Directed by Murali K. Thalluri
"No man is an island" wrote John Donne in a poem. And, certainly, to think of the human being as an isolated creature makes little sense. We are, after all, social animals. We need others, and we need them desperately. Thalluri's film deals with the intensity of high school and the need of the other, presenting a handful of characters that coexist in the same place. We cannot say they are friends, they barely know each other, each of them carries a burden so heavy that they become estranged, alone, and that's when the fear of losing one's own humanity is ignited.
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| Viaje a la lengua del puercoespín |
We have the case of Marcus and Melody: brother and sister. They come from a wealthy family, well structured around male hegemony. Their father is very much alike the primordial father from a tribe that Freud describes in Totem and Taboo. This primordial father can have carnal knowledge with his offspring, because in these mythical prehistoric time no such thing as incest exists; however, the jealous sons will savagely kill the father, this powerful alpha male (a figure that bears some resemblance with Lacan's inverted E, which symbolized "the one man not castrated"). By killing the totem-father only taboo remains, and thus incest becomes the ultimate sin. When Marcus witnesses his father having sex he attributes this attitude as a total disregard for moral codes, after all, Marcus seems to imply that his father acts in such a way that he has no choice but to witness the coitus. This traumatic event triggers something deep inside his consciousness and as a result the incest fantasy and the rape fantasy will become firmly inserted in his psyche.
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| Óscar Limache |
The first scene with Luke, the high school jock, is most revealing, as we see him in his bedroom, in front of his computer, stroking his penis most vigorously. What images appear in the computer screen? Luke is struggling with his own sexuality, he is in a place that Lacan would denominate 'minus phi' which is the inscription of a point of fracture in the imaginary, that indicates a certain fissure that affects the constitution of the libidinal object in which one's own image finds support.
"Uneven" Steven is a kid that suffers of genetic malformations, not only does he have one leg longer than the other, but he also has a condition that makes him lose control of his sphincters, and as a result he wets himself in class, becoming the target for everyone's cruel jokes.
Then there is Sean, a boy that openly assumes his homosexuality and pays the price for it, being constantly mocked by Luke's friends and other guys in school. The only way for him to cope with this is escaping into a world of stupor produced by his marijuana consumption.
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| Viaje a la lengua del puercoespín |
Finally there are two girls that play a very relevant role in this film, that owes much to Gus Van Sant's (listed in the credits) realistic and insightful approach of adolescence: Sarah, Luke's girlfriend, makes the mistake of caring too much for her boyfriend, and consequently once she begins to have doubts about her future with him, everything falls apart. Kelly, on the other hand, is perhaps the nicest person in school. She seems to genuinely try to help everyone, she is kind with boys and girls, instead of creating problems she tries to find a solution for them. When everyone attacks Steven she makes sure he's going to be OK.
However, all of them suffer from teenage angst. But this is not the typical, cliché angst. Lacanian psychoanalysts might ask… why despite all the amount of scientific knowledge that has been accumulated, and the efforts to establish theories that presuppose to grant us reassurance (Levis Straus structuralism and Hegel historicism that aims towards the acquisition of the Absolute Knowledge, in other words a conceptualization that implies a theory without remainders) we still experience restlessness? Lacan asked himself "why is it that we so much want to preserve the dimension of anxiety?". Anxiety is a horrible thing and yet is there a human need to preserve it? In this regard Kierkegaard may be closer to the question of angst when he speaks about the psychological ambiguity concerning this concept "Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy". Arguably, the existence of angst points out to something that cannot be reduced to a rational category, and without which a truly reflection on the question of ethics is useless. We find this sympathetic antipathy in characters like Marcus, who has a strong relationship with his sister and at the same time despises her. The antipathetic sympathy is present in Kelly, the sweetest girl that treats everyone kindly but that secretly feels alienated, incapable of anything but antipathy for herself.
However they are all connected, and what they do will affect the lives of the others. What happens then when during the first minutes of the film someone commits suicide? Life is a tricky business, that's for sure. But life as teenagers can be even trickier.
