Louraburra

Acabo de me dar conta de que o meu gosto por filmes é antes de tudo estético. E não é nenhuma coisa de refinamento, ou da estética do filme como obra no tempo, nada disso. É bem brega, pompa e circunstância mesmo. Exemplos:

Hero
Age of Innocence
Visconti em geral
Quinto Elemento
Tigre e o Dragão
PAciente Inglês
Until the End of the World

Nerds de videoclube

Algum diretor de programação teve um enfarte, e os estagiários aproveitaram. Enquanto o sujeito ia pro hospital, tiraram a programação habitual de enlatados de ação, comédias românticas, e musicais antigos colorizados. Puseram no lugar Acossado, Quanto mais Quente Melhor, e Brancaleone.

E assistindo acossado, surgiu uma idéia um tanto estranha (e portanto, provavelmente já tida por outros, discutida, e assunto de tese de doutorado). Godard e Tarantino são extremamente parecidos, apesar das diferenças do meio, dos "different skies" de Frazer. Os dois são, basicamente e acima de tudo, cine-nerds. Fizeram filmes que poderiam ser o resultado de dois tarados por cinema discutindo de madrugada sobre "aquela cena em que aquela atriz gostosa larga o cara e aí..." Começaram pelo policial maravilhoso, depois foram ficando mais doidos até degringolar. A diferença é que a degringolagem do Tarantino, sob a influência da locadora americana, foi no caminho do esquecível, enquanto o Godard do cineminha europeu foi pro inassistível.

E têm toda a pinta de terem, ambos, feito na verdade o que o Tarantino sacaneou uma vez "did I do Uma? Fuck, I spent ten years as a pimply, ugly video clerk. Of course I did her! I fucked every woman on that set!"

Dream of the Merchant

The air is very still, and smells of hemp and sweat. In an atmosphere that's brighter than it should be, a lamp hangs from the ceiling, a brass affair from whose beak you would expect a genie, not a flame and smoke, to come out. It reminds one of a movie, of that illumination which Hollywood calls darkness.

The man in front of you is fat. Not just fat - immense. Rolls of fat cascade from his neck, and his face stands out as if framed by fat, a small face in a huge head, with yellowish eyes and a coarse, sparse beard which reminds one of pubic hairs. You cannot see him in his entirety, or even his face, but only in glimpses and flashes, perhaps the light isn't as bright as it seemed to be, and it is thus impossible to judge his countenance, if he is angry or serene, joyful or sad.

He is sitting on top of a pile of rolled carpets, and dressed in a rich gown of silk. It is almost impossible, in the dim light (is it dim or not?), to know where the carpets end and his body starts, as if he were a spirit of the carpets, perhaps the genie who's not inside the brass lamp. It is not that which makes him grotesque, however, but his hands, which are fine and almost feminine, slim, impossibly long fingers tapering into short, manicured nails. They wave out of the folds and drapes of his robed arms, as if bearing no connection to the obese head and formless body, tracing figures in the dusty, smoky air.

The hands of merchants resemble their wares. These are not the rough hands of a merchant in rugs and carpets. They are too fine even for a slaver's hands, for a financier, for a dealer in music and illusion. What does the merchant sell, what does he buy? The hands wave, and their waving and weaving looks as if the air itself is a gross thing, which they touch but reluctantly as the long fingers create gestures redolent with meaning.

You cannot help but think souls would be too coarse for those hands