La Femme Publique (Andrzej Zulawski, 1984)
"So we're being told that independent cinema is dead. It's more the end of an era, because cinema accompanies everything. It's very difficult to make a dumb film, especially when you have a voice inside saying that cinema is better than that."
I tell Dinai Paumméa that I'm having a problem writing a review of Zulawski's La Femme Publique and they lean in and tell me this:
"I just noticed the title of your film review blog." Naturally, I'm aghast that it's taken Dinai this long to notice. I also take umbrage to the use of the word 'blog' but I don't mention this.
"You mean you never noticed before?"
"I don't get it."
"What's not to get?"
"Oh come on, 'everything you know is wrong.' What does that even mean?"
"Believe. "
"What?"
"Believe. Not know. And I guess it has something to do with how there are no sacred truths, all assumptions must be critically examined, and arguments from authority are worthless."
"Whatever. Why do you have to be so confrontational about everything? And it's not even true. Let's say that the Sun is shining, and I 'believe' that it's a nice day, a good day: what could be wrong about that?"
"Because it's true. A 'nice' day? A 'good' day? What does that even mean?"
"People are happier, there's a relaxed mood in the air. Come on, don't be so pedantic."
"It was nice yesterday, right?"
"Glorious. We went down to The Ship. You weren't there, as usual."
"I was busy. But I saw two altercations between people in the street yesterday. Yesterday. On a glorious day. On a nice day."
"You're making this up."
"No, it's true. What's more I've had some of my worst days during sunshine, and some of my best during cold and rain. Weather has nothing to do with whether a day is 'good' or not."
"Ugh. Why are you so difficult all the time? Getting in people's faces? And what's the point of this blog anyway? The whole idea behind writing film reviews is so that you get a job with a magazine or newspaper, but they're never going to go with you if you keep making those things so weird."
At this point I should probably mention that Dinai works in advertising. Anyway, I reply with the following:
"I would have thought that it was clear that I wasn't trying to do that."
"And you seem to have spent almost no time at all on them."
"That takes years to master. I spend ages on some of them. Did you see the one on Goosebumps? That was the zenith of research for me. So much work."
"Really? You spend ages on something and then make it look flippant. What's the point of all this?"
"I don't know, something about raising the bar? People are smarter than you think. If you raise the bar and stop spoonfeeding them for a bit they can achieve much more than you think." Dinai chuckles at this.
"Don't even try that one with me for a second. People are absolute morons. I tell them to buy a thing, and they buy it."
"But I'm the one who's 'getting in people's faces,' right?" Instead of replying to me Dinai's mind begins to wander.
"Last night I dreamt I was Hugo de Vries. I was walking near Hilversum and found three different types of evening primrose plant. They were all the same plant, but markedly different. Same, but different. So I collected seeds from each and took them home and grew plants which bore the inherited characteristics of their mutated parents. Then I spent the next few years writing up my findings in a book that ended up filling two volumes. The whole enterprise inadvertently gave Darwin the credence he'd previously been lacking."
"Are you seriously telling me you don't see how that story relates to La Femme Publique?" Dinai slowly comes back to earth and looks at me.
"Wait... what? What's La Femme Publique about again?"
"It's about an actress who ends up playing the role of a woman who's dead."
"In a film?"
"No, in real life. Well... the real life of the film anyway. But then it changes, and other things happen."
"That's got nothing to do with what I just said. Wait... what did I just say?"
"But I'm finding it hard to nail this review. The whole film walks a tightrope between irreverence and something far more eternal. It's a tricky one."
"Sounds boring."
"Hmmm... not boring. Definitely not easy, but it's never boring. Do you think I could use this conversation to create the review for La Femme Publique? Verbatim. With your permission, of course."
"Why are you even asking me?"
"Common courtesy? People get upset about things happening that they're involved in without being included in the process."
"But I'm not even real. Dinai Paumméa? Was Armistead Maupin taken?"
"You know it was."
Dinai leans forward.
"There is no Dinai Paumméa, I'm just an amalgamation of different people you talk to smooshed together into one. And 'Dinai'? That's not even a name."
"But it could be. It kind of looks like one."
"People don't want things to be made up, and they don't want you to stray from the point all the time. If they read a film review they want to know what happened in the film, and what you thought of it. End of story. They don't want to be taken on a pointless, self-indulgent tour around your mind. All this self-reflexivity, it's just so much post-modern junk."
"Well, self-reflexivity is, as we all know, a hallmark of Modernism."
"That's a clear Mark Shiel reference."
"You think?"
"I do think. And what's more, you've also been quoting Carl Sagan way too much recently."
"I'm surprised you noticed. Tell me, what campaign are you working on at the moment."
"It's a tough one. It's a makeup that forces you to eat your first born child."
"How did that go down with the focus groups?"
"Not terribly well actually. But it's the same with all of these campaigns, once people see the upside of something they're more than willing to put their money where their mouth is and buy whatever you tell them to buy. Anyway, stop changing the subject. This whole review thing you do is dumb, and it's a waste of your time, when you could be out there writing things that people *actually* read and that you were being paid for."
"But the present global culture is a kind of arrogant newcomer. It arrives on the planetary stage following four and a half billion years of other acts, and after looking around briefly declares itself in possession of eternal truths. I'd like to be something that gets in the way of that hypothesis."
"That's another Sagan quote."
"Dinai, you are full of surprises. It would seem that everything I believe about you is wrong."
"I still don't see what this has to do with La Femme Publique."