11 February 2008
The Angle of Recognition
)Published on February 11th, 2008 @ 07:20:44 am, using 0 words, 54 views
The world is awfully small. Wonderfully small. Cozy, really. Small enough for men to have made it to the moon and back so why not for one to accidentally find in a new friend’s soon to be former residence the setting to a party of one’s youth?
That, to me, reinforces the feeling that places keep us. That the relationship between people and places is very much symbiotic. People lend their stories to a particular place while places in their greater permanence add a measure of longevity to stories and their people. 
That symbiosis is clearly illustrated in the final shots of Before Sunrise where we revisit the deserted places that served as background to the story of Jesse and Celine as it unfolded. As you look at those shots, it’s undeniable that a cemetery is no longer just a cemetery, a Ferris Wheel no longer just a Ferris Wheel, a boat no longer just a boat, a park no longer just a park. A cemetery, a Ferris Wheel, a boat and a park, among other locations managed to keep those characters, however transient their stay.
In my case, a building kept an entire party. Now reduced to scattered images of teenagers, conversations against a background of greenery, music, flashing lights, glass doors. And haze… a lot of haze added by the present, by the years from there to here.
It’s an underrated experience, to find right on the eve of a friend’s moving, the angle of recognition - that one angle amid 360, which leaves you feeling that this is the closest to time travel you’ll ever come.
Time travel does exist but it is limited to the confines of memory. Memory, of course, being the narrow-minded, biased sort of faculty that takes you on a strictly private ride. 
It all happens within the confines of your mind. Like Jodie Foster’s experience in Contact. Something that’s not there to ever be fully shared or understood.
The angle of recognition snaps something into place and you begin to make your way through the haze. Not really understanding why the details that stand out, in fact do. Like what you were wearing… why would you remember the black skirt and pink blouse, of all things? Or the black hooded dress (there may have been two separate parties in that same place. How to be sure? The certainty is right there. You can sense it. Right behind that thicker patch of haze.)
How old was that girl? Thirteen? Fourteen? Whose party was it? Who used to live in the same neighborhood you now work? Those more relevant pieces of information elude you. They hide behind the haziness holding a cigarette, adding smoke to the air, keeping secrets, making you think long and hard, and take pictures (any excuse to take pictures being at once welcome and unnecessary) and reach out to the people who were there and are here to contribute with their own memories. Those who are most likely to finish your thoughts and sentences… and make that ride ever so slightly less solitary.
- Do you remember if any of the kids I went to school with lived in B——- on S———– street?
- Uh… I don’t remember. Maybe. (pause) Maybe those twins… What were their names?
- I was in R——-’s building today and I was walking around the playground when it hit me. I think I’ve been to a party in that building. When I was 13 or so… Do you think that’s possible?
- It’s possible.
- I’m not sure but I think I might remember what I wore to it. It may have been…
- … a black skirt and a pink blouse?
Matching smiles.
The Original Photos
Pearl Jam - Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town/Vs.
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Places, friend, small world, Before Sunrise, memory, time travel, private, symbiosis, teenager, party
Permanent Link
