- Sleep
The burden of the world weighed me down with a sweet drowsiness such as commonly occurs during sleep. The thoughts with which I meditated about you were like the efforts of those who would like to get up but are overcome by deep sleep and sink back again. No one wants to be asleep all the time, and the sane judgement of everyone judges it better to be awake. Yet often a man defers shaking off sleep when his limbs are heavy with slumber. Although displeased with himself he is glad to take a bit longer, even when the time to get up has arrived. In this kind of way I was sure it was better for me to render myself up to your love than to surrender to my own cupidity. But while the former course was pleasant to think about and had my notional assent, the latter was more pleasant and overcame me. I had no answer to make to you when you said to me ‘Arise, you who are asleep, rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light’ (Eph. 5: 14). Though at every point you showed that what you were saying was true, yet I, convinced by that truth, had no answer to give you except merely slow and sleepy words: ‘At once’—‘But presendy’—‘Just a little longer, please’. But ‘At once, at once’ never came to the point of decision, and ‘Just a little longer, please’ went on and on for a long while. In vain I ‘delighted in your law in respect of the inward man; but another law in my members fought against the law of my mind and led me captive in the law of sin which was in my members’ (Rom. 7: 22). The law of sin is the violence of habit by which even the unwilling mind is dragged down and held, as it deserves to be, since by its own choice it slipped into the habit. ‘Wretched man that I was, who would deliver me from this body of death other than your grace through Jesus Christ our Lord?’ (Rom. 7: 24–5).
~ Confession, VIII (12)
- In die Sonne Schauen (2025)
At my university there is a film group that regularly shows movies. Today they showed “In die Sonne schauen.” I looked up some information on it beforehand and it intrigued me, so I decided to watch it.
The movie is rather long and it also feels slow. Further, the film focuses on the darker sides of being human: for example, close-up shots of flies, dead people, and amputation.
This also raises the question of how to understand the movie. I do not think it makes much sense to force a coherent interpretive narrative onto it. Rather, it should be viewed as a series of thematic impressions that fit together and paint a picture, but a picture that remains abstract instead of clear and graspable. In other words, Nietzsche would say this movie is Dionysian instead of Apollonian.
As I already stated, I do not think there is a coherent thematic narrative one can extract from this film, but there are certainly themes in it that I want to describe. The movie is best understood as a set of dichotomies:
- Coldness of death vs. warmth of life: Throughout the movie there are multiple scenes in which a character in the midst of life describes it as warm—be it the sand and stones on the beach or a penis being touched. This is contrasted with the lifeless coldness of death, shown through the dead deer or the dead grandmother.
- Unimportant sensual experiences vs. important memories: Another dichotomy concerns sensual experiences that seem trivial and unimportant, yet are direct and memorable, like the smell of water or fresh-cut grass, and can be recalled vividly. This is contrasted with important memories of loved ones, such as the dead grandmother, whose exact face we can no longer remember. In the movie, this is depicted by heavy bloom and film grain when a character remembers something, contrasted with the non-grain, non-bloom of direct life.
- Youth full of life vs. the wish for death: The film plays across multiple time periods in each of which young women are the focus, and in each period the youngest has a yearning for death. We thus have the contrast between a person full of life who simultaneously wishes to be close to death.
- Sexuality against women vs. sexuality from women: Another theme is sexual violence against women contrasted with sexuality coming from women themselves. For examle in one scene a maid is basically sold into sexual servitude or an older man stares at a young girl. This is contrasted with sexuality initiated by women, particularly in the modern time period and the one from the DDR period.
- Physical death vs. metaphorical death: Another contrast is physical death, depicted in the dead grandmother, the dead boy, the dead deer, versus a more metaphorical death. Many characters who have a death wish describe themselves as not knowing who they are. By acting and imitating the behavior of those around them, they forget who they are; even their own names sound strange to them. In a sense, these characters, by becoming so much like the ones they emulate, are already dead. They have killed themselves in the process. This fits well with their death wishes, the girl who wants to stop her heartbeat, or the younger girl who tries to drown herself. Subconsciously they know that they are already dead, and their bodies simply continue doing what they are supposed to do.
- Not controlling the body vs. controlling the body: This brings me to the final contrast. Throughout the movie there are characters who are not in control of their bodies: the mother who can only laugh when something sad happens, the woman who constantly gags because her stomach acts on its own, or the woman who loses the ability to walk even though her legs work perfectly fine. In all these cases the conscious mind cannot control something more unconscious. This ties into the previous contrast: they know they are already dead, and their bodies also want to die.
