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04.2021 Is it summer yet

What a wonderful window are the worlds of fiction. I’ve learned more truth from fantasy than any textbook. I’ve been inspired to seek solutions for real-world problems more from sci-fi than any lecture. And I’ve been able to feel and react to experiences that may never intersect my own life.

Some of the media I enjoyed this month made this especially apparent. But I’m reminded that these windows are framed by humans. And often when in person, people try to help me look through their window and I insist on fogging up the glass with my own words.

...let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. — James 1:19 ESV

This month’s playlist:

HELLBLADE: SENUA’S SACRFICE

This is a game I started during my Covid daze but didn’t finish. It also makes a request normally seen only in mobile games: for the best experience play with headphones. Since I now have a decent pair, I thought I’d revisit it.

Hellblade is a linear experience inspired by Norse mythology and Celtic culture driven by exploration, melee combat, and puzzles. But Senua, the protagonist, is the defining element that makes this game shine.

The player joins Senua on her quest to Helheim to bring her lover back from the dead. Throughout this journey, we learn that she is a seer of sorts and it’s heavily implied her visions are, in fact, psychosis. And we experience these hallucinations with Senua, both visual and auditory.

Enter the request to wear headphones.

The developer, Ninja Theory, consulted with individuals who live with psychosis, and what they learned from them directly impacted game mechanics, Senua’s character, visual effects, and nearly every element of the game. Especially the voices in Senua’s head. To best reproduce this experience, they recorded voice actors with a binaural microphone which enables 3D positioning. So when you wear headphones, you hear the voice whispering in your ear behind your left shoulder, another yelling in your right, and a whole chorus twirling around your head. The audio is so precise that, in combat, the voices can warn Senua of an imminent attack by shouting from the direction of the threat.

Hellblade is a visually stunning and exceptionally crafted experience that drags you into the protagonist's shoes. Senua’s internal logic becomes your logic. Her weariness becomes your weariness. I’ve never experienced this level of immersion before.

Grab a pair of headphones and play it yourself.

KLARA AND THE SUN

This was such a delight. I read the first two chapters late one night and finished the rest on a Saturday, so enthralled I barely noticed sunlight from the porch change from noon to evening, to sunset. What a lovely day.

Klara is sci-fi at its finest. The futuristic elements are only casually referenced and go mostly unexplained, treated by the characters as facts of life rather than novelties. What is centered is the characters and their relationships: specifically Klara and the child under her care.

Klara is an AF (artificial friend), heavily implied to be a sort of android, whose purpose is self-explanatory. The way Kazuo Ishiguro paints the world through her eyes is enthralling. He deftly injects warm personhood into Klara without obfuscating the “artificial” nature of her observations of the world. Artificial doesn’t even sound right. Klara is different. Robot, AI: these terms sound too reductive though they are accurate.

Klara has trouble navigating new and/or complex environments. The data inputs can overwhelm her. Kazuo Ishiguro’s descriptions of these scenes are fantastic, breaking down the environments in a way a computer might to solve a hard problem or dropping resolution so as not to overwhelm a processor. Klara closely observes her child’s emotions and relationship. Interactions that puzzled Klara often made me stop and ponder if I understand human interaction either. Klara is deeply spiritual with an unshakeable faith in her higher power: the Sun.

Do not misunderstand that this is a story about a robot. This is a story about a person who sees the world differently with beautiful results. As a human, the ending feels tinged with tragedy. But I must remind myself to see through Klara’s eyes. She might only feel satisfaction.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

I have exactly one quibble with this film. I could not find rhyme nor reason for the choice to mix hard cuts with fades to black. Usually, there is an internal logic for a movie to use one or the other, often a fade signals the end of a scene or passage of time. Here it seems to be just a random jumble. Possibly this is the result of Wong Kar-wai rushing to finish the film for Cannes. Okay, I lied. I also wasn’t a fan of the movie ending with a bunch of architectural shots that didn’t center on the main characters!

Again, quibbles.

This is a beautiful film. In craft, content, and performance. A man and a woman move into adjacent apartments and strike up a friendship only to discover that their spouses are cheating on them with each other. Both are devastated. They try roleplaying their unfaithful partners to try to make sense of how this could happen, then help each other practice confronting them only to realize they’ve accidentally fallen in love. I kept noticing myself holding my breath through so many of these scenes. I was utterly lost in this pair’s world. I don’t think I’ve ever been this invest in an on-screen romance.

Lovely.

WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND

The manga is hilarious and heartwarming. The anime adaptation successfully replicates the same wonderful experience.

The choice to closely replicate the frames of the comic gave me pause at first. But the sparing use of smooth animation and faithfulness to the original composition and pacing was a judicious choice that successfully adapts the source material to the screen without losing any of the original humor.

Watch for a laugh and a lesson on how to become the ultimate wife guy.

YAEJI

I don’t write about music because I don’t know much about it and don’t listen to it often. But I’ve been very much enjoying Yaeji’s discography on my new headphones.

Adrian Patenaude recently turned me on to this artist and after listening to a few tracks I realized Fifty Foot Shadows first introduced me to her music a couple years ago. Thankful for the reintroduction.

This month I also wrote a sad vignette and did you hear I bought new headphones?