Hamnet

i. twisted into a heart, breathing tenderly under the canopy of wrinkled trees you whistle wishes to, lies a girl under the embrace of it all. and with a winking grunt she wakes, a heap of dull red and dirt stains ascending like a hawk taking flight. he’s there too, her lover; he’s there, the void, a vast sea, undiscovered country.  ii. and they loved, with a mummer of a name (agnes) and soft shoulder taps. it was love that bore circles into the earth, restless, but sure—like a promise. it was love that pained and cupped the chin in understanding, that stepped back at the slap of inked flesh with wood. sharp and crackly, not unlike the words urging “again, again, again” or to stitch tighter, be better. he was the void, after all, it couldn’t be helped. she could tame the wild but not his desire. iii. and they broke apart like a dam, blackened water seeping sickly into the damned house, robbing the air of will. it came with bated breath for a shriek of grief, some offering. perhaps it would be the same plague that took a mother, red spreading and staining memory. perhaps it would be a stillborn. but it stole neither from agnes, like some miracle of nature or witchcraft. some miracle of motherhood, shackled her to her own, the sound of crying babes overcoming the pounding rain at the door. it had passed, for now. for now, was sunshine and play and a half-repaired dam; an act of grown-up understanding and a promise to be brave. yet death was patient, it would knock at their door again. iv. and so it did, their dam strewn in pieces, unrecoverable: unstoppable. no amount of rosemary or thyme could stop it, the flood. it took their proclaimed protector, a child that cared so much and feared even more. it came with a warning: “never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat. that they sup milk. that they draw breath. that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play. never for a moment forget they may be gone, snatched from you, in the blink of an eye. borne away from you like thistledown.” never. v. to be or not to be, that is the question. teetering off the edge: a dock, broken eggshells, and the apron of a stage. it’s a question that accepts the the comfort of countless palms, a haunting of a goodbye that never was. under the armor of a painted face, the resolution of a child’s dream of a triumphant swordsman with his name into poetry; it’s the question that begs “look at me”. some collection of loss and art that creates a world where there’s an orpheus that turns back and moves on, braving undiscovered country without eurydice.  . . . in a portrait of the ultimate tortured poet, jessie buckley and paul mescal are a tour de force. they took a piece of me and sucked it dry, and i was left no more than a carcass by the time the credits had rolled and the empty theater became illuminated, as it always does. beyond the five to six times i burst into full on gut wrenching sobs at different points in the film, it’s taking almost 12 hours for me to fully flesh out my thoughts and interpretations. and there’s still much to say. there’s a lot of criticism surrounding this film as “oscar bait”, but as a viewer who went into this essentially blind (i’ve only read romeo and juliet in full, and the only hamlet exposure i’ve had before this was the lion king) i was left utterly bulldozed over by its generous telling of life and art in conjunction with each other. further, i think it’s reductive to bash the whole of the film for being “abstract” when the basis of this story is rooted in the most human, natural instincts from love to ambition. on top of that, i couldn’t have more praise for richter’s compositions or the cinematography. bees, dark holes, burial sendoffs; the motifs that came back to trail my tears added layers upon layers. the kid actors were brilliant and as a twin, i am now traumatized. thanks, chloe zhao, this has racked my little brain with existentialism and an infectious itch to read hamnet/more shakespeare.