Meanwhile, Mazamette
The dust and age of a century blurring young pale faces with wide eyes— all heavy colors and black suits black dresses black costumes black lips black pupils sunk deep into black eyes— even the dimmest light makes shapes, turns an oval into a mouth, eyes, a chin There are times they seem frozen, as if their Gothic eyes still focus on a future as wide and long as a century— as if they will never age now that they are caught on film Meanwhile, Mazamette, the future came in an explosion of colors and machines, in a deafening rush of war and indifference The old images burned out slowly, as if we knew it couldn't last forever, as if we knew such simple lines must one day blur, deteriorate, leave nothing but empty ovals in a black dress, the whispers of gray faces like curtains across a world outside that no longer exists, that used to matter more than anything but is slowly fading out burning up flickering to the long white light of nothing in everything, of everything in nothing but noise The clack clack clack of the reel is all that we have left
after watching Les Vampires (1916)