Benjamin Christensen
1922
105 minutes
This film is about witches. Silent ones, rendered in black and white. No Shakespearean lines pour forth from their mouths, and if their skin is green you wouldn't know.
It reminds you of one of your earliest existing poems (written roughly 21 years ago this week, depending on how far in the future you are reading this), archived somewhere in the dregs of your Hotmail account, which you got bored at work and dashed off and sent to your Wiccan ex-girlfriend. The poem deals with the comic strip character Broom Hilda in the first stanza, the Michelin Man in the second, and the Kool-Aid Man in the third--all sinister apparitions which scared you in your childhood. There's no better place to put this poem than here, so read it again for the first time. You never thought up a proper title for this one, so we'll just call it "Childhood Nemeses":
I
the wart scared me the least
squatting on her bulbous nose
ugly but not sinister
her hair limp and stringy
drooped in thin lines
from under a crumpled black hat
flower perched on top
her eyes could hold a glint of tenderness
when they weren't fierce and angular
brows drawn into a disapproving V
and even her green skin was white on weekdays
the mouth is what would wake me up
too large and dark and full of rounded teeth
flashing at me over steaming cauldrons
II
bibendum
his name was latin
nunc est bibendum
now is the time to drink
but to me he was a fat mummy
who ate children
i wondered where the valve stems were
on the stack of pale tires that formed him
and how he'd look deflated
i wasn't going down without a fight
III
the anticipation was the worst
for a heartbeat there was nothing but the wall
and even with the sound down
you knew what was coming
real glass would shatter on the bricks
even wolf's breath doesn't knock those down
i hoped i'd be struck dead by the debris
before he got too close
i could tell the smile was just a lie
Time to choose something different: