The Sargasso Manuscript is a twisty, tricksy film and my story follows the intricate weavings. On Christmas day I was introduced to, who I call, a Mister Jauntie. I was riding in the passenger seat of a small SUV on a sand road in the eastern mojave. Mr Jauntie revealed himself from the shadows of the sand road. He stood tall, with long pointy horns, like antelope horns, with a look of "that's all it takes" across his body. As we drove on, the figure blended back into the shadows on the road.
A few months later I was driving through the mojave desert again. I was alone. A long stick caught my eye at the side of the road and I thought of Mr Jauntie. I stopped my car and got out to inspect. It was a slim, slightly curved stick. I picked it up and held it in my hands. It wobbled and the smooth worn wood felt very comfortable in my hands. It was very long, much taller than me and I was just able to put it in my car. It took up the entire length of my small SUV.
Many months later, after I moved to Santa Monica, I figured out what that stick was. It was a bow. And I learned more about Mr Jauntie. Mr Jauntie is known under many names: Coyote, Loki, Cupid, Devil, Love.
Love is the trickiest and most effective emotion of humans. When afflicted, humans will change their lives for love. Love is the wild card. There are those who will do anything for love, are addicted to love, have an ideal vision of love and are looking for it. Avadoro says of it "I reckon that from one end of the world to the other, the story of Love is always the same." Love is a fickle game.
The Sargasso Manuscript is pure delight. Creepy and calm. Simple and spellbinding.
"You have a castle in the neighborhood? You didn't mention it." - Alphonse
"It just proves the beauty of modesty." - The Cabalist
"I've lost the feeling of where reality ends and fantasy takes over." - Alphonse in the Cabalist's Castle
"A true researcher proceeds among riddles." - Don Pedro?
The film is a surreal adventure full of surprise, confusion, delight, horror, love and self-awareness. Can stories become self-aware? There is no way to describe my delight in this movie. It's the same level as Fellini's Satyricon - a series of stories that unravel and reveal their interconnections and exoconnections. And the chilling almost final shot of the film: Alphonse watching himself walk away with the two sisters, only to have himself walk back towards himself to retrieve a dropped shoe from himself and to find himself looking at himself in the mirror with the sisters and their destination faded.
As the beautiful Cabalist's wife says, "All these adventures begin simply. The listener thinks it'll soon be over, but one story creates another and then another."
Well, so that's a good enough explanation of why one might put a lot of energy into it. That, and as someone once said, "and it's something you can only do with another person."
Posted by: Carson | August 22, 2004 at 10:45 AM