haven't recovered from speak now (tv)

You cannot kill me

movies right now are absolutely terrified of silence. every spare second is crammed with motion and noise and information. there’s always something new to look at, something new to process. look here. now here. don’t blink. don’t breathe. it’s constant stimulation. there’s no room left for a moment to land before the next one is already gone.

there’s good sci fi horror out there that do silence and restraint well. i can immediately think of under the skin, annihilation, and ex machina. sometimes the silence is the point. personally i think iron lung works in that lineage.

this isn’t a movie that will let you sit there and passively consume. this is a movie full of visual and audial clues waiting for you to unravel them. this is a movie that wants you to notice your breathing. to feel the silence press in until it’s oppressive.

isolation is the movie. it’s you alone with your thoughts, with time stretching and warping, with nothing to distract you from the constant dread creeping in. it’s not the monsters out there that you’re afraid of. not the constant drip, drip, drip of impending doom. but you, alone, in an endless sea of red.

can you count your breaths in the silence? can you hear your heart beating in your ears? can you live with yourself?

We don't know for sure what he did or didn't do, or why he did it, or even the extent of how, but that doesn't MATTER because nobody deserves to be subjected to what he was. None of them did. Nobody deserves this and the narrative throws that at you over and over again. Even Ava, in the end, tells Simon that this isn't a punishment. If she could save him, she would, because she grows to recognize his humanity. Even though it's too late. Even though he was doomed the second they put him on that ship and she knew it.

iron lung, eh?

We just finished. We'll be right up.