online literary magazine

ECLA issue 2007

ZYXT

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contents

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Elliot by Mariel Miranda(Fiction)

Chivas on Ice by Pranab Singh(Fiction)

Filumena Theatre Company by Soledad Rodriguez(Performance)

Peeling by Pranab Singh(Poetry)

Perfume: The Story of A Murderer by Natalia Ryabchikova(Film review)

ZYXT

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editorial

Edit-o-real Team

The end dawns near. A year at ECLA ends. The first year of Zyxt as a magazine comes to a closure. Like a phoenix, maybe it shall rise up in a new time. With a new look and new content it shall burn like a bird about to be roasted. And like chicken it shall taste good. A prophecy foretold. The wonders of the future are held in the words of the present.

The year for Zyxt has been spectac-ular. Its seen birth and coming to age within a short span of nine months in the ECLA womb. There have been some major ups and some dismal downs, but all in all, it was a year. Although only around 10 months, or was it nine? Did nine feature once be-fore or twice before?

The Zyxt team also has had a great time. The key motto to the team re-mains “for liberty and fraternity and all the mumbo jumbo that we all hold dear.” And yes of course this motto was just made now. A motto that doesn’t change with the times isn’t that useful all the time.

Zyxt, after a year of living it up, would like to give a shout out to its buddy and pal, humanity. Without you, humanity, we all would not be here and nothing in the world would show us just how human we are. Without being human how could we ever have flights of fancy, totalitarian commandments, and the new reli-gion of thought? Humanity, we love you and we hope that peace shall be in your heart.

As a great person once said, “there is nothing more important in the

world than knowing the right time to take the chicken out of the oven.” So, remember all you fish lovers, the day of reckoning is at hand and the four horsemen are due to arrive, except they lost their horses in Las Vegas trying to get into Circus Circus.

As anyone might have now real-ized, this piece is very confusing and dense or just saying things for the hell of saying it. In both counts and possibly more you must most assur-edly be right. But the magazine Zyxt seeks not to preach and would rather leave all the philosophical jargon to whoever would like to use them. But with jaw dropping wonder it shall admire it all.

Finally, Zyxt would like to thank all its contributors, ECLA and the wonderful world of the World Wide Web which have allowed for its cre-ation. It would also like to give a spe-cial shout out to its team for being there for it in its times of need and seeing it through all its hardship and hard won success stories.

Editor: Pranab Man Singh

Associate Editors: Mariel Miranda

Natalia Ryabchikova Clara Sigheti

Photographer: Maria Savulescu

Web: Lika Tarkhan-Mouravi

Daria Coscodan

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fiction

Elliot

The wood of the desk penetrates the tip of the finger. The warmth of salt slides under the arms. The steel round frame of a face looks up. The lesson is still held.

This wretched heat, polluted, with menacing traces of doubt, fills the space of walls. The constant cries of the door reminding me of a grim passion, too, despairingly hopeful of sleep. Still, more objects enter, glee-ful, of a truth to be revealed.

The classroom is cold. Elliot danc-es. He knows what this is doing to me. We begin almost immediately.

My desperate fingers join togeth-er in a vain attempt to immerse this little foreigner, Elliot, in direct play. After all a boy’s words taste good. The top of petals, inside, cannot be grasped. The figures and objects be-gin to take notice and despite this the classroom grows dim. Shredded petals and burgundy syrup stick to the desk and arm like tar. The body struggles. I hum to the sound of El-liot’s belt buckle.

The mouth opens slightly, my fin-ger moves downward, rubbing gen-tly the fuzz and bumps of a soft road to the heart. He is shyly immersed in this. The taste of playful reluctance is unsurpassable and I remember how bittersweet self control can be.

I try to think of a family that will always be stupid of their incestuous-ly contemptuous efforts to make this

world a better place; their fierce in-bred innocence spreading the infec-tious disease of imperial commonal-ity. And I know that those creatures of beauty, like this here Elliot, need the tastes, the silhouettes made stat-ue, and oral services of the dead. El-liot needs more than a touch. A will would be nice. Something to move the groin.

Elliot stands to his feet, still, with plight. Some few petals glide about, suspended. The elevation draws breath, hits the stomach and moves the blood. He moans. The dry eyes shut for a moment.

