the belly of an architect . spirited away

i never thought that there could be a film on stomachs- their form, their purpose, their failurses. the archiect while obsessing over a boulee exhibition in rome suffers from severe stomach aches while photocopying multiple bellies and laying them on top of his, while his wife finally becomes pregnant even as she begins an affair with a younger competing person. the boulee buildings are also party to this obsession- newtons ceotaph opens up and is the place where the exhibition opens, while the lighthouse tower becomes a sex-toy. i read somewhere that tucked in between all of these is story about production and reproduction and perhaps the futility of it all. the architect dies gravity in front of newtons cenotaph. somewhere in the gorgeous images are tucked away references to master paintings and roman history. it is all very esoteric and still enjoyable.

‘spirited away’ is an anime film in which a little girl with her parents gets lost in fairytale landscape that turns out to be a bathhouse for the gods. as her parents are turned into pigs and she becomes a slave of the reigning witch she gets the help of river gods and insect like workers in boiler rooms. it is spectacular spatially and as i was reading about archetypes in the morning i was superimposing them on the spaces of the film. the field. the dungeon. the hearth. the tower. all seem to be an integral part of the coming of age and alice in wonderland story this is.