2166 – Shirley (2020)

spacetime coordinates: 1950s US

directed by: Josephine Decker

It is a pleasure to write about Josephine Decker’s movies, as she is without a doubt one of the most inventive and unpredictable filmmakers out there. Her work is one that refuses and avoids any easy classifications and also avoids the easy trappings of arthouse cinema. I watched “Shirley” a few years back and I still feel the strong impression it left on me (as do all of her movies). The movie is a fictionalization of the life of American Gothic horror writer Shirley Jackson who wrote such classics as The Haunting of Hill House (the movie The Haunting directed by Robert Wise in 1963 – is genuinely scary and has haunted me since adolescence). The casting is magnificent and it is one of that period 1950s movies where you realize it is about now.

The movie starts with the recollection of a young couple of newlyweds – the Nemsers who end up entering the bizarre clammy nest of Shirley J and her husband, a philandering but sharp and appreciative critic and supporter of his wife who seems to encourage her bouts of drinking and lethargy. As I said, I have seen the movie a while ago – and will restrict myself to the obvious and striking details. Shirley is magnificently played by Elisabeth Moss, who appears to be surfing and suffering a combined assortment of phobias and fears at the same time they all feel the ‘proper’ response to a world still unable to tackle the Kinsey Report. The whole society around her seems to supply her with intolerable horrors of blandness and conformity. The relationship between these two women – Rose and Shirley is alluring, hypnotic, and central to the movie. In spite of unequal or let’s say unstable relations, there is an air of constant seduction with Rose falling under the spell of Shirley in spite of being treated with cruelty and being transformed into a caretaker by her husband. Even this cruelty is erotic in a way, it keeps complicating a deep feeling and attraction between these women. Both of them are always lying on the edge of a precipice, swerving and avoiding various dead alleys, the precipice of conformity, bad husbands and crushed illusions.

There is also a feeling of of what i cannot call otherwise than ‘literary vampirism’ – the feeding from and off the experiences of others. The ‘Norman Rockwellesque US keeps unwinding and even it its academic or high cultural fortress appears to be actually a sham. In fact, there is an underbelly, a twilight reality that escapes most of the contemporaries, a chthonian shadow theatre or a constant shadow play with death, decay and bewitchment that seems to transgress boundaries of gender, fiction or reality.

Mushrooms also play a role and at some point, with Shirley almost transforming herself into some sort of stereotypical witch, a wise woman of the forest or corruptor – as well as the ever more rapacious (min) detective, able to see all the misdeeds, to follow all the injustices, the only true if unnerving feminist gumheel. We will never know if mushroom poisoning means making available like in Alice a mismatch of these worlds that are adjacent and contiguous.

I love how ambiguity and clandestinity is played upon by Josphine Decker – since she perfectly integrates the nastiest relational or couple aspects and you feel like celebrating the remorseless attitude of a writer at the top of her trade. Shirley is a writer that is somehow super aware of the various pitfalls and falsities of her circumstance and is never a victim of it. There are no supernatural elements even after being walled in that house (even this feels so much like a Poe – Gothic trope in Tell-Tale Heart) and everything feels like gaslighting. As in classic feminist Gothic The Yellow Paper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Shirley seems to slowly mutate and shapeshift while also being able to expose all the foibles of what every talented woman has to pull through by living in a male (cisgender) world. It is not the world beyond but the world out here – the daily horrors that people inflict upon one another. Even if I have no way of recognizing this as a male cisgender – in a bizarre way but very familiar way I was stuck in my home several times(even before Corona) and even developed some form of dread of getting out or meeting people. That struck a chord with me. It is also somehow the other side of lockdowns, of those lockdowns that already happened, totally unrelated to quarantine or social distancing (here society itself is being shunned away). The world she writes about is actively seeping through, and becomes the reality of her own life, while the inverse of course is true as well.

