Umbrella

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Directed by Cat Tyc

From the get-go, I felt like I was cheating by reading director Cat Tyc’s explanation of her intentions for this film. But how could I not? They were listed directly below the film clip I watched on Vimeo. If I hadn’t read about Tyc’s process, and then later, gone on to read the short story in which the film was loosely based, Fernando Sorrentino’s “There Is A Man in the Habit of Hitting Me Over the Head with an Umbrella,” I’m not sure what I would have taken away from this piece.

The short film depicts a pretty young woman who is—as the title suggests—constantly being followed by a man in the habit of hitting her over the head with an umbrella. Tyc reveals in her written disclosure that the main character is dealing with an abortion, and while there are instances where this is pretty directly clear, they are somewhat fleeting and you could easily miss them, or at least confuse them and take the film to mean something else entirely.

The flashes of babies and children and body parts while she sits in a nightgown on the doctor’s examining table. The out-of-it state the main character is in when engaged in a conversation with her friend; the appointment she alludes to in that same instance, and the carefully worded language the girl uses with her therapist about how the man didn’t exactly bludgeon her, “he was merely tapping, not causing any pain at all.”

She might have been getting tested for STDs, or following up on a previous doctor visit, her condition unknown. If the viewer blinks his or her eyes a few seconds, the main character might have been dealing with a death in the family, a bad dream, or a memory from her childhood she had since blocked out.

The short story also paints a picture rather vague in its meaning, not to mention with a varied gender setup. “There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella” has a distinct emotive quality and certainly reoccurring themes, but these too remain ambiguous and largely up for interpretation. Readers had varied guesses about the author’s intentions. Guilty conscience, bad habit, and severe addiction were among the top choices. Laughter was key, as well, yet some found the story to be of the utmost seriousness.

Personally, the film itself struck a chord in me that was different than any I had read about regarding the story. I thought the umbrella, if not too obvious of a metaphor, represented the constant nagging we carry around with us at all times—not guilt exactly—but pressure and anxiety that comes from responsibility, conflict, and perhaps past decisions we’ve made that follow us around constantly and haunt us.

The power of the umbrella seemed to snap the girl in and out of reality, as if to show the two contradictory emotions she forever struggled with. One is to come to peaceful terms with the man, to accept the constant tapping, as it isn’t painful to her necessarily, but certainly annoying, as she admits. The other, of course, is to feel utterly bothered by this ever-present and inescapable force lingering around her. Whether abiding closely with the director’s intentions or choosing your own viewing path, Umbrella absolutely succeeds in creating an emotional piece of work. I can only imagine this short conjures up whatever it is the man in the habit of hitting the film’s star over the head with an umbrella, represents for you.

Written by: Jesse Sposato, August 22nd 2009

Willow Room, Green Door

admin — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:30:00 +0000

By Deborah Keenan

Milkweed Editions

Deborah Keenan's new poetry collection Willow Room, Green Door includes selections from her previous books - such as Kingdoms, The Only Window that Counts and Household Wounds - in addition to her most recent work. In a collection that spans a lengthy period of time, the reader gets a lovely sense of inhabiting a changing world with the poet, of walking through time, both historical and personal. This collection contains a beautiful diversity of forms and topics. There are prose poems and verse of many shapes and styles.

Some of my favorite poems in Willow Room feature sharp, intellectual responses to fine art and varied literature full of emotion and subtle wit. Some poems, such as "Night Walk": “The last lover you had before your first marriage/called a few weeks ago./You felt the heat” start out with a simple premise, then unspool to reveal much more, from the intimate to the political to the sharply witnessed sensual details: “A car goes by and you believe the silver bike/tied to the top is a Christmas tree” that make these poems ring authentic. Her poems are often sad, but strong, and often touch on female emotion and experience. I love the lines "I have not been done in by some reckless bonsai gardener/I am not an easy species" in her poem about searching for a metaphor and identity.

For me, reading these poems was like listening to a great hip-hop artist who is able to take everything they've seen and learned in their culture and stream forth a flow that puts everything in its right place. Even if you don't recognize every proper noun, they intrigue you and begin to make sense because of the clarity of their perfect contextualization. It's a piece of literature that made me want to reach out and learn more, to pay closer attention to the world that Deborah Keenan so ably observes.

Written by: Dominae Petrosini, July 7th 2007