Today we went out to New Museum (not to be confused with the Nueue Museum,) which was mostly video installations. They had a strange 16mm Short there called The Minotaur. It had three characters- an old woman, an old man and a young woman. The old man was the minotaur, the young woman was a sex object who eventually gained independence, and the old woman was the narrator in whose mind their interaction took place. Also interspersed were images of nature- trees and forest scenes.The sexualization of the Minotaur is a strange thing to me. It makes sense to an extent: the Minotaur was a product of transgression on both Minos' part- a curse for breaking an oath to Poseidon- and Pasiphae's part- the product of bestiality. However, the Minotaur himself is a guilt symbol, and aggressively destructive. Sexualizing him gives him an agency which I think is foreign to guilt.
We also had some delicious Indian food, and (I re-, he initially) saw Synechdoche, New York. I was reaffirmed in my opinion that it was possibly the best American movie I've seen. It doesn't need to straddle the line between comedy and drama- it subsumes both. It has an interesting commentary on human relations I think. It both acknowledges lack of true communcation and affirms human connectivity. Language is given up as a intersection of coincidences, and people relate to each other by inherent codes, which none is really able to confirm in another, but which none of them ultimately need to.
The photo is Gabe, with me, glasses, and curtain in the foreground. I swear I'll learn how to focus one of these days. Maybe the day I learn how to tell the autofocus to stop focusing on the wrong thing.
You don't think sexualization can be guilt inducing and aggressively destructive? Or just not inherently? Maybe they were using it as a guilt of perversion. Loneliness due to feeling alone as a sexual being.
ReplyDeleteI think the weirdness lay in the fact that the Minotaur, in my mind, is a product of sexual guilt and not its perpetrator. The destructiveness of the sexual guilt is expressed in the Minotaur, and in this movie the Minotaur had its own separate sexual agenda.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see. That makes sense. Like, not that the Minotaur was a product of sexual guilt, but then he had his own sexual issues... which are just sort of out of the purview of the original myth. Understandable.
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