Movies by Joshua Sorensen
Movies
Fade in.
Our viewpoint takes the form of a camera.
The camera is situated in the middle of a dark room with a bright wall. We cannot see much, the image is blown out—the dark too inky, the bright almost blinding—but gradually it adjusts, and though it takes a moment to figure out, we realize where we are. A cinema. But our angle is odd; we are positioned on the ceiling, shooting straight down.
From here we can see the projector’s light running through the middle of the auditorium, soft like mist, narrow at one end, growing wider as it reaches the bright wall: the screen. As the image continues to adjust, another detail bleeds into sight: row upon row of chairs, red like shiraz. Sitting there, in the very centre of the cinema, a person. They appear to be the only one here. Something about them feels familiar, but it is impossible to tell who they are from above. They seem to be watching the movie attentively; they could just as easily be asleep. From this angle, we cannot see what movie is playing, but we can hear it. A droning, ominous score accompanies a man’s voice: “No hay banda! There is no band!”
We track down through the projector mist toward the person. Growing close, we tilt forward 90-degrees, coming to a stop on a close-up on the person’s face. It is you.
You are unblinking. Bathed in the light of the screen, your eyes stand out. Glassy. There’s a waxen quality to your skin, which is paler than normal, like you have been in the dark for a very long time. It is unclear if you are aware of your surroundings; we passed directly through your field of view, but you did not react. If not for the steady rise and fall of your chest and the flick of your eyes as you track on-screen movement, we would think you were dead.
Behind us, the movie continues. Instruments fade in and out of the score—a clarinet, a trumpet—slow and warbling. The man continues to talk, a monologue that drifts between English, Spanish, and French. We don’t have to see him to know he is a showman, giving a big performance like a ringmaster.
“It’s all recorded. No hay banda! It’s all a tape.”
Three rogue trumpet notes, each played a second apart.
“Il n’est pas de orquestra. It is… an illusion.”
You do not react to what you are seeing on screen.
Curious about what is playing, we begin to pan left. The cinema is eerie, devoid of details. All the seats look identical, brand new. There are no lights except for the screen, not even an exit sign. In fact, there does not appear to be any way in or out at all. In the movie is a thunderclap, someone—a new character, a woman by the sounds of it—begins to gasp and whimper, breathless, afraid. Then all the noises—the score, the thunder, the new character—stop.
We finish panning, having turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. The screen is now in view. Currently, the movie is showing a wide shot. A half-filled theatre, bathed in shimmering blue light. Two women, blonde hair cut into bobs, sit in the front row. One has their arms around the shoulders of the other, they both look frightened. The movie cuts to a medium shot. The rest of the theatre has been pushed out of frame; it’s focused on the two women; they are clutching hands now. One of them appears to be a natural blonde, the other might be wearing a wig—styled to resemble each other.
Suddenly, the image begins to come apart in gelatinous strings. Behind us, back in the projection booth, there is a clunk of machinery. The film reel has melted.
The screen goes blank for a second. Then there is a whir as the projector starts back up, gentle clicking as a new reel of film is fed into it. A new movie begins playing. Footage of a cinema, a few rows of seats are visible at the bottom of the frame but the shot is focused on the screen, which displays footage of a cinema, a few rows of seats are visible at the bottom of the frame but the shot is focused on the screen, which—
We pan left, continuing the turn we began earlier, back around to you. As we do there is a glimpse of movement on the screen. The movie is also panning left.
Back to a close-up on your face. We have turned a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. You don’t appear to have moved but you look aged, as if years have passed. Hair is spilling out of your nose and ears, wild, wiry; your skin isn’t just pale now, it is completely sallow, pulled back like too little clingwrap over too much Tupperware; and your eyes are huge and horribly bloodshot. For a moment you do nothing. Then you begin to laugh. A murmur at first, it burgeons into a giggle, then a chuckle, and then a belly laugh. It’s full-bodied, like you should be bending over in your seat, clutching at your sides, but you remain still.
Although we want to look at the screen to see what is making you laugh, but don’t dare look away from you, not even a split-second cut-away. Then we spot an image in your cornea. It’s difficult to make out the details from here but it looks like the bust of a silhouette surrounded by a rectangular frame—a reflection of the screen maybe. We zoom in closer to get a better look. There is a collection of sores clustered around the corner of your mouth. Your gums have retreated making your teeth, which have gone yellow, look long. Your skin is papery, coming off in flakes. Mounds of mucus are lodged in the corner of your eye.
The image in your cornea is much clearer now. As we suspected, it is a reflection of the screen. The movie is showing a live feed of your eye, a reflection of the screen in your cornea, the movie is showing a live feed of your eye, a reflection of the screen in your cornea, the movie is showing—
We zoom back out, affording us the chance to examine more of your features. Your nose is red and covered in blackheads as well few throbbing zits. Wrinkles curve across the latitude of your forehead, making you look like you are frowning, even though you cannot stop laughing.
Zoomed out, we notice the image in your cornea has changed. It’s not the bust within a rectangle frame from earlier, nor is it the eyes within eyes from just before, but something else again.
We pan left, back around to the screen. As we do you stop laughing. The movie has cut to a new shot. Where before it was a perfect replica of our camera footage, now it displays a mirror image of the cinema—same projector light mist, same shiraz seats. There is only one difference. In the movie, you appear like you did when we first faded in. Younger, less sallow, less worn.
Nothing happens. We hold on the screen.
Then the younger you moves.
They raise one arm and point directly ahead—as if through the screen—at you. There is a soft rustle of movement behind us. You, the older you, has begun to stir.
There is no time to waste. Instead of panning back around, we cut away from our shot of the screen to a reverse shot of you. It takes a fraction of a second, like blinking, but by the time we have cut back the seat is empty. You are not there.
We cut back to the screen. It still shows a perfect mirror of our cinema. Except where there was only one of you before, now there are two, old and young versions sitting side-by-side, looking straight ahead, out of the screen, at us. The younger version of you has their arms around the shoulders of the older version.
The droning, ominous score returns. Speaking over it, the man says, “There is no tape!”
The movie cuts to a medium shot. The rest of the cinema has been pushed out of frame. It’s focused on the older you and the younger you, clutching hands now. You both look terribly frightened.
We begin to dolly zoom, the edges of the screen falling back, while the two versions of you sitting in the center pull closer and closer and closer, looming forward as if they are about to fall out of the mirror cinema back into ours.
But before you do there is a clunk from the projector booth. The screen cuts to black. You are gone. The cinema is empty.
We are all alone now.
Fade out.
