— using only the Academic 35mm movie format (this rule was the first the new group themselves broke, by starting to use digital filming techniques);
— refraining from taking credit — the director’s name would not appear in the credits.
Everyone knew that von Trier’s self-irony was intact, and that the “Vow of Chastity” was more like a parody of a manifesto, but the scandal succeeded. Even though such bans were like a red cloth to a bull, they still encouraged them to consider the level of lies in filmed materiaclass="underline" what’s colored in by computer, cut out, lit up, made over, and then fed to an audience — like the whole thing had been calculated down to the last teardrop and dollar.
Ieva didn’t think there was any need to discuss the topic. Everyone could tell plastic from glass and, if someone liked plastic, it was a matter of preference and knowledge. She enjoyed professional cyber-movies for their stylistic purity, but purity of style could hold your attention for ten minutes, no more. Even mistakes, if there were any, were interesting. In all other ways these movies were unbearably boring and predictable — like the human mind. They’re for the viewers’ entertainment.
No manifesto can make an artist out of a person. In turn, no artist can strictly adhere to a manifesto if he is truly an artist. Even if it’s the one you’ve written yourself.
Barbara is undeniably talented. And she has a good cameraman. A delicate light stretched from the depths of the hall toward the screen.
The scenes revealed what was usually hidden from those who walked the earth — a shelter made of pieces of insulation covered in rags, faces stony from hunger and drugs — all of which light draws out from the darkness, like carving them from nothingness with a rough chisel, the naïve commentary of children. It was a physically visible hell.
The story slowly unraveled, highlighting the main protagonists. One of them was a boy who filmed the underground world. When he himself showed up on camera, people gasped — he was only eight years old, but he constantly smoked while talking to his counselor at the youth center. His opinions were rational and wise like those of an eighty-year-old man. It was terrible seeing this little person, this primordium of all mankind, who was destined to grow up in literal darkness.
But Barbara hadn’t made the typical beginner director’s mistake — pitying and adding emotion to what could already be seen. She gathered the teenagers and brought them to the seaside, filming their reactions to this never-before-seen element. The camera was and remained an observer. Letting the viewer think for themselves.
The movie also had a proper dramatic climax — it ended with documentary scenes in which some boys in the underground were judging the death sentence on one of their own — for some unclear, but in their belief, unforgiveable crime. A sawed-off barrel is aimed at the captive teenager, who at first squirms like a worm in fear of death, but then stands tall, puts his hands in his pockets and stares in challenge at the person taking aim…
. . Ieva grows hot, and for a second she thinks she’s going to faint. She doesn’t know which tiny detail it is that suddenly rips open the storeroom of memories — the accused boy’s stance, his sweater, the look in his eyes, or the barrel being aimed at him. But a scene of her and Aksels is there in her mind, clear, clear as day.
Aksels!
What kind of name is that?
It’s so common!
Aksels and Ieva! She’s the one taking aim. On the sunny day of January 15th.
Ieva realizes that it’s been years since she’s thought of Aksels. She remembers his face. See his eyes, but without any expression in them. Notices the small, birdlike silhouette at the end of the barrel. It suddenly seems to her that January 15th never happened to them. That it was a story about two other people in another life.
She lets out a low cry and rubs her hand over her face as if trying to wake herself up. Peter grabs her arm in concern, she pushes him away, gets up, and heads toward the back of the hall, where there are tables set with lunch refreshments. In one long gulp, Ieva drains a bottle of mineral water, then another. The movie has sucked the energy from her; she feels like all that’s left of her is an empty shell.
The movie ends before the trigger is pulled. An open ending.
There are a few seconds of dead silence, and then there is applause. Barbara takes the CD out of the player and goes to her seat, searching for Ieva’s face, but Ieva doesn’t even wave. She’s standing alone at the back of the hall by a white, cloth covered table, wolfing down some brown cake with whipped cream. She’s cut off a huge chunk, loaded it onto a plate, and is wolfing it down.
Peter catches up with her at the park. He’s standing in the wind — gasping for breath and his hair blowing around him.
“Maybe we can have dinner together tonight?”
Tonight, Ieva thinks. She’ll pull herself together by tonight.
“Sure.”
“I’ll call your room…”
“I don’t know when I’ll be back. I was going to take a walk.”
Peter shakes her by the shoulder.
“Then call me — room 311, on the third floor. You’ll call? Around seven, eight? Promise? I’ll be waiting.”
He hurries back. Probably back to the café for yet another glass of wine to celebrate Barbara’s movie.
It’s still a beautiful January day.
The Spree River. Some school. Benches. The sun. Children shouting.
Wind and leaves. The anti-autumn. This is what April could be like in Latvia. Or Indian Summer.
I could be happy just to be happy, Ieva thinks. Happy about the river, or Berlin. Look, Möbelhaus Kern — such pretty, light-colored sofas and dark leather cushions! Except something has jolted her heart with such unease that she can’t enjoy the cushions.
A Deutsche Post boy rides up to the furniture store on his bike with its yellow mail pouches.
“What’s the date today?” she asks him.
“January 15th,” the boy answers, and with one look Ieva sees herself like in a mirror — standing bewilderedly in front of a shop window with her dopey, lost-in-the-past eyes. She steps aside as if in apology.
Aside. Aside. Aside.
More than anything right now, she wants to be in this moment and in her skin.
She stands on the Alt-Moabit Bridge. The Spree flows under it dark and fast, but can’t pull out to sea the handful of ducks and geese stubbornly fighting the current. On one of the bridge pillars, someone has written in graceful lettering—Alla heisst Gott.
The fresh air gives her strength to exist. When she gets back to the hotel she’s exhausted, but calm. She spreads out on the bed and lays motionless hour after hour, enjoying the hotel’s anonymous emptiness, the fact that there are so few of her things here, so little of her life.
To be alone. To not think of anything. To extract these hours from the flesh of her being.
Evening slips in unnoticed. She had dozed off from staring at the ceiling. She takes a cold shower, gets dressed and calls Peter. He doesn’t pick up. After fifteen minutes she calls again, then decides to go down to his room. What if his phone just isn’t working?
The soft, red hallway swallows all sound. Ieva knocks at 311. After a moment Peter opens the door — half naked. A towel wrapped around his hips.
“I was asleep,” he said. “Didn’t hear your call. Come in!”
Ieva clearly senses the hidden advance in his lithe, tan back, the crease in the material of the towel around his waist, and the provocative look in his eyes. The nature of woman is to inspire man. And what then? When there’s nothing left to inspire, to satiate them?
The blood quickly rushes to her cheeks. She lowers her eyes.
“No, thank you! I’ll wait in the restaurant,” she says briskly and heads for the stairs.