Laurie Anderson mourns the death of her dog in a series of seemingly random reminiscences.
I started out strongly disliking this essay on mourning, and never really warmed to it. There are too many details noted that don't add to the issues discussed. Ah, but Robert, I hear you saying, maybe this wasn't meant for you. Or maybe the extraneous details are the distractions that the world, Maya, throws up -- there's a lot of Tibetan Buddhist terms offered -- from understanding self, which seems to be the ultimate goal of this film. Well, yes, but I am watching it, and this is the world we're living in, illusory or not. Deal with it.
That's a little extreme, even for me, but it's my antithesis to the goopy thesis of people who mumble about how they're not religious, they're spiritual. Ms. Anderson's essay, like all good essays, talks around everything, like a adult going into the attic of her recently deceased parents to clear the house for sale. She picks up a thing from her childhood, examines it, puts it down, moves on to the next item, goes back. It seems random, but by the end, you've caught a glimpse of yourself in the seemingly random details. The fact that she keeps going to Aunt Minnie's soup tureen to no purpose is part of the misdirection to hide the purpose of the essay.
I still have great issues with this. Essays are short for a reason: they're something to go to and think about. At 75 minutes, Ms. Anderson's movie leaves you little to think about. It tells everything, and you can accept it or not. Some things should be left for the audience to work out.
I started out strongly disliking this essay on mourning, and never really warmed to it. There are too many details noted that don't add to the issues discussed. Ah, but Robert, I hear you saying, maybe this wasn't meant for you. Or maybe the extraneous details are the distractions that the world, Maya, throws up -- there's a lot of Tibetan Buddhist terms offered -- from understanding self, which seems to be the ultimate goal of this film. Well, yes, but I am watching it, and this is the world we're living in, illusory or not. Deal with it.
That's a little extreme, even for me, but it's my antithesis to the goopy thesis of people who mumble about how they're not religious, they're spiritual. Ms. Anderson's essay, like all good essays, talks around everything, like a adult going into the attic of her recently deceased parents to clear the house for sale. She picks up a thing from her childhood, examines it, puts it down, moves on to the next item, goes back. It seems random, but by the end, you've caught a glimpse of yourself in the seemingly random details. The fact that she keeps going to Aunt Minnie's soup tureen to no purpose is part of the misdirection to hide the purpose of the essay.
I still have great issues with this. Essays are short for a reason: they're something to go to and think about. At 75 minutes, Ms. Anderson's movie leaves you little to think about. It tells everything, and you can accept it or not. Some things should be left for the audience to work out.