There is a terrible humidity in the air. My discomfort grows now that I feel complete. Elliot is pushed away. I stand. Back on my feet I seem far-ther away from the door that will never cry again. The class is over. I look about the room. The objects are relentlessly afraid now.

But no one cries. Not even Elliot. Not even I.

The back hunches over. The face brace squeaks. The aroma of rose and salt already make this nostalgic. The petals fall to the floor. I am guilty yet again. A loud silence rips the walls open, the gleeful, confused with a shameful satisfaction. The hands cover a profile, the body must be de-tached from the face. But the lesson is still well taught: Elliot is guilty too.

Mariel Miranda

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fiction

Chivas on Ice

Chivas on ice, please10:00pm.Sitting in a fancy euro-chic bar in

a makeshift rumble construction of a city. The ruins of a civilization and a lifestyle long dead, now fueling the construction of another…An other, another other, but both an other. One living through its death, the other on the throes of death. What you build is only as strong as what you build with. When you build from within a debilitated civilization, you cre-ate a second rate society. But second rate is a misnomer, who is to sepa-rate it from the first? This shit hole may very well be the greatest thing wrought from the blistered hands of semiotic apes.

Chivas on ice, sirOn ice, I guess that’s what I asked

for. Chivas on ice. Makes it sound as if I’m paying for the goddamn ice-cream with which you get a free touch of chocolate syrup. Chivas with ice. More accurate but so un-couth. The ‘on’ makes it regal. The ‘with’ degrades it to a second rate drink that needs the ice to be make it drinkable. Prepositions. When was the last time I thought about those. Use them everyday in every sentence, fuck, in every thought. How fucking bored am I sitting here pondering the intricacies within the verbal morass of asking for a drink distinguished over the choice of a preposition. The peon over there doesn’t care a rats

ass worth over the words I use as long as I got a flimsy piece of paper printed by this countries pitiable ex-cuse for a government. Suppose he is sophisticated enough to care for the nature of the paper. At least he bet-ter be. Money. Governor of our souls, creditor to our progeny, tribute to our socio-economic grandfathers, enslaver of our minds. Money. Nice thing to have. Horrible to be without. Creator of civilized and progressive apes. Apes with brains, but animals none the less. Apes born into debt and apes that will forever default.

Having a good time sir?The fuck you care?Good enough.Leave me be you worthless serf.

Can’t have a drink these days without having some sycophantic whore try-ing to make you feel obligated to pay them for giving you a good time. Ha! People! Such a pathetic assimilation of needs. Humanity is nothing but a refined way of saying prostitution. You’ll get your pay, as long as you leave me be, slut. Ya, leave me be… Go serve the fat man who looks like he’s responsible for half the starving children in the world. Eating more than you need. Reminds me of that fat kid in Charlie and the chocolate factory. Obesity. I hate fat people. Such a waste of space. Look at him. Fat overflowing. A collection of lard that benefits no one. Drinking beer too, least he a got a light beer. What? Is he thinking he can lose weight shifting to light beer from lagers? I hope he dies of choking on some pop

Pranab Singh

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corn or something watching Jerry Springer. He’d die watching his kind and realize how oblivious they are of him even when he needs two seats on an airplane.

Would you like me to turn on the tele? Hear there’s a good game on to-day.

Motherfucker, persistent whore. But this game could be interesting.

Ya? Whose playin?Better be a fucking good game and

better be referring to fucking foot-ball. Presumptuous prick thinks that I dare not sit alone with my drink. Does it look like I need something to forget myself? Pathetic. To become a zombie out of fear for what might pop up in a free roaming mind.

Arsenal and ChelseaFucker. A good game. Suppose I

can turn off for a while. Click it on will ya?And yet again I succumb to the

will of the giant machination that is society and all its sugarcoated poi-sonous temptations.

Sure thing. I’m hoping the gun-ners pull through tonight. Holler at me if ya need anything. Thanks. For nothing bitch.