2076 – Truffle Hunters (2020 documentary)

“Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy, a handful of men, seventy or eighty years old, hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle-which to date has resisted all of modern science’s efforts at cultivation.” (imdb)

Directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw

Truffle hunters of Perigord (France) in the 19th c on a Liebig meat extract flavored with truffle aroma

This must be one of the most delightful documentaries of these last years. The imagery and the people are just a marvel. We are definitely living in a time where an omnipresent mushrooms mycelium grows unseen through books, exhibitions, documentaries and pop cultural artefacts. Mushrooms have acquired a very special place in our current dead-end situation. Fungi are showing us that even if we rather imagine the end of the world than that of capital, mushroom will continue to be part of a world that is long since post-apocalyptic. Mushroom’s unique role as both putrescientific and putrifictional organisms is well documented. In the gaming world. Just take the Super Mushroom booster (Nintendo’s Super Mario series) or indie gaming Botanicula’s Mr Mushroom character. The association of mushrooms with magic are complex and nearly limitless. There is more to mushrooms than meets the eye. There has been a growing increasing recognition of certain invisible (to the eye) presence of mushrooms called mycorrhiza mushrooms that developed over millions of years a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship with the root parts of the plants all over the planet (that under special conditions can turn parasitical). Mushrooms with their filaments and thread-like connectivity play an important role in the Wood Wide Web. The knowledge about this unseen interwebbed world under our very feet has been growing steadily. I deeply recommend an in-depth history of mutualism in the life sciences – how symbiotic theories evolved, a history written by Canadian historian of microbiology, evolutionary theory, microbiome and biology – Jan Sapp. His books have been a guiding light to me, helping me recognize the value of minor counter-currrents or redesicovered under-currents existing in parrallel (such as those employing the concept of symbiosis).

There are documentaries like the Magic of Mushrooms (2014) or Fantastic Fungi (2019). There is bestsellers such Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins or the succesfull Entangled Life: How Mushrooms make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures by Merlin Sheldrake. Gigantic forests of bio-remediating or myco-remediating poisonous mushrooms are central to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga (check this great essay by Gregory Marks here).

There are even SF series such as the Mycelial Network in Star Trek Discovery described as “a discrete subspace domain containing the mycelium, or roots, of the fungus Prototaxites stellaviatori” (Prototaxites the alien fictional mushroom is based on an actual gigantic fossil mushroom or lichen-like organism that existed once in the Devonian age).

Many species of mushrooms have acquired growing relevance, others have always been considered a rarity – to be traded, consumed or valued. The truffle (both its alba – white and black strands) stand apart as a highly treasures biocultural organism. Do not think they are protected in the sense rare species are. They stand at the center of networks linking regional traditional mushroom hunters and their companion species – and five star restaurant and conneisseurs that are willing to pay incredible prices. The truffle combines an unspectacular exterior with an ineffable strong smell (there are no known medicinal proprieties identified).

there is smell testing ritual at potential truffle auction pieces for those interested

Just this smell makes highly attractive to both humans and other animals, a lure for our desires, trophic chains and economic speculation. A smell is mostly appreciated with that most irrational organ – the nose. Truffles are also multispecies vectors, they attract both humans, yet their main carriers and spore dispersal vehicles are pigs (and because of us – dogs). Oil flavored with truffles is enough to change a whole dish. Motovun white truffle (Tuber Magnatum L.) flavored honey liquor from Croatia flavored with just a hint of a truffle (of which I had some unforgettable stinky shots) considered a local Dalmatian speciality.

there are many kinds of truffle flavored trash foods

Anything with truffle flavor (even chips or cheese) is considered a delicacy for that matter. Everything regarding truffles has become highly competitive (with a growing black market). These underground unspectacular lumps (fruiting bodies of a particular mushroom) advertise their underground existence in order to get some quality dispersal by mammals such as pigs that find it irresistible. This smell is hard to describe (and especially impossible to assess what it actually feels like for a pig) – but it turns out to be a certain bio-mimicry, imitating certain bodily odors of mammals, especially because it is quite earthy hormonal perspiration-like – musky with deep heavy notes. Although supposedly aphrodisiac it has never been proven so.

