failing and flying

a poem by Jack Gilbert

Honey Moon Gap
Victory at Gillen

Lured into Laughter

Watching the film In Bruges as part of the Sydney Film Festival, I was forced to experience the affective consequences of mixed genres. Thriller/comedies are brutal to my nervous system and I leave the film weak at the knees - literally. I cannot defend against the callousness of the bloody murders by steeling myself because I am lured into laughter by the uncanny straightforwardness of Colin Farrell's character, and the bizarre mannerliness of the psychopathic hit-man boss played by Ralph Fiennes.

There may be no honour among thieves, but I have long been bemused by the blurring of morality and convention in the more psychopathically inclined. They might hand you a starched napkin to staunch the flow of your blood they have just occasioned.

It seems to me that the gales of laughter weaken and open me to the onslaughts of horror I feel at the killings. I've always thought the positive affects open you up to creative novel perceptions as the world floods in somewhat unfiltered, where more negative affects, like fear, leave you searching for and vigilant against the repetition of harm. In a cocktail of the (at least) two affects - the body is bewildered. Pumped for fear, the laughter is more explosive, but leaves you all the more bare for the next terror.

I think I should stick to comedies. I feel too much.

Aimee McLeod

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