The House is Black

While watching The House is Black one might feel the need to jerk away from the disturbing amount of grotesque image.  However, one may be doing themselves a disservice.  In this film a leper colony is observed under the direction of Forough Farrokhzad.  She makes use of some dodgy, horror movie like film cuts.  Not to mention the juxtaposition of some pretty nasty images with what would be a normal day scenario for any other person.

Furthermore, an undertone of numbness can be felt... no pun intended, throughout the film as well as in its digestion.  In my opinion the use of disturbing images leaves the mind nothing to work with but what appears on the screen.  It's a bit like a pornography in that sense because after seeing something like that one might feel a bit over stimulated.  Burnt out even.  This feeling of numbness stems from those ideals.  Interestingly enough the disease itself that was examined in horrifying detail effects the nerve cells rendering the victim numb.

On another note, when reading some of the poetry in Sin I found her works to be somewhat underwhelming.  Especially after watching a film that was so moving and at sometimes unwatchable.  to be completely honest only a few poems really stuck out at me and I found her use of sensory imaging to be a bit forced.  One line I did enjoy, "I delivered myself from myself" I found to be slightly existential.  Perhaps a quandary of when soul meets body or vice versa.  I think the biggest thing that bothered me was that she used a lot of the same imagery over and over again blue veins, acacia scent and breasts seemed to pop up more often than not.

Reading the poetry in her voice as suggested was very helpful in understanding the rhythm and flow of the poems though.