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CANADiAN JOURNAl Of fiLM SJUDIES • REVUE CANADIEN"E D"huDES CINtMATOGIlAPHIQUES MUUlPU SRNIDS AND POSSIBLE WO.LD5 45
¥OW.E 11 NO.:l· FAU • AUTOMNII :lOG:l • pp 44-11
traditional character/spectator relationships. The two eponymous TAXONOMY OF POSSIBU WORLD FILMS"
protagonists get to change their fixed roles because they have been able to Patchwork Narratives: In patchwork narratives, there is no central plot
influence what happens in the embedded fiction they invade. In the story and no Single-line character. Instead, one'story begets another and the
within the story, they act as "angels" (they are both called "Angele"), "sav- primary conceit is ”””””””””””””” (synecdoche). [n Sladar; each autonomous
ing" the threatened life of a little girl and also "saving" each other from dys- sequence introduces a character who has appeared en passant in one
functional life styles. Their interplay expands as they become spectators as sequence and becomes the main character in the next totally independent
well as characters in the parallel worlds they straddle in and out of the past. story. Slacktr is guided by an internalized serialization: characters are cre-
Although Celine and Julie surmount traditional fictional limitations, ated through editing and their appearance in the frame is unrelated to who
they are ultimately invented characters, imprisoned in partial experience. and what comes before or after. Underlying the editing playfulness is the
While seeking a second chance is one concomitant of possible world proposition that narrative fiction (and the film itself) is about projected,
films, the constriction artists feel about the inability to draw all experi- alternative worlds and that stories go on forever, defying closure.1 6 Toutt
ence on screen is another, and no one has warred against this more than Unr Nuit, which parodies the romanticism of traditional films and avoids
Peter Greenaway. II Even in his early experimental films, Greenaway closure (for viewers as well as characters) is another patchwork example. A
relentlessly assembles extensive detail to surmount the frustrating limita- series of lovers come together, clinch or part in two-minute-Iong frag-
tions of art. Forever declaiming against what he calls the "'foolish" realism ments that distill the significant junctures of love relationships.17
of me classical film, he amasses a catalogue of the infinite world of repre- Forlting Paths, In "The Garden of the Forlting Paths," Borges imagines
sentations (he calls it "'stuff') and articulates them serially: in schematic an infinite series of times that impossibly co-exist. Thus, a virtual reality is
numbered takes (Tbt Fall" DrolUlling By Numbm), palimpsest overlays built of alternative possibilities. Luis Bufiue!'s films are as labyrinthine as
(Prosperos Books), and scroll effects that challenge the limitations of the the divergent trails in Borges' parable. In Th, Discml Charm of tb, Bo"rg'oi'i',
frame (Tbt Pillow Book)." there is little rational explanation for the endless branchings of its already
Character transgression is a third constituent of many multiple strand improbable story. The braidings that characterize Bunuel's films in general
films, where multiple subject roles and variations in serial stories cast doubt suggest an unwillingness to select a paradigmatic plot which would signal
on the controller of the text. In their circularity and involution, these films that some elements are present and that everything not selected is absent.
interrogate the notion of a single author or the limitation of a character to Rather, the interest lies in a kind of narrative cubism: a proliferating store-
a single role. Circular time loops suggest the "as if" (conditional tense) that house of features of the text underscores the notion that where there is no
could have occurred, thus, blUrring the traditional distinctions between one decisive narrative, all narrative possibilities can coexist.
