A Principled Sadist -- Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

WARNING: These comments contain SPOILERS.

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Critics and viewers alike have praised PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, and at least from comments online, the most notable character in the film has turned out to be the enigmatic Wolf. I can see good reasons for this.

The Wolf lacks a complex personality; much of his impact, instead, owes to the surprise of his unsettling presence in a film for children. His brutality and scorn bring a genuine chill to the narrative, but for all of the pleasure he takes in cruelty, he operates from clear motives; he follows a harsh yet moral code of honour, despite a personal resentment that, he admits, drove him to bend the rules -- "Sh! Don't tell!" This paradox of sadism held in check by principle becomes the key to his actions.

Another part of his fascination is the role he plays. The film sets him up as the enemy who cannot be defeated, and to its credit, solves the problem he poses without any last-minute twists or turns, which makes his final confrontation all the more haunting.

All of this can be recognized with one viewing of the film, but watching it again, I noticed two elements that took me by surprise.

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Consider how much the Wolf has in common with Perrito:

Both make a first appearance in disguise, and are mistaken for something else. Perrito seems to be a cat; the Wolf appears to be a bounty hunter.

Both become unwelcome pursuers. Puss In Boots eventually begins to like Perrito, and eventually comes to respect the Wolf.

Both give back to Puss In Boots the sword that he has left behind, even if Perrito only gives back a stick sword.

Both wear clothes associated with death. The Wolf wears a cloak and hood; Perrito wears the sock in which he was meant to be drowned.

Both emphasize the need to treasure life as a gift.

"I find the very idea of nine lives absurd," says the Wolf, "and you didn't value any of them."

Perrito, for his part, says, "I've only ever had one life, but sharing it with you and Kitty has made it pretty special. Maybe one life is enough?"

Notice, too, that of all the main characters, neither Perrito nor the Wolf has any interest in the wish. This lack of need gives Perrito an easy trail through the dark forest, and allows the Wolf to come and go without interventions from the map.

A final point of comparison: as Perrito had wanted, but very much against the Wolf's intentions, both become therapy dogs. Despite his frustrated rage -- "Why the Devil did I play with my food?" -- the Wolf understands, in the end, that his pursuit has taught a lesson about death and life, and that he cannot justify his personal vendetta. "I came here for an arrogant little legend who thought he was immortal... but I don't see him any more. Live your life, Puss In Boots. Live it well."

These connections between Perrito and the Wolf are so strong that the two could almost be said to reflect each other. Given the obviously thoughtful craftsmanship of the film, nothing would surprise me if the writers had intended such parallels right from the start. They knew what they were doing.

The writers also made clear just how much the Wolf differs from the other main characters. Like him, these characters learn to see their flaws and mistakes. And so, Goldi recognizes that her failure to appreciate the family right in front of her has hurt this family. Kitty realizes that her quest for someone she can trust has been crippled by her own lack of trust. Puss in Boots finally understands that his arrogant lust for glory has led to reckless lives and lost loves. All of these revelations, prompted by outside clues, have to be discovered internally. (Even if Puss in Boots must be jolted awake by the boorish words of his previous jerk selves, he still comes to this recognition by himself.)

But unlike the others, who return to the people they love with a new generosity and a new commitment, both of which are understood and acknowleged by their loved ones, the Wolf never apologizes. When Puss in Boots affirms, with a quiet respect that has grown beyond his previous arrogant dismissals, that he and the Wolf will indeed meet again, the Wolf says nothing; he walks away.

In a film where the characters are so eloquently expressive in their cartoon fashion, the final expression of the Wolf is hard to read. His ferocity, his gleeful sadism, his predatory stare: all are gone, but what remains?

It might almost be regret. It might even be shame.

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The Hard Light Of Religion, The Shadows Of Art

A long time ago, I loved a sincerely religious woman. "I don't believe," she told me, "I know."

She had also studied mathematics in university, and once told me that she loved equations because "they have a correct answer." For her, a religious concept, like an equation, could be a form of proof.

For me, religious feelings arise from the same mental connections and spontaneous associations that give us art, poetry, music. I tried to convey this to her during one of our long night-time discussions that often lingered after we had made love, hours that I treasured then and hold close in memory now.