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Conozco a Alejandro Romaní gracias a haber coincidido tantas veces ya en el circuito limeño de galerías de arte, pero hasta ahora no había tenido la oportunidad de ver su obra. Alejandro tuvo la amabilidad de invitarme a la inauguración de la muestra ((Sounds)) F.U.C.K.T.O.R.Y. que se llevó acabo ayer miércoles en la noche en la sala de arte del Centro Cultural El Olivar, en San Isidro. Alejandro Romaní forma parte de un colectivo interdisciplinario que incluye a otros artistas como Burgos, Cornivell y Lisarazo. Por separado, la obra de cada uno de ellos es meritoria, pero al ver todas sus propuestas dialogando entre sí creo que uno, como espectador, gana una región privilegiada desde la que se puede contemplar mejor estos espléndidos cuadros (y, también, los sonidos experimentales que acompañan la muestra y que hacen hincapié en el alto nivel de contaminación sonora de nuestra querida ciudad de Lima).
Llegué temprano a la muestra y saludé a Alejandro Romaní; sus cuadros establecen un vínculo unívoco con la geometría euclidiana pero adaptados a una sensibilidad postmoderna, su propuesta va más allá de las líneas y de los ángulos y reinventa figuras clásicas de triángulos diversos. Después me quedé conversando con mi gran amigo y artista Marcos Palacios, aunque finalmente decidí regresar a mi distrito, a Barranco, con algunos amigos, entre ellos Julio Garay y Joseph de Utia. Eso sí, antes del retorno me tomé tres o cuatro chilcanos, más un par de tragos de pisco con café y pisco con menta.
Julio acaba de exponer en Chile una serie de grabados que se enfocan en la camisa / uniforme escolar que se usó obligatoriamente desde la dictadura militar de Velasco en adelante, es decir, el típico atuendo de colegio fiscal pero desprovisto de todo tipo de adorno. Las próximas muestras de Julio serán en Portugal y, con suerte, en nuestro medio. Uno de los momentos más divertidos de la noche: Julio afirmando que un inicuo extraño de camisa celeste lo perseguía, y efectivamente cuando tomamos el taxi allí estaba el sujeto, a media cuadra de nosotros. Lejos de sentir un escalofrío me maté de risa (no sé qué diablos habrá pensado de mí el taxista).
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| my drawing / mi dibujo |
Llegamos rápidamente a Barranco, a la galería 80M2, concretamente a la inauguración de Luz María Bedoya. Julio estaba en desacuerdo conmigo pero yo noté un cierto aire (como si ella estuviera rindiendo homenaje) a la serie de variables continuas del prestigioso fotógrafo Billy Hare. Las fotos de Luz María Bedoya muestran un escenario repetitivo y monótono pero se centran en algún cuadro que resalta por su luminosidad, si bien, en strictu sensu no hay mayores vasos comunicantes entre una obra y otra yo sí sentí un cierto vínculo (quizá ella conoce el trabajo de Billy Hare, quién sabe). En 80M2 Julio se encontró con Natalia Majluf, y yo aproveché su distracción para tomarme no uno sino cuatro pisco sours, todos muy sabrosos. Sin duda, una noche memorable, aunque hubiese sido mejor si alguien más me hubiese acompañado.
En fin, hace un par de meses compartí aquí la edición autografiada de “Diario Educar”, del director y fundador de mi colegio Constantino Carvallo Rey. Ahora que estuve revisando los libros de mi estante, he encontrado dos ediciones de “Viaje a la lengua del puercoespín” de mi tutor y profesor del colegio Óscar Limache. Curiosamente, cuando llevé el curso de poesía peruana en la facultad de literatura, había un par de títulos de mi profesor en el syllabus. En los 80, Óscar ganó el premio más importante de poesía a nivel nacional con “Viaje a la lengua del puercoespín” un poemario muy personal y complejo que, seguro, sorprenderá a más de un lector. Tengo dos ediciones, ambas dedicadas y firmadas por el autor, que incluyo a continuación.
Finalmente, ahí tienen la versión preliminar de un dibujo que he estado preparando desde hace un par de semanas. Ya había colocado algunos fragmentos independientes en posts anteriores, pero aquí pueden ver una versión bastante avanzada.