plot (the unfolding events) and story (the sum total of events). Each retold In other diverging films, events in the present are subvened by incur-
version varies the configurations of objects, events, characters that are sions from the past, imaginings of the future and conflicting stories about
posited in the original story, all of which resemble a narrative ·fugue.... the same character{s). In these films, protagonists live in a frozen past as if
With competing voices co-existing within an assemblage of events, char- they are already dead or ghosts (IA" Y,ar al Mari",bad), or one actor plays
acters have the opportunity to take on other identities within the text. In two different but similar people (Vertigo, Th, Doubl, Lif' of Veroniq"r, Suzhou
a proliferating narrative like Ztlig, the metamorphic chameleon, Zelig is f
Rioer), or two actors play different facets of one person (ThaI ObscHrt Obj,ct
built by editing to spin identities out of himself." An "impossible" charac- ofD"i"), or three sets of actors in three different cities f!=peat the same dia-
ter insened within ””””””””””””” -impossible- events and existing only by 10gue and ruminate over the same situation (Flirl). Some films are struc-
the manipulations of montage, he functions as a metonymic device, a self- tured in a way that questions truth and fictional realism, either as whole
engendered "filmic" man. Dialogically both a freak (social deviant, excep- films (Cilit'" Kan', Ra,bolllon) or as replayed sequences (Thr Lif' ofan American
tional man) and a conformist (endlessly asSimilable), Zelig and the film, Fireman, the photograph session in Ptrsona).18
Ztlig, exemplify character hybridization and the defiance of spatial logic Some divergent films (like Chel,,,, Girl, and JIm, CoJ,) use real time, split
and continuity. I" screens and more than one story line and/or sets of characters that may
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Irene JKob ””” Je.an-t.ouis Trifltitnant in Red. Courtesy of Irena Stnahr..owska lind S.F. TOC'.
Klcslowski expresses his frustration over these constraints in Blirul Anger fuels both «yle and method 01 B1..d a.,." The opening, non-
a.,.Ct, whIch follow. 0"" character, a med,cal student named Witek. diegelic close-up of Witek's mouth shrieking out an emphatlc "Nol" is a.
through three alremative professional and politIcal compromise•. In all mcraphor for the film's triple accumulation of bitter negations and Witek's
three cases. Witek fails to escape autocratic. repressive Poland. As a vaclJlatlons between moral responsibility, human weakness and victimiza-
puppet or state-controlled careerism sufrenng from opportunism and tion by an unyielding system. A iogle cause has dtfferent effects. yet in
betrayal In his first incarnation, as: a cooven to religion in his sc:.cond, as the end, each path is a bitter denunciation of a world fettered by discord,
a passive, virtUous soul in his third. he is always at a moral crossroads. For anti.Semitlsm, political expediency, and disappointing father subslJwtes.
all his protC'Stations of indepenckncc from political machinations. Witek The negation throughout the. three parts proVIde:: a decper denial-
is trapped in a "no exit" world ruled by expediency, human frailry, un;atis- that of iii. stOgIe-line story With a ce.ntnJ consciousness as the narrative link
f-actory father-figures iind untimdy death. His entrapment is reinforced by Instead of conventional character consistency and narrative logiC,
his blindness to his other potential selves in each segment and thus, there Kit:slowski suggests that on one handf a character is only an authonal coo-
is no trajectory towards ;elf· liberation." struct and therdore eminenrly manipulable. On the other hand, since in
Blind eJ.,ncr belongs to rhe Gtegory of pas ible world narratives each section Witek has the same past history withm the same oppressive
where ccrtain clements remain the samc. Witek retains his namc and system, there is a suggestion that no matter what alternative he chooses,
many of his fundamental pe"onaliry patterns in three incompatible ver· he is victimized by the vagaries of "blind chance.""
sions, each possible yet impossibly co-existent. At a pivotal point, the The neutrality of the apolitical Witek 10 pan three will rcsonalC In the
provenance is repeated: each of the segments depends on whether or not films that follow. Kies]owsk,'s di;enchantmenr and lovclhate relatIonship
Witek will catch a tram. Repeated, as well, is a surreal sequence in a hos- with Poland, explain why so many of his characters do not intervene and
pital COrridor, which may refer to W'tek's birth and/or death. As in Tbr often Withdraw (rom society and retreat into their Inner re5ources--a-S
Dm.loglU. protagonists in one strand reappear as minor characters 10 ghOStS or angels, as eavcsdropperslvoyeursl or as suicidal types.. 15
another and then (.s if in anticipation of the ending of Red), are reunited With TIx Dou&l, L/, 0/ V"...iqu" Kieslowski departed from the possible
at the end. realms of BH.d a.,.Ct and embarked on an explorarion of impossible