- From Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together
During last night’s screening of La Ciénaga at Doc Films I noticed throughout the presentation a subtle rippling effect in the upper part of the screen. It looked as though part of the image were being projected onto a little cascade—whenever the top of the frame was bright, the light seemed to be flickering gently downward. A friend who has greater knowledge of such matters than I do explained to me afterward that this effect was a common result of wear and tear on the projector’s bulb. You can never predict just how a bulb’s aging process will play out onscreen, he said, likening that part of the projector to a living thing. (I couldn’t help but think of Byron the Bulb from Gravity’s Rainbow when he said this.)
- La Ciénaga