these seemingly banal clumps can garner the most egregious prices

Here is a unique humourous documentary about the lives of these incredible 70 or 80 years old Italian truffle hunters and their unique and dangerous relationship with their prized truffle hunting dogs that they would never ever part with (even when offered large sums). There is also a very sad part to this story -as everywhere the globalized capitalist expansion of markets catering to the luxury taste and high incomes have transformed truffle hunting from a hobby and pleasurable (if always profitable and slightly protective and conflictual) livelihood in northern Italy (Piemonte) into something really mortal where both companion species and the human caretakers are under threat.

There are more killings of hunters and poison baiting of dogs than ever before. It is wonderful that these people, normally weary of strangers and highly protective of their knowhow and favorite patch – have allowed the filmmakers to follow them in the field.

Italy being Italy there also lots of musical numbers

There is an increase in demand and land-grabbing of territories and lands and constant pressure to acquire truffle rich territories – as truffles become ever more popular. This is the background for this documentary – importantly it is not just about truffle hunting although this incredible obsessive activity is central to it. There is also a lot of heartfelt beauty of the surroundings, walks, friendships and a peek into lives of completely dedicated people (almost always men). What is important is that they do not make so much money, the money incentive is just something on the side giving a little spice to their lives.

in the intimacy of the bathroom

They have not only a special sense for these coveted mushroom prizes but also know a lot about their qualities, characteristics and needs. The documentary follows the entire trophic chain from the field to restaurant and parking lot deals to auction houses, from middlemen to the actual gourmet consumer.

in the intimacy of your plate

imdb

2068 – The Serpent (TV series 2021)

timespace coordinates: Thailand, India, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Afghanistan, Nepal 1963-1976.

“The Serpent is a British crime drama serial developed by Mammoth Screen and commissioned by the BBC. The eight-part limited series is a co-production between BBC One and Netflix. It is based on the crimes of serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who murdered young tourists from 1975 to 1976. The series stars Tahar Rahim in the lead role as Sobhraj.”(wiki)

I wanted to post this 1970s exploitation style limited series – since it offers a particular sinister spin on the whole European or let’s say Euroamerican attraction towards the ‘fabled’ East. The East has been both admired and vilified (as exemplified in the previous podcast). The fabled and most of the time ‘rich’ (ik resource and labour force) lands of the Orient were coveted by colonial masters, each imperial power carving their own dominion and competing with each other with great brutality. The fabled East was pitilessly plundered (read about the original corporate raiders) and watched from afar with greedy, coveting eyes by the Western/Euroatlantic world entrepreneurs since Cristóbal Colón (who let us not forget tried to forge an alternative route to the ‘Indies’, and thus brake Portuguese spice monopoly). Since the hippie Flower Power revolution and anti-colonial liberation movements, various Western seekers started pouring in to Asia from the Beetles to Hollywood adepts of Maharishi Osho. It is important to realize that the 1960s where a backdrop for the ramping up and brutal US intervention in the Vietnam War, the vortex of Maoist Cultural Revolution as well as the 1968 student revolts. The 1970s saw the start of neoliberalism, the Oil Crisis and wage stagnation in the previously prosperous North, as well as start of a long Soviet-Afghan War (where the US started supplying weapons in its support of its anti communist Mujahideen factions). It was also the start of a very gradual liberalization of China under Deng Xiaoping that escaped the ‘shock doctrine’ that would hit Russia smd much of the Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. South Asia, Nepal, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia were crisscrossed by a multitude of rag-tag seekers. What they did not not expect is a serial killer.

Jenna Coleman as Marie-Andrée Leclerc

There is a connection btw the maligned horror sub-genre of slasher movies and the high-class serial killer genre (all the subsequent ones starting with Silence of the Lambs), continuities that have been remarked upon by movie critics (Natural Born Celebrities: the Serial Killer in American Culture by David Schmid). The Serpent does not seem to follow either, and his outlier position as an international tourist hunter on routes of the Orient also marks him as peculiar. He does not fit easily with the usual US celebrity killer either.

