There's Something In The Woodshed

On the first day of another new year,
I slept through most of the 132 minutes
of Béla Tarr's noir-hewn ‘The Man From London’.
And as I slept, I dreamt of paint drying.
Thick, Hungarian, monochrome paint.
Satinwood. Eggshell. Polyurethane. Goulash.
I dreamt of Jonah in the belly of the whale.
I dreamt of Robinson Crusoe on his island of despair.
I dreamt of being held by the girl I love the most.
What woke me in the end, was the intermittent
sound of loud discordant robotic bleeping;
a technical problem with the 35mm film print.
On the screen was the image of a closed door in raw close-up.
A handle. A padlock. A deep weather-beaten grain to the wood.
The bleeping persisted. The camera remained focused on the closed door.
The bleeping didn't stop. Still, the camera remained focused on the closed door.
Now I’m at home, eating cold leftovers from the fridge.
I’m thinking about asking someone for my money back.
But as you know, that way true madness lies.

'Prologue': a short film by Béla Tarr