10:32pm10:30 already? Time is inconse-

quential when you misplace the noose tightening around your neck. Shit, since the prick turned on the

tele, I’ve been completely possessed by that tin cube. Joining ranks with the masses indeed. You became clos-er to humanity today by enrolling in zombie nation. Wonder how many people around the world at this moment are watching the tele com-pletely oblivious of life, but acutely aware of the sham flickering in front of them that they take as life. A farce it is, living and dreaming a fickle life in a flickering screen. As if life were the observation of activity and not the involvement within the activity. As miserably lonely and wretched I am, least I am living my life and not dreaming of another’s. Least I am unsatisfied and discontent with my inability to reach my dreams versus the miserable sods that trod around unhappy because they can’t live the dreams they procure from the tube. Not even aware that they too can dream. Pathetic.. Far as I am con-cerned there is no difference between a roach and these mirthless apes that are the ants of our earthly anthill. What good is their intelligence if they still live like animals, relying on the thoughts of others never bothering to think for themselves. They deserve to be deceived, enslaved, killed, and butchered for that is all they live for. For that is the sole purpose they have chosen to fulfill.

Refill, please.Such swirling, such movement,

the slimy flow of alcohol over wa-ter. Molecules grinding against one another creating friction, producing heat, energy flowing and making

fiction

Pranab Singh

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the flow. Moving against each other, moving with each other. Two vis-cous liquids attempting to unite. Try-ing so hard to fuse together. Trying so hard to become one. To return to what they once were, one substance content within its integrity. Such a wonder. Nature is so beautiful in even its most inconsequential acts. And the condensation around it as if the ice were calling its brethrens for support, but they remain sepa-rated by an invisible barrier. Behold-ing their kind slowly melting away, desperately trying to break through but to no avail. Watching in silent horror as the alcohol slowly devours its families, its cities, its nations. Ice cubes melting into the alcohol. Wa-ter - a nation of ice mobilized for battle and sallying forth. Consumed within the alcohol nation till they are one. Till no one can tell whether the alcohol came first or whether it was the water. Its brethren watching on in horror as the water inside looses itself into something new that tastes like diluted whiskey. Much like these sods around me watching the tele as the life they once knew gets diluted into a pathetic superficial, pale, and zombified trudging on. Till the entire nation of apes comes together in one big soap opera. Still, we are one in our sluttiness, we are all whores, mar-keting, advertising, bargaining and finally selling ourselves off to each other. But every hooker has its pimp, who would want the job of being the pimp for the whores of humanity?

Lousy ass match too, wish these buggers would actually play some

football instead of tapball. I don’t see the point of paying these shits the millions of dollars they earn for them to just pass around the ball. The only thing that makes this game fun is goals, and these teams seem to think its all about passin the ball around. What is this, training camp? Both teams should be attacking, the point is not winning assholes the point is entertaining the masses so they pay for your million dollar salary. These players get too much credit, they’re no different from pro wrestlers, poli-ticians, clowns or hookers. They’re job is to entertain. You think you get most of your money from win-ning? Pathetic dream, sucker. You get it from entertaining. So you better fucking whore out. Look at Beckham, a sultruous whore. A media mogul when it comes to getting attention. A mediocre player but a slut who knows how to whore out. Why do you think he gets paid so much? Sup-pose winning comes into play when you want to grab attention, but look at the red sox, over a half a century of losses and it got them more atten-tion than after they won. It ain’t just winning its about how good a prosti-tute your team is and whether you’re worth the bang for the buck.

Refill, please.Nice, starting to feel a bit better

now.Coming right up10:55pmDamn, looks like they’re losing.Back again? Suppose I could do

fiction

Pranab Singh

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with another drink by now too. Ya. The gunners aren’t quite the

team they once were. Get another round here?

Idle chatter. I feel more inclined to talk now though. The whiskey al-ways helps open a stiff mouth. Must be why the Scottish have such a slur. Generations of talking while drunk would help make you slur an accent. Problem is, what becomes the slur then?

Yup. The Blues though… another story there… since that Russian guy made them his pet. Been spending millions on getting the best players like they were mercenaries. A shame really, doesn’t even produce the qual-ity games that you’d expect.

Wonder if this guy is more fortu-nate for seeing the world as an ant. He lives and breathes and the things that upset him are the way his team performs and what Jack said to Jill in some t.v. show.

