All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.
– Susan Sontag ‘On Photography’
Can you die more than once?
We think of murder as something horrific. We think of filming as capturing the moment. If one combines those two, it would create a high-contrast scene, where one would capture someone’s demise, and would allow others to relive it. Time after time after time.
What is interesting about this film, is how it’s giving away its biggest secret in the first 5 minutes. We see the death of a woman, and yet we wonder, “What is she afraid of?”. “What is that glare?”
She’s scared of the reflection of her last moments. The ones that we see ourselves, but don’t process them as such.
To point a camera at someone, is somewhat similar to pointing a gun at a person. We put them in an awkward position, the one in which they have to perform/act a certain way. In case of Mark’s murders, they are performing both to the camera and to themselves. They have to face their own vulnerability, which leaves them powerless. They don’t struggle. They just wait for it to be over.
The end scene depicts Mark willingly put himself in that position. He knows the ending of his film and his life. They coexist. And yet, when he faces the end, his reflection, and the camera, he is nothing but afraid. It is coming to an end. And he’s the one who has to act in this tragedy.
P.S I have way more thoughts, and I think I will focus on this film for my essay. So much to unpack here.
