Lacunas, a film by Nicholas Garcia.

"God knows that if he were to show himself, he would cease to exist. He himself has never claimed to exist. He allows himself to be sensed only so that the problem of his existence may be posed"
Jean Baudrillard.

Lacunas is a short film I made for the Insight Film Festival 2009.

Lacunas

Second telephone call.
Just not very comfortable.
Computers make this impossible
People might recognise a man
Be he no-one, nameless
Disembodied, or Oliver Twist
Computers make it possible -
I havent got the voice for this.

First telephone call.
No problem at all.

Its grey-staining your sleeve,
the same today which infiltrates sleep,
and catches on the soles of your two trainered feet,
as much in english woodland as town centre streets.

This inhospitable modernity.
This sprawling aviary of screens
from which old memories heave and
Flitter, rising up on two knees.
This bright dawn over mans dusk-drawn anatomy...


So you haunt the times and past-times of another world,
a mothers world, grandmothers world,
And you comb the times and tide-lines of a farther world,
your fathers world, grandfathers world...

In early morning walks.
Six-thirty in the morning slogs
straight out to the green borders of town.
Being the first to press frost fresh into the ground
and no-one, nothing all around.

Mum would have loved this
Dad would have liked this

Worker. A working man. Forty-four years at work.
Leafleting door to door,
A poster up on the chippie wall,
An invitation to BIBLE TALKS
being held on Sundays at 5.00 PM,
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.00 PM.
Come and hear the Bible carefully explained
and the message of JESUS CHRIST told.
Talks lasting an hour, admission free.
There along with a fellow worker you speak,
People slipping you fivers as they quietly leave.

And wed come along -
A church being a collection of people not a meeting of walls
As the pioneering Apostles gracefully set forth -
to Gospel Talks in community halls
and Conventions pitched off anonymous lanes
Where anonymous people bore anonymous pains
and youd talk.
On the dictators of our time: Pray to God to give them clarity.
Before relations sat in lines: One must love God before the family
On objects and the home: All is passed from hand to hand
On a good deed performed alone: He without Christ is half a man.

And then wed leave and you staying there,
to travel on in your same-sex pair.

And just a metal suitcase.
And packed up inside:
Leather-bound zip-up Bible, underwear,
loose change, book of stamps,
chronologically ordered letter bundle,
fountain pen - refillable kind, black notebook - worker list inside
no denominational branch, no encompassing name.
a black pot of ink, an old pair of shades.
Just a metal suitcase...

Further back it goes quiet...
But inside a plastic carrier bag
in the corner of a cluttered drawer,
Your mouth straightened behind boarding walls,
face pressed firmly into oak carved doors,
the still-soft fists of more privileged boys.
Then Elvis records
Buddy Holly records
Jerry Lee Lewis records.
And now beaming through
that second world war,
As an Indian chief in the English snow,
A cowboy at Littlehampton,
then wading into the Thames at Laleham,
Holding a younger brothers hand,
Dads lost wages over London bridge,
Dad on the floor begging mum not to leave,
And stomach aches and bed wetting..
But we were Indians,
We were Indians.

Written, filmed, edited and narrated by Nicholas Garcia.

Category:

Film & Animation