I went on to say that many religious "visions" and "insights" are perhaps as real, subjectively, as the connections that give rise to art, and that people who experience these events are faced with a challenge similar to one that artists usually take for granted: mental signals like these are often ambiguous, often more suggestive than definite, often hard to pin down, but all the more powerful because of this elusive nature.

Yet artists and poets have a great advantage: they have no compulsion to "believe" the signals from within their skulls; they feel compelled merely to explore and to convey these things. They can remain at ease with ambiguity, with uncertainty, with not knowing exactly what the signals "mean."

An acceptance of ambiguity, of confusion, might also be found in sincerely religious mystics who try to express what the signals from their heads have told them, but how often is it found in priests, or in church committees, or in televangelists? Unlike artists or poets, church people want mental signals to be real, with implications and consequences in the real world.

I love art, poetry, and music for many reasons, but especially because art, poetry, and music tend to recognize and accept the unreality of their essence. Religions (and those arts associated with religions) want, instead, to be real, and this drives me away from them -- far away.

This woman I loved had been steeped in religious doctrine, but she had no great feeling for poetic writing or poetic methods. She wanted the mental signals of her favoured religious writers to be true; she wanted to "know." She was not at all comfortable with my comfortable acceptance of "not knowing," and perhaps worst of all, of "not caring."

Eventually, she went away and left me on my own. I miss her terribly, but I recognize that not even long discussions in her welcoming bed, in the lingering after-warmth of love, could have reconciled this fundamental difference between us -- a difference between the hard light of religion, and the playful, powerful, poetic shadows of art.

When Does Writing Matter?

For me, the steep challenge of writing is to allow myself to spend effort and time on work that will never be seen by anyone.

Between the end of high school and the approach of my thirties, I wrote invisibly. I was ashamed of my weak skills and determined to get better, even if I had no idea of what better might mean in my circumstances. All I could see was the pallour of my style when compared to the stories and poems of actual writers, and so I kept it all hidden.

Still, I wrote almost every day, if only because I needed maps to roads that I could never see and could hardly define. This drive to improve kept me going.

Since then, I have written stories and even verses that seem good to me. I have learned to enjoy the process of writing and the meticulous fun of revision, yet now something holds me back, something makes me deny myself this pleasure. Is it a lack of confidence in my skill? No. A feeling that I have nothing left to say? Never. Then what is it?

For all of the years that I spent in secret study and practice, I could justify this effort by promising myself the eventual prize of readers. Now that I no longer need to prove my skills to myself, I still have no readers, and I have no hope of gaining them. No matter what I do, no matter how capably I do it, I remain unread.

This condition of crippling invisibility would seem typical for most writers of our illiterate day, and we must all find our own reasons to go on. Yes, I love to write, yes, I still have much to say, but are these, in the hard light of morning, reasons enough?

I can think of only one reply.

Write to explore within your own skull or to step outside of yourself, write for the challenge of new techniques, write for the secret pleasure of words and clauses at play. Discover what you need to keep on working, but remember this:

Writing matters when we make it matter.

We Might As Well Make The Best of Isolation

People who discover, on their own and for themselves, half-concealed pathways of art, often end up isolated by their own passionate pursuits: a fate so unavoidable that life's major question becomes not, "How do I steer away from isolation?" but, "What should I make of isolation?"

Taking isolation as an opportunity for learning and growth might seem a pale comfort, but the alternatives, resentment and bitterness, are no comfort whatsoever.

Dawn of the Digital Warnings

From 1984. Click for a better jpeg.

Do you remember those glorious early days of digital recording, when BIS albums would feature hot red WARNING labels on the front, and, in the back, a long list of hideous medical disasters that could result from unprotected playback? I remember that list:

-- Brain implosion

-- Torrents of blood gushing from ear canals

-- Bursting eyeballs

-- Teeth exploding from the upper jaw and embedding themselves in walls, pets, or other people

-- Disruptions of the space-time continuum and the entry into this world of raging undead abomination monstrosities.

Nonsense, most of it. No, my brain hardly ever imploded, and even if I ruined a few pairs of headphones with gore spills, had to pry a few molars out of brickwork, and fought off, with a woodshed axe, weirdly shrieking non-human intruders, you never heard me complain -- because you never heard me. The music drowned out everything.