What irritates me about this movie, especially compared to other films that are meant to be interpreted more metaphorically than literally, like Angel’s Egg or No Country for Old Men, is that whereas those films both describe a problem (in Angel’s Egg it is faith; in No Country for Old Men it is evil), they also provide at least the beginning of attempts at solutions (Angel’s Egg: accepting or rejecting faith; No Country for Old Men: accepting evil, fighting evil, or refusing to care). This movie does not build anything. It asks questions and shows contrasts but does not even provide the beginnings of answers.
Perhaps instead of viewing this movie as an archetypal myth in the Nietzschean sense, it makes more sense to view it as a purely Dionysian depiction of aspects of the human condition.
Mom somehow never knew when to laugh. If something was funny, sh edidn’t laugh. But if some thing bad happened, she did. When somebody died, for example. Then she suddenly started laughing and laughing really loudly, and couldn’t stop
LENKA: I loooove when skin has that musty river smell.
CHRISTA: And the smell of a cellar. I know.
LENKA: I looove the smell of cellar. I’m addicted to it.
NELLY: And nail polish.
LENKA: Yeah, ..but not quite as much ascellar smella
I remember I got a diary for my 15th birthday. I never knew what to write in it, as if my thoughts somehow weren’t worthy. Whenever I tried to write, I thought that someone would find it and read it after my death, and what a shock that would be for my mom. But if she finds it after my death without me having written a single word, she might think that I didn’t like her gift, or that I was ungrateful or something. So I started writing down the opposite of what I was thinking, sentences that would make my mom happy when I was gone.
- Inwards
By the Platonic books I was admonished to return into myself.18 With you as my guide I entered into my innermost citadel, and was given power to do so because you had become my helper (Ps. 29: 11). I entered and with my soul’s eye, such as it was, saw above that same eye of my soul the immutable light higher than my mind—not the light of every day, obvious to anyone, nor a larger version of the same kind which would, as it were, have given out a much brighter light and filled everything with its magnitude.19 It was not that light, but a different thing, utterly different from all our kinds of light. It transcended my mind, not in the way that oil floats on water, nor as heaven is above earth. It was superior because it made me, and I was inferior because I was made by it. The person who knows the truth knows it, and he who knows it knows eternity. Love knows it.20 Eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity: you are my God. To you I sigh ‘day and night’ (Ps. 42: 2). When I first came to know you, you raised me up to make me see that what I saw is Being, and that I who saw am not yet Being. And you gave a shock to the weakness of my sight by the strong radiance of your rays, and I trembled with love and awe.21’ And I found myself far from you ‘in the region of dissimilarity’, 22 and heard as it were your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.’ […] I heard in the way one hears within the heart, and all doubt left me.23’ I would have found it easier to doubt whether I was myself alive than that there is no truth ‘understood from the things that are made’ (Rom. 1: 20).
~ Confession, VII (16)
- Brazil (1985)
Spoilers ahead. I wrote while watching, so this is very stream-of-consciousness. Take care.
The actress is very cute, but holy this is so undeserved. Our protagonist destroys her whole life and she falls for him??? Also, suits with a hat and a long mantle are such a vibe. The movie looks gorgeous, I love its surreal aspects. It works a lot with perspective tricks, which is cool.
I wonder what this is about, a myth? Maybe a Jungian archetype? Something something, birth of tragedy? This guy’s undeserved lover, undeserved that he got saved, like how many people died to save him and why? He’s not even important. Is the ending meant to be him as some kind of Christ figure taking the debt of everyone onto himself?
Maybe it was a kind of dream all along, like the terrorist being some kind of multiple-personality disorder? Also why does this meme keep happening every 30 minutes where the FBI raids this one guy’s house? Anybody know what meme I’m talking about?
Maybe it’s a psychological thriller, like it’s all in his mind like the movie Boes is afraid? Also, am I the only one who thinks it has Dark Souls elements, with the huge samurai and the little guys with baby masks, holding chains in their hands? What is this ending?????
Oh, okay. It’s a tragedy. That makes it a lot better than the apparently happy ending where they drive off with their truck into nature. 7/10
Edit: I feel like the movie lends itself very much to a Nietzschean lens of interpretation. Maybe I’ll formalize this someday in more detail, but rapid-fire, some themes: Sam’s dream life as a slave-revolt of the imaginary; Jill as alter/inversion/value-transvaluation; bureaucracy as late-modern Apollo; ressentiment; Brazil’s bureaucracy as a Nietzschean “decadent culture.”
Brazil When hearts were entertained in June We stood beneath an amber moon And softly whispered ‘some day soon’
We kissed and clung together Then Tomorrow was another day The morning found me miles away With still a million things to say
Now When twilight beams the skies above Recalling thrills of our love There’s one thing I’m certain of
Return I will To old Brazil
- Reflections on the Psalms
Very short book, can be read in a matter of two to three hours. One probably gets more out of it if one is very familiar with the Psalms or reads it alongside them (though he mostly repeats the psalm he is currently talking about). I liked, for the most part, his interpretation. Here’s a summary of what I found interesting:
- Some Psalms go all the way back to David, but most are believed to have been created after the Babylonian captivity.