Lot of money to be made in foot-ball, the world is watching. Once you got some money, nothing else to do but play with it right? I mean fuck, who cares if you’re polluting the environment, ripping a nation, and blatantly using nepotism right?15% reduction in the price of vodka keeps everyone happy. This game is noth-ing but gambling my friend. No tal-ent involved, no passion…people no longer play for fun, they play to get paid.

Agreed…money…but…I doubt you can be a pro-footballer without having a passion for the game.

So it would seem, but think of it this way… you have a passion for the game as a kid when you can truly be passionate…play the game everyday, become one of the best, join the pro leagues, and start earning shit tons of cash. But the older you get the more you get used to the game, the more you realize the ephemerality of your fame, I mean shucks how many people remember even the great Pele anymore? Lets not even talk about whoever was goalkeeping for Brazil while he played. Then as you grow older you slowly realize you can’t play for ever. Now it ain’t just for the passion of the game, it’s for a passion-ate belief in a comfortable retired life. Don’t really hear of that many foot-ballers earning millions after they re-tire, now do you?

Suppose not, but you gotta real-ize how big an industry this is! They can probably get a zillion different jobs from the press to ground staff. Nay, can’t agree with ya on there be-ing nothing a footballer can do after leavin’ the pitch.

Yes, yes… certainly can get jobs, not the figures they earn as profes-sional players…but then again, you spent the first 40 years of your life to become a fucking walking hotdog stand?

Think you’re too harsh on ‘em mate…

Hmm… I suppose if people can

fiction

Pranab Singh

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remain passionate enough to kill each other they certainly can remain passionate enough to like kickin a ball around and be close to where it happens. But you can’t deny that the money not only keeps the passion alive but directs it.

Haha… sure mate, but where does money not control? Everyone’s gotta make a living… players get swapped around…they gain more experi-ence… earn some more money… see new places…It’s a win-win situation.

Ya…When you consider the amount of money a club makes from selling a players jersey…instantly paying of the player’s salary, the clubs obviously want players that are in the spotlight, players who are the star children of the media. Now its just Hollywood 101. Completely di-lutes the fucking game from being a team sport to a celebrity sport.

But you gotta admit that some of these players are just amazing! they have these moments… these sparks of pure genius… take Ronaldo or Zi-dane…they do things that go beyond team play. They do things that makes them stand out and they stand out for a reason…

I dunno if I would go far as attach the word genius but I agree that some players are exceptionally talented and gifted. But consider the job func-tion of a football player, there are ba-sically two objectives to be met: win and entertain. Even when you can’t win, entertain. Without entertaining the crowds, football loses everything.

I think they’re pretty entertained. You saying they ain’t entertaining or not entertaining enough? Either way, don’t see what you’re getting at. The entertainment is in the attempt to win.

Nevermind me, I’m not sure of half the things I say and with a few of these in me I’m talking more out of the love of hearin myself. Suppose that discussion was quite moot.

Changes nothing in the football world… but believe it helps us to talk things through. Dunno what we would learn but I’m a firm believer in talking till your tongue rots out. Think if more people talked about the niggles and nags they had, not even to mention their major problems we’d have a more peaceful world. Neways…I’ll catch ya later looks like things are beginning to pick up…

Pour me a pint o Guinness before you leave will ya… and it was nice talking to ya…

Cheers! mate!Cheers!Nice guy. More intelligent than he

looks. Seems to have a decent head directed by a mediocre education on his shoulders. Wonder what he thought of me… probably some guy trying to get shit off his mind… what else.. who would sit alone at a bar and hold a conversation on the val-ues of football and football players… some one who wants to talk about his problems but can’t make himself bring it out into the open…

fiction

Pranab Singh

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11:14pmHow did the Irish learn to make

such good beer? Their culinary skills are tolerable at best, but suppose that has little to do with brewing. Don’t think the Irish have a history apart from their liquor. Irish history is like the history of liquor, gets more fun with time and the words slur all the more. Yeats is akin to drunken elo-quence while Joyce is like a moment of epiphany in a drunken mind. Now that is genius, so much for the genius of Henry…the gunners still lost. Nay, can’t really call that genius, more like a blend of skill and fortune. And Joyce? Skill and fortune too? Hmm… dunno… something I should ask Al Mujib the new wielder of Fragarach over there… This drinking is starting to affect my thinking I think… that was what I thought was it not? Ha… more people showing up. Looks like I’m not the only guy at the bar now. But I was here first. I claim prece-dence over all others. So the fat guy left! Good! It was annoying having him within my sight of vision. Fat people I tell ya, such a waste! Woow-ee, who’s the smut with that mutt?

