The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“I don’t know,” I say. “Her editing was pretty tight, actually.”


“Whatever,” Tyler says.

“Okay,” says Professor Krauss. “Nice job, Deepti. And Laura, too. That took . . . that took some guts. So. What would we say is the narrative thrust of this piece?”

“Um, I’d say it was about the inherent violence of the gendered gaze? And about a woman’s control of her body in space?” calls one of Deepti’s friends.

“Okay,” Professor Krauss says. “Sure. And how is that story conveyed in a visual lexicon?”

I fade out from the class discussion of Deepti’s piece. Maybe Tyler’s right, it was kind of derivative. But I had to admire her technique. I don’t think my sound editing is going to be nearly that sharp. Okay, Most is more complicated. It’s got different scenes, different people, lots of different light levels and transition music. Girl in the Park is basically one long tracking shot, which if I want to be a jerk about it, I could point out it could’ve been done in one take, like, the day before yesterday. Then all she has to do is find music that’s the right length. I mean, everybody loves tracking shots. I’ve probably watched that Goodfellas tracking shot where they go through the kitchen to get into the Copa, like, a dozen times. And in The Player, there’s a whole tracking shot where they spend the entire time talking about tracking shots. The more I think about it, the more irritated I get. Deepti thinks having her friend get naked in the park is, like, some big artistic statement. Like, we’ll all be so distracted by thinking about Laura walking naked through the park that we won’t notice she made a crappy film.

Thinking about Laura naked in the park makes me shift in my seat, and I look around for a second to make sure no one notices. The lights are dim. I’m safe.

“All right,” Professor Krauss continues. “Next up, we’ve got Shuttered Eyes, by Tyler Lau. Says here Tyler shot using both digital and sixteen millimeter—is that right?” she asks him, sounding impressed.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, like, it’s no big deal, and not something he’s been obsessing about for weeks.

“Wow. Okay. So it was shot in both sixteen and digital, and he says it’s a”—she squints at the paper—“visual tone-poem meditation on the . . . nature of . . . identity and . . .” Professor Krauss gives up, looks at the audience and says, “It’s an art film. Let’s go.”

We’re plunged into darkness, the numbered countdown begins, like I always imagined would roll before one of my films, and then the scene opens on Tyler’s eye, filling the frame of the camera. Dissonant classical music plays that I don’t recognize, but which Tyler told me a while ago is by some guy named Schoenberg. After a minute, I’m lost. But it’s a pleasurable lost. The images tumble together in a way that makes me uncomfortable, but which manages to be beautiful. It’s like a kaleidoscope, only it’s telling a story. Here’s a flickering candle, here’s an eye, there’s the baby gumming a quartz crystal and someone taking it away, then hands grasped together on the tabletop and holding perfectly still. There’s the woman winding on her turban, there’s me falling (oh, man, I can’t believe he put that in), then back to a repeat of the woman winding her turban. Time seems to move both forward and back, and it’s dizzying, but it’s rhythmic and magical. I’m letting myself be pulled into the experience of it.

And then, in a flicker of light, it happens.

I see her.

Annie.

My scalp crawls, and a strangled gasp comes out of my mouth.