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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Sunday, May 01, 2011

entry arrow2:27 PM | Even the Stars Die Here



Grief and sadness are made bearable by beauty. This is why I love sad stories written by the masters: they distill the pain and make it resonate in uncanny loveliness. Jacques Tourner's I Walked With a Zombie [1943] may be a B-movie made in the schlocky tradition we equate with Roger Corman, but listen to those lovely lines. In the film, a young Canadian nurse named Betsy goes to the West Indies to take care of the sick, mentally paralyzed wife of a handsome plantation manager named Paul, whom she eventually falls for, and in her misguided love, uses voodoo to give what she thinks the man wants.

Paul Holland: It's easy enough to read the thoughts of a newcomer. Everything seems beautiful because you don't understand. Those flying fish, they're not leaping for joy, they're jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them. That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies. The glitter of putrescence. There is no beauty here, only death and decay.

Betsy Connell: You can't really believe that.

Paul Holland: Everything good dies here. Even the stars.

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