Never understand how these re-tards end up with these hot bitch-es? How do they even end up with a bitch to begin with? Sheesh! Flash some greens, show some teeth, and quote three lines from a random ass poem and they think you’re Casano-va himself. Its sad being a man hav-ing to sucker up to women in order to get laid, its worse being the slut that has to dish out herself in order to get

the suckering. Loneliness is a bitter pill. So callous and uncaring I can be, without even a hiccup. Its too easy to be human, too easy to let my emo-tions whore out my intelligence, too easy to enjoy the habitual caprices of society, too easy to forget your deca-dence. But goddamn does she have a nice rack, perky and almost perfect size too… wonder what her nipples look like… chances are they’re either too big or too hairy, god never gives you everything, only the plastic sur-geons do that. The minions of Aph-rodite... sometimes it amazes me the way I think, the things I think. Is it because of the alcohol or do I actually think like this all the time? And why be aware of it now? Oh shit, so the English won by two runs, now that must have been a jaw crusher!

I wish those two would stop suck-ing face. Disillusioned suckers. They must think they are in love, such na-ivety. I admire their courage. Not in making out in public but for allow-ing themselves to be deluded so. For accepting a lie that is too good to be true. For buying into a hope that should always have been locked up. For believing in belief itself as if there really were something rock solid they were building on. It would be nice to be able to have such passion. Least it would make me feel a bit alive. Now all I can do is drink and talk and think and hopelessly hope that I live! that this is life! Such a feeling it used to be, such vibrance, such delight at the world, such wonder at this presence. But all too stale now, all too old, ha-bituated. The realization of the grand

fiction

Pranab Singh

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illusion. Wonder if that’s why maya means illusion and love.

11:55pmEnough! Can’t take this wastage

of time anymore. Why did I come here to begin with? To drink away my melancholy? To sit and mope and hope that I could drink my thoughts away? Hardly worked.

Headin out mate?Yup.

You take care now.Ya, take it easy.Bugger, I’m pretty drunk but not

that drunk. Careful now, one step af-ter another, gotta give a semblance at least of being über chill. Semblances, semblances, semblances… that’s all life boils down to…. Sigh…

fiction

Pranab Singh

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FILUMENA, directed by Florencia Cima, originates as an independent theater company in the year 2000.

FILUMENA is mainly question and action about theatrical language. That is why the company practices a sustained interdisciplinary method-ology, both in the field of production and in the field of teaching and train-ing.

This approach allows for a con-stantly changing perspective of the investigation processes, and it en-courages the incorporation of new and richer focuses on this type of work.

It is not so simple to explain with words the type of work we do in the company, but I find the following text describing Paul Klee’s creation process very close to Filumena’s pro-cess of work.

In his classes Klee used to talk about the need of a “precise orienta-tion on the formal plane”. The sim-plest element would become an ac-tive being. He would begin by the dot, and would show all the things that could be obtained as from this simple element: from its movement, the line is born – with its recurring expressiveness and its polyphony- and Klee would show how the line can close in itself and thus form a flat figure. Then he would show the elements of distribution and move-ment on that surface: structure, rhythm and proportion. After that he would make a simple rhythmic ele-

Monologue excerpt from Así Siempre hasta que hacia el impensable fin si esta noción se manti-

ene

Thus Always until to-wards the unthinkable

end if this notion is kept

ment grow into a stunning plenitude of structural possibilities; he would then extend the surface into the space and there he’d search for equilibrium conditions, showing how each plas-tic procedure implies a disturbance of equilibrium and needs to be rees-tablished on a different plane, in a complex game that offers the artist the most dramatic possibilities of ex-pression. From the line he goes to the chiaroscuro plane, and finally gets to the color. (...) Trasposition in the art of visual language occurs only thanks to the evocative power of abstract de-vices. Klee always begins without a concern for content; he only pays at-tention to constructing. But within the interwinement of the different pictorical elements, an image slowly grows. At the time of creation, that image conveys a pictoric parallel and therefore, it needs a name. (...) The title is only the last and poetic closing metaphor.

