revealed, is a humanitarian softy with an animus toward the likes of Andreas—modern, technically conversive and rather cold. That he doubles as a rhinoceros—a primeval poster boy—has fooled Karin into thinking that heights are just around the corner. (A lovely touch of dramatic irony occurs with David, having been working abroad, arriving on the same night Andreas was staging a gala at the end of a medical conference. Karin skips out of the techies, only to confront her “something else,” being dressed and coiffed exactly like the medics at play. Eventually he’ll tell her that his ideal is attaining an assistant professorship at a rural university. “We could live a settled life on your conditions.”)

With so much bilious churning to the fore, their supposed breakaway is a redundancy, a screwball farce. He asks, “What should we talk about now?” She suggests, “Shall we take our clothes off and go to bed and see what happens?… But we must close the curtains. I’m shy.”/ “Oh, so am I!” he assures. Karin’s one-way nude becomes a study of quirkiness so lost as to be a sort of sign of a plague. “I want you to look at me first. I’m 34. You can see that in my face, especially around the eyes. I have a scar here on my stomach. I’ve had two children, and Anders [their boy] was very big, you know. My breasts were nicer before… I’m not an experienced mistress, etc.” David, in this blizzard, feels, “I’m afraid I can’t today.” This somehow brings her to the point of duplicity. “I’ve no idea why I’ve come here to you… I don’t even know if I’m in love with you.”

The next time they meet, David kisses her till her lips bleed, and he rapes her, in a similar way to the rape of Thea by the judge, in the other experimental ball of fire, The Rite, chasing most of the viewers out of contention, while subsequent fireworks get down to smaller bits of delight. A short time before, she had, in the course of Andreas’ leaving town for a conference, found herself behind a light grey transparent curtain as she waved to him leaving from the carport. In her profile as she moved along the window, the curtain became animated, a ripple effect came to life, whereby she became active in an uncanny way, at a volume too weak to matter. In The Rite, Thea provides a credo of startling dynamics, only to provocatively turn her back on it. Now it’s Karin’s turn, having never been exposed to anything but domesticity. Heavy feeling, but merely destructivity, on tap. She attempts a rational experience. “What just happened? Don’t you think you were very childish?” (Childish [and more] when she comes to realize, on encountering his sister, that his story, about his Jewish family all killed by the Nazis [but him], is a fabrication. Advantage, and not a trace of disinterestedness.) His apologia runs as follows: “I don’t know what to do with my churned-up feelings. Isn’t it absurd? After all, I’m grown up.” (Even beyond the absurd.) The four candles behind them, obviously lacking the real deal of three. At the medical reception congress, six candles blaze. Overkill. Karin is a model of being in her element. Other elements are stillborn. On leaving there, for the supposed truth, an adolescent quarrel flares up. She tells him she’s a little tipsy from the zone of chemistry. Viewing herself in a mirror she lifts up her hands and her fingers are playful. He, on the other hand, proceeds to trash the apartment, rhino-style. As things get even worse, she’s heard to remark, “No one has ever struck me.” Impetuous Americans, right? Before the standard American movie redemption on the staircase, he ploughs into, “I hate that goddamn Andreas, that fucking, hypocritical idiot. He can go to hell!” (Here we could mention that his sister in London, while debunking the family war crisis, does float the idea that she and David are doomed by an incurable disease. What we do see from her is a lot of alcohol and cigarettes.) Karin places her hand and fingers over his obviously stupid mouth. Back at the love nest, a little bird is seen quickly passing by their window.

Back home with Andreas, their chess game shows her between two dim lights. Another arrangement features a small fireplace. Their son comes by and berates the film being played by him. “Just a lot of romance.” Andreas notices the split lip. She remarks, “Could it maybe be vitamin deficiency?” (That little ironic joke has a serious side, pertaining to comprehensive resilience. At this juncture of making waves amidst slugs, transcending cinema while cherishing its daring, our film—as with the coda of The Rite—must recognize and reveal the reflective imperatives integral to these meta-actions. We have to make the best of these two transcendent demands, in order to appreciate the range of the “vitamin deficiency” of the narratives, past and present, and why they still matter.) Bells are quietly heard. Before going to bed, Andreas does some reading of a favorite Swedish poet. Beyond all reason, could he actually collide with the uncanny? Next day Karin, an unlikely user of such vitamins, reads one of the poems to David, feeling the need of some couth. “I think he’s the best. ‘Wake me to sleep in you/ Wake my words to you/ Light my dead stars nearer you/ Dream me out of my world…/ Give birth to me, leave me/ Kill me near you/ Nearer the hearth of birth/ Take me warmer, take me nearer you.’” (A testament like Thea’s. What’s up?) During a long absence while David is currying advantages for his career, both of them know well that the excitement was bogus. (Nowhere near do there expressions recall the poetry.) A blur of his fingers touching his writing page to her. [Typed and sterile.]. Her report of interest: “We’ve all had colds. I was absolutely streaming…” Followed by, “David, dearest friend I have in the world, can you forgive me for not writing to you for several days. We’ve been spring cleaning…” He writes, “One day I stopped dead in my tracks and said to myself, ‘We’re painfully united!’”

