Middle of the Movie

3 5 R M I D D L E O F T H E M O V I E A N D R E W S A V I A N O The TV is on mute: a slender man in a towel shoos a moth from the sill of an open door, while on the porch appears (he does not see, the movie forbids him) a dream-large shape with a cartoonish mask, which halts, cocks its head, turns, and seeps ever closer to him. It is the return of aparthood, a figure whose aim, before it kills him, is to woo us in an extended moment with its awful grace, forcing the part of us that houses desire to come to grips with our impulse to destroy, as if we were to see the tremor in cupped hands presenting a lotus flower they would crush. ...