- The most common pattern/technique in the Psalms is parallelism — the practice of saying things twice in different words.
- One of the few poetic techniques that can survive translation (meter and rhyme usually don’t).
- Many Christians tremble when they hear of Judgment Day, meanwhile the Psalms talk very positively about it. Lewis compares this to how the Jews viewed judgment as a civil case with themselves as the plaintiff, while Christians think of it as a criminal case where they are the accused.
- Behind this is the historical fact that it was often very hard for a regular person to get justice without the resources to bribe judges and officials, so they looked forward to divine justice.
- In that sense, the Jewish picture enhances the Christian one: Christians fear Judgment Day because they know they could never adhere to the divine and infinite standard of purity, while the Jewish perspective helps us realize we don’t even adhere to the human standard. Who among us has never wronged another human?
- Many times in the Psalms there is a lot of hatred against the writer’s enemies.
- How should Christians deal with this hatred? Ignore it? Accept it? One approach is to recognize that we modern people also have plenty of hatred — we simply disguise it — whereas they were more honest about their feelings.
I am exceptionally blessed in having been allowed a way of life in which, having little power, I have little opportunity of oppressing and embittering others. Let all of us who have never been school prefect, NCO, schoolmaster, matron of a hospital, prison warden, or magistrate give hearty thanks for it.
- Still, their reaction to injustice with hatred is wrong, and as Christians we should not hate but forgive.
- There is often the impression that the Jews are more vindictive than pagans, but the reason is that the Jews took justice — i.e., right and wrong — more seriously than pagans did.
- In the Psalms, when they speak of death, it is always in shadowy terms. They had little belief in a future life. What modern Bibles translate as “souls” means “life” in Hebrew, and “hell” means simply the land of the dead (Sheol).
- The most valuable part of the Psalms is that they can express the same delight in God that made David dance.
- The poets do not differentiate between love of God in a spiritual sense and love found in participating in church, sermons, or festivals — for them that was one and the same.
- It wasn’t possible for them to disentangle the spiritual from the social practices — the two were intertwined.
- Thus when the Psalms talk about “seeing the Lord,” they mean something like seeing the festival. A modern Christian at such a festival might hear music, see instruments and celebration, and in addition feel the presence of God — for the poets there was no distinction, no dualism.
- The Psalms talk about how following God’s laws is delightful and beautiful — but how can following laws and commandments be delightful?
- How can a hungry, poor man in a shop full of food who refrains from stealing find this delightful?
- One answer is the satisfaction the poets feel in obeying a law — the pleasure of a good conscience.
- The theologian’s Euthyphro dilemma: some thought God could have commanded us to hate, since all goodness comes from Him. Lewis disagrees — good is independent of God, and God delights in it because it is good. The Psalms are delighted to be on the correct side of that.
- The Psalms tell us not only to avoid wicked actions, but also wicked intentions — e.g., wishing someone harmful things. But should Christians then segregate themselves from society?
- Avoid people if you can, but not always. If someone says something wicked, silence is sometimes a good technique. If it is too wicked, you may protest, and often you will find many others also dislike the wickedness — we do not want people to think Christians are only about judgment.
- Handling social situations with wicked people requires both good intentions and good social skills. Many of us lack the latter, so it is prudent to avoid such situations.
- “Lead us not into temptation” often means: deny me those gratifying invitations from interesting people, which I am at such risk of desiring.
- This reminded me of the Stoics, who say we should keep good company — virtuous people — because our environment determines who we become.
- The Psalms do not really have nature poetry, because nature was simply all around them — the fish they caught, the cows they milked — so there was no reason to separate nature from themselves with special poetry about it.
- One stumbling block for Lewis is the constant call to praise God. Why does God need our praise? Is He vain?
- In real life, whenever we have enjoyment — food, art, nature, reading, poetry — if we truly enjoy it, we naturally want to praise it. We delight in praising the beautiful, because praise does not merely express enjoyment, it consummates it. It is the final act of enjoyment, the way we participate in it. If we enjoy something but cannot speak of it or praise it, the enjoyment feels incomplete.
- Jesus was not a systematic teacher. Instead, He spoke in proverbs, analogy, and parable — sometimes uttering maxims that, taken to extremes, contradict each other. His teaching therefore cannot be grasped solely by the intellect; if we try to do so, we will find Him the most elusive teacher, for He almost never gives a straight answer to questions.
I2P