After the Dream

I have laid awake all night thiking about what I consider to be necessary ingredients in a film, said the film director. ''And I arrived at three things: love, surprise and
a mystery.''
If the Spaniard Almodovar's films are like colorful rush hour traffic, then Mario Camus' film is a serene dawn in shades of gray, where the mystery, the riddle is the greatest of the three necessary ingredients. The mystery brings people together. The mystery, a dead man's painting with the inscription ''For my friend Antonio from the collea· gue Pablo'', can only be outshone by love.
The young man has his love for the sea and the darkness of the movie theatre. Time after time he escapes the shades of gray for Zhang Yimou's immensely colorfully beautiful and cruel tale Mourning. Camus' film is told in a wide awake, straight and matter·of·fact way. The most dream-like part is the darkness of the movie theatre and perhaps the detective environment so typical of film.
The detective sits behind half closed blinds and speaks directly to himself, the mini tape recorder and the viewer. This is the only thing that contrasts with the everyday simplicity.
Amos, the young man who watches film in an almost religious way, knows each frame by heart, but still can't stop watching and is thereby about to miss out on his own life.
The third ingredient, surprise. Well, maybe it is the narrative tempo, or the answer to the riddle, or perhaps it is love. Maybe there is no surprise.
At least it will not be divulged here.