I open my mouth —
and the sound vanishes into the void.
I remember the years we spent
trying to fill these voids with hard work.
We carved a tyrant’s statue into rock
with nothing but a fork and a spoon.
Then, as we sat admiring our work,
the rock began to melt,
flowing over us.
We only listen to doors that speak of good things.
The others remain still, buried in silence.
Books record what we hear.
Those who do not hear…
Those who do not write…
They are traitors!
How does a person become aware of their place in the universe?
Books record what we hear.
Those who do not hear…
Those who do not write…
They are traitors!
Really?
Is that us?
Us, and those like us,
those born from us – come this way.
I felt this sticky liquid
seep into our bodies.
I felt it.
The others?
Observers of our other half.
Them… this way.
The wild animal inside me,
in the witness box.
I watch it from afar.
I wait for it to tell me about myself.
I want it to understand me,
to give meaning to my existence.
We, the observers;
shoulder to shoulder,
lip to lip,
hand in hand,
square by square…
We filled the gaps.
We buried in the ground words that passed through our minds.
In the ground… we buried them.
Other living and non-living things,
wild creatures driven from their lands —
could they be
the promise of my existence?
Body and mind meet, if only for a moment.
Masters, seizing the day,
building towers of global trade.
Lining the insides of their bulletproof vests
with flesh and blood.
And then?
Social scientists spark a fire a little further away.
Once again: love, heart, soul, betrayal, traitor, ungrateful, compassion,
envy, slave, master, consciousness —
all have lost their way.
From now on, it is impossible for the body
to travel single, whole.
Masters,
amid the applause,
climbed the pedestal.
With a shout,
and a few coughs,
they fell silent.
I find my place, my homeland,
my path, through dance.
I ask myself, What should I do?
Suddenly, the wild desires within me
boil over.
Like a slave bound to his master,
I am bound
to the words of the one who looks at me.
He is, in truth, the master of nothing at all:
the false shepherd,
the wolf to the lamb,
the lamb to the wolf,
the wolf to the lamb,
the wolf to the lamb, the wolf.
While sins waited silently in a corner,
the fairest among them…
How does a person become aware of their place in the universe?
Are we the only ones discovering a new language
at the edge of sound?
Cast: Ferhat Akgün, Çiğdem Aygün, Mizgin Özel
Soprano: Senem Demircioğlu
Sound Design and Composer: Emre Dündar
Executive Producer: Sinan Yusufoğlu
Director of Photography: Barış Aygen
Post-Production: Amir Etminan
Production Coordinator: Duygu Toprak
Excerpts from A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)