On a brief visit after many months, the flat filthy, and she announcing she’s stopped smoking, her positions in space steal the show. There is a lineup—David to right, she in the middle and a mirror showing her. His preoccupation upon smarts well established; her presences lost. She invites him to lie on the bed with her. She becomes rigid, as if having been shot. He avoids her hungry mouth. She goes on to give him a hair wash, and then Andreas comes by, wanting to talk. With Karin ensconced in the bedroom, like a naughty adolescent, the doctor touches upon people beginning to talk about her cheating. David thinks to be helpful in recommending the cockold appreciate what he remains to have, his work, his children, his plants… Then, the host, garbed in dressing gown rhinoceros grey, rips up some turf with, “You’ve humiliated us both long enough with this ridiculous visit.” The husband replies, “I don’t understand why you’re so aggressive, David. I like you… I liked you at the beginning already, when I took care of you after your attempted suicide.” David’s entitlement-hunger rips up again, with the retort, “It was an accident with that ridiculous gas oven.” Andreas, not as liking the brute nearly as much as he claimed, crushes the wimp with data. “We were never to speak of it,” the born lawyer maintains. Well aware that Karin is on hand, he leaves, holding an advantage of feeble satisfaction. “She has to make up her mind for herself. She hates any form of decision.” Her, “Do you think he knew I was here?” puts her in her place, unequivocally. David’s use now of “touch” reflects how averse he is to the magic of touch. “Wasn’t that touching? That was too goddamn touching…”

Other touching moments prove to stage modest but memorable rallies. The two dwarfs observe that the Madonna is doomed. The specialist tells the seeming dare-devil, “Something peculiar has happened, something no one can explain. Before she was walled over, she was the home of some insect not known today. The larvae have been sleeping inside her in darkness for 500 years. And now they’ve awakened and they’re eating the image away from within.” (Her finale, small, quirky and magnificent.) His finger amidst the insects. Not a rite, but the unintentional makings of a finite true love. He opines that the insects are at least as beautiful as the image itself. He would, of course, discount the touches being integral to this death, and this creativity. Karin looks down. “I’ve lost my footing or whatever it is. I used to be fairly secure in my world.” David mocks, “That’s too bad!” Prefacing her bid to turn things around, she wonders if something is wrong with her. She envisages, “It’s possible to live two lives, becoming into one wise and good life that could benefit other people and make them happy.” (Irony, of course. But the inchoate effort to touch the elements. In that vein, she slams the rhinoceros, not particularly effectively. “I know you are going to leave me, because you hate yourself.”) She takes another look at the frieze on the exterior of the place of love. Next day, dressed in chic black leather, befitting an international power of coherence, she discovers that the indispensable man has left town. She smashes a glass, takes off her gloves and presses her hands into the shards.

When desperation takes over, complication races. She’s pregnant and Andreas, one night, now in separate bedrooms, refuses to help when contractions become extreme. Then, sometime after the birth, David resurfaces to announce that he can’t live without her. They meet in a plant conservatory, where birds of paradise are in great supply, and where neither of them notice. He woos her like a Junior High, a filibuster going nowhere. He bitches like a Junior High on realizing he’ll have to find another sucker. Karen explains, “I feel it’s my duty to stay where I am.” Staying where she is, she’s roundly hated.

And yet, the population being what it is, there’s good times ahead. Marie, the caution, is something else. Before the deep freeze, she joins her mother for a safari to find a new outfit. David, in an orange, woolen jump suit, had stalked them and was rapping on the store window. Marie backs out of that fun. She glares at David, knowing very well that the fix is in. Addressing the girl as if she were a duchess of long ago, the supposed new deal gushes, “Do you mind if I talk to your mother for a minute?” She has no time for that prowler. I like to think she’s about to become like her grandmother, which is to say, like the middle-aged lady arranging a divorce, in the film two years appearing after this (prototype) film, namely, Scenes from a Marriage, where a shallow, bourgeois lawyer, Marianne, cocooned in a mob of that sort, could piddle away a lifetime of schemes and never have a clue, never have love to give and receive.

As this second, and last, test drive of the frontiers of contemporary sensibility, comes to an end, there is, I think, a need to disclose how Bergman’s endeavor dovetails with other investigations. His title, The Touch, emphasizes that a locked away treasure of disinterested loving action calls for us to press open, by a touch, the full dynamic of not only human life, but the cosmos itself. That the forgotten crypt has reached its last phase does not undermine the process of greatness per se. A heart becoming lost forever in such a bid is a heart having delighted in playing a part of mustering the primordial heights. The host, therein, is far from simply delivering a mystical enjoyment. The host, in fact, teems with players, but to a test, a test, as we’ve just revealed, to be nearly completely lost in action. The Swedish Madonna had a career of serenity. Few of us are so lucky. But, on the other hand, where the going is very rough and swift, the pathology of advantage can prompt intensities to the liking of the true. Those truly on the go are equipped for shooting rhinos. Their range is their fortune. There are many masterful hands. A solitary play between immortal and mortal has its validity, as well as its blessings. On that note, however, there is full liberty to carve careers wherein the quick and the dead can be engaged for infinite permutations. Joiners being a doubtful policy, but, as we’ve indicated, rare moments do surface.

#ingmar bergman

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