Maria Fossi Todorow. Klee. Editorial Atlántida, Buenos Aires.

performance

Soledad Rodriguez

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Improvisation by Filumena Theater Company during an interdisciplinary festival organised by the Di Tella Uni-versity in Buenos Aires in May 2007.

It is the dust what makes her cry. It is the dust what makes everybody cry. The dust coming from a blue constellation that makes the air sur-rounding us mortiferous. The air cor-rupted in its very substance. Dust is annoying but necessary. Conse-quences of this climate on the skin: it becomes parchment-like; the bodies rub against each other producing a noise of dry leaves; the very mucous membranes become dull. The effect of this climate on the soul should not be underestimated. However, the soul certainly suffers less than the skin, whose defense systems -from perspiration to goose bumps- often find themselves disturbed. Being pure and clear by nature, the air only gets rotten or corrupted when malign vapors mingle in it due to random causes. The only way to avoid these dreadful consequences on the skin is to protect it with some kind of make-

up base, volatile powder or Indian Earth. It should be spread all over the face and neck, and removed with a hydrating cream or astringent lotion.

So far, a first glance at this bizarre belief and at this notion and its conse-quences, if they are kept...

Health is a state because it’s a particular disposition. In this sense, the limbs’ strength or weakness is a state of the limbs. State is action and movement. Because between the sub-ject that performs and the subject that endures, there is always action. The worst of the states is the state of the skin: corrupted, greenish gray, spot-ted with purple tumors and eczemas, bruised with bloody ulcers. One to three days of agony are observed, during which the wretched subject becomes delirious, spits blood and gets covered with blisters: a young body but a frozen soul.

performance

Soledad Rodriguez

14

A moment of fraternity.

After death, the human body suf-fers modifications that are general for age and race. Heart: rigidity begins in the heart; it starts in the left ventri-cle, which gets almost totally empty, whereas the right ventricle gets half empty; during the first hour and a half after death the blood in the heart stays liquid. Coagulation follows. If this notion is kept, the blood coagu-lates in the vessels; then the intesti-nal bacteria emigrate into the blood, where they multiply.

There remains the state of the brain: the postmortal disintegra-tion processes evolve very fast in the brain; they are recognized for the ap-pearance of a greenish gray color in gassed cavities. These processes can be observed much better by taking a close look at the brain. That is why, if there were a solidary soul here, I’d like to ask that person to donate their brain. Of course, in no way would we induce death upon that person. On the contrary, we’d kindly wait until - may God forbid it - he or she had

a fatal accident, and only then, we’d extract the brain by cut opening it with a sharp pointed element, and with the brain in our hands we’d be able to observe this beautiful perfect line that divides it. We’d be able to observe this perfect division between the right and left hemispheres, and only then we’d understand how the left hemisphere is the more literal, analytical and calculating fragment; and how the right hemisphere han-dles the sensitivity, the literariness, the artistry, the creativity. A person whose right hemisphere is more de-veloped, is the typical creative per-son... It must be my left hemisphere that is more developed, since I am not a creative person. And you know what? that produces me a state of an-guish. Because if there is something I’d love to be is creative...

Monologue excerpt from Así Siempre hasta que hacia el impensable fin si esta noción se mantiene (Thus Always until towards the unthinkable end if this no-tion is kept), 2002 - 2003. Filumena Theater Company, directed by Florencia Cima. Buenos Aires, Argentina.

performance

Soledad Rodriguez

15

poetry

Peeling

The evilness in a potato is never to be underestimatedThe laziness of a potato is never to be understated

The hands that hold you are the hands that will drop youThe hands that hold you are too close to be nice to youThe hands that hold you are too dry to moisturize

The peeler is the potato‘s gravest enemyFor the peeler removes the mask the potatoes hide behind

The tools you hold don’t fit your handThe tools you made are no longer in handThe tools you have no longer feel your handThe tools you have have made you a tool

The potatoes grow underground in stealth and solitudeThe potatoes grow large and roundish without ever meaning to

Pranab Singh

16

Perfume: The Story of A Murderer

Directed by Tom Tykwer 2006.Cast: Ben Winshaw, Alan Rick-

man, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Dustin Hoffman.