French actor Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj

Sobhraj is good looking playboy of mixed French, Indian and Vietnamese origin. He is surrounded by beauty and gems. He is constantly code-switching and socially mobile. He moves from the rich aristocratic Paris jewel buyers to the gutter life of heroin addicts. He never makes a secret of his own felt entitlement for his crimes as a price for suffering racist abuse as a half-caste during his childhood and so seems to avoid any culpability.

There is this constant combination of jet set glam, trash and stylishness – all the trappings of an exaggerated Playboy 1970s lifestyle. Almost every scene is full of it, from cocktails to vomiting afterwards. Disaster befalls all the seekers and tourists that fall for the Sobhraj scam. And his scam appears chintzy has a fake gold glitter, yet always seems to work. Poisoning is the preferred method – and there’s an almost predictable nauseating unwinding of tourists victims first enjoying, their new-found paradise to end up fucked up with horrific physical consequences after that. Such collapse is in total contrast with their purported aim – seeking spirituality and escape from Western commercialism and consumerism. There is a very dark and sarcastic turn of events to this series – where free hippies, young adventurers and hapless pleasure seekers rub elbows. All manners of seekers fall prey to Sobhraj (played excellently by French actor Tahar Rahim), again and again. They do not even manage to start their journey for Enlightenment because there is Sobhraj introducing them to an ugly very physical bodily reality, making them puke their souls out. I know it sounds kinda vicious and I tell ya it very much is.

Maybe it is just me or somehow I find completely ridiculous all the Wuhan Chinese COVID conspiracies – while none actually find a target in the actual global jet-set. In our pandemic imaginary – there is nor dark bio weapon conspiracy nor ablame to be attributed to the global tourists flying first class and cheap flights well before COVID became a thing. A group that most probably became the first super spreader wave, but also most likely contributed to the huge yearly carbon costs of the global flight fleets. There is a definite link between an increasingly connected world and a tourist infrastructure that somehow permits such easy transport. Mutating viruses find it easy to hop on the world tour, with lifestyles & vacation choices unwittingly facilitating such zoonotic spill-overs from their point of origin whether we like it or not.

The Serpent series encapsulates this double-edged reality of tourism – as a permanent tourist trap victim and also ubiquitous hard currency provider for the local neo-colonial economies that became dependent on such hard cash revenues. This is maybe the most disturbing 1970s legacy – a touristic avalanche that has continued to flow towards cheaper & less and less ‘secure’ territories.

The horror that awaits is dressed up enticingly, it has a TV familiarity, or Vogue cover style and grows on a hedonist-narcissist substrate that belies all those spiritualistic quests for the mysterious Orient. There is apparently no overarching ideology behind these heinous crimes and tourist assassinations (no terrorism, no religious fanaticism, no patriotic or nationalistic dogma). In the end, one can say it is just about money, hard cash in an economy that will soon be ruled by plastic money (credit cards). Sobhraj is also a new type of entrepreneur – a sociopath happy to show off and at the same time live at the margins, between identities. He’s living off the dreams and dissatisfaction of tourist, stealing foreigner (mostly Westerners) identities and switching between Paris and Bangkok centers with great ease.

One can offer retrospective rationalization or even attribute a thin veneer of justice or an overall vague anti-Western sentiment, yet at the same time, these poisonings happen just because it is possible, just because people with money actually seek out cheap thrills and an escape from Western mainstream culture conformism. He (the Serpent) poisons his victims with dysentery drugs (in one eps) and then offers to help them, to them even more sick and eventually get rid of them when they are of no use to him. There is of course also a detective story or a Dutch journalist that nobody wants to listen to initially and slow dawning of the fact that he might have a point about all the disappearing tourists. There’s also this greater neglect and actual disdain for the victims by the very governments and countries they fome from. All in all it is an incredible fusion of glam trash, geopolitics, sexyness, tourist haterizm and new age 1970s hell.

imdb