"CINEMA IS SORCERY"

This is my comment in Jesse’s blog:
http://memoriesofthefuture.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/in-that-sleep-of-death-what-dreams-may-come/

Thank you very much, Jesse, for your comment on PHANTOM LOVE.

I saw this film twice during the World Film Festival of Bangkok, and I can’t describe its tremendous power. Luckily, the producer of this film was present in the festival. If I don’t remember it wrongly, he said that Menkes’ films are about a woman descending into herself. In the case of PHANTOM LOVE, I think the woman struggles to find a balance in her life, her past/present, her relationship, etc. She may be successful in the end.

After my friends and I had seen this film, we discussed about it. One question we can’t find the answer is that what kind of animals appeared in the scene when the woman was floating down the river. We see some animals standing far from the river in that scene. Some say that the animals are horses, other say that the animals are her sister’s black dogs. This is not an important question. I’m just curious.

I also like the use of sound in this film very much, particularly in one early scene in which we see the woman sitting alone in her room, but we hear the high shrieking voice of her mother saying, “Mirror mirror on the wall”. This voice is very haunting, and it appears out of nowhere. It’s like a curse floating in the air.

Nina Menkes wrote in her website that cinema is sorcery. I like this sentence very much. PHANTOM LOVE is real magic.