It took a long time to persuade Patrick Süskind to sell the rights to his most famous book to a film company. He just didn’t want “Das Parfum” to be adapted for the screen - and for a good reason. His challenge was to convey the multiplicity of the sensa-tion of smell with words. To translate words describing scents into visuals and sounds is much more difficult and seems much less necessary. Stan-ley Kubrick finally conceded that the subject was impossible to film. The same thought probably led Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman and Tim Burton to abandon the proj-ect. The mere fact that Tom Tykwer hasn’t followed their example and went through with “The Perfume” shows the 40-year-old director hasn’t lost his youthful self-confidence and deserves a special cheer.

For Tykwer, who became inter-nationally famous with his quirky “Run, Lola, Run” in 1998, the new project became a pass into the big league. Ten million euros paid for the movie rights alone meant that the project must be made as commercial-ly successful as possible. In adapting the novel he was assisted by produc-er Bernd Eichinger who had spent

review

Natalia Ryabchikova

years coaxing Süskind to sell him the film rights, and by Andrew Birkin who had written scripts for Luc Bes-son’s “History of Jeanne D’Ark” and another big-scale adaptation “The Name of the Rose”. With their help a dark and uncomfortable book has al-most been turned into a melodrama. Tykwer secures his position precisely at this point of “almost”. He must al-ways remember the box-office, but money doesn’t smell, so the film still issues a faint flavor of art-house cin-ema.

The story carefully follows Süs-kind’s text, and for those who haven’t read the book, the film has a subtitle. Where “The Story of a Murderer” los-es in novelty, it gains in consistency. The writers are so meticulous in their adaptation of the book that the scene of the final orgy could have been done better only by Peter Greenaway. In fact, I’m not at all certain about that.

Apart from the fundamental im-possibility to adequately transport the verbal fabric of “Das Parfum” to the screen, the main difficulty was the choice of the leading actor. At first sight Ben Winshaw, who has al-ready played a young Keith Richards in film and Hamlet on stage, is just too handsome to play a thick-headed murderer. His super-model physique and unisex appearance are so up-to-date that at some moment the film gets on the verge of becoming just another “A Knight’s Tale” The crowd stops short of raising a yet another rendition of “We Will Rock You” and the helicopters are about to set forth

17

review

on search for the maniac. Tykwer still couldn’t resist including one bird’s eye view shot.

Fortunately, Winshaw, who doesn’t speak a word for the most part of the film has this sort of screen presence that turns the scenes with-out him into a bad replica of an av-erage costume TV-series. With Win-shaw off-screen the other actors seem to lose a portion of their animation, they talk and look like cardboard fig-ures. Alan Rickman, for example, en-tirely fades by comparison, and only Dustin Hoffman as an old Italian per-fume maker can successfully stand up to Winshaw’s appeal. This star-quality is justified in the final episode – the viewer is lead to virtually the same state as the crowd worshipping the murderer.

As for the smell itself, the ka-leidoscope of textures, colors and sounds at some point finally reaches the stage at which shapes and shad-ows on the screen become almost pal-pable and hearing becomes painfully acute.

As for the visual stimuli Tykwer does a good job balancing physiologi-cal vividness with digital gloss. He ef-ficiently combines rotten fish a-la Jan van Eyck and flowering meadows a-la Van Gogh, Titian-style beauties go together with Brueghel-style beasts. The set decorator spared no expense on sticky mud and it was especially well rendered by Frank Griebe’s cam-era, as well as Grenouille’s sleeveless jackets a-la naturelle that the costume designer had carefully torn along the

collar. In spite of these concessions to prêt-a-porter and the use of conven-tional pictorial decisions Tykwer still succeeds to render in flesh the insane hunger for and pain of possession that has nothing to do with any of the five senses.

Natalia Ryabchikova

What is Zyxt?Zyxt is a literary magazine independently produced by the students of the European College of Lib-

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