CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
“…the brain becomes world and the world invades the brain at the juncture of the canvas which is as much a material as a spiritual membrane, a psychophysical entity made of extension and thought, matter and memory, flesh and spirit.”
(The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, 2000)
“Halaw” came from a narrative script that’s been perpetually revised over again because of so many external factors and constraints, not to mention the internal [mental] battles experienced by its creator. Although, the narration in the film provides a slight linearity to the film itself, “Halaw” ended up as an experimental film which highlights the main character’s state of mind.
The finalization of the film’s concept came about when we have shifted from a psychological framework to Gilles Deleuze’s film theory, both of which concentrates on the inner workings of the human mind.
Just like a painter with an empty canvas, the film materialized because the mind extended its magic into the medium that is the film. “…This membrane on which the brain enters the world at the same time as the world penetrates into the milieu of the brain” is the very same reason why the film ended up as experimental and why it became an inside journey inside Norman’s [main character] head or creative consciousness.
On the book by Gregory Flaxman, The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, 2000, Flaxman correlates the conception of a film idea with the creation of a painting. Flaxman describes the process as: “The cerebral membrane de-subjectifies itself, turns itself into a painting, alters itself to become a canvas of the world while the texture of the painting makes itself cerebral- a painting inside the head for a head became painting. And this can only occur there where the ego absents itself and solitary, gets itself lost in giving way to the eye of things.” Norman, the main character, who is a struggling artist, along with the film itself, reached its completion when it started “fixing” itself from within instead of becoming affected and clogged by external factors. Still according to the book: “…an image cannot be reduced to the cold, objective reality of independent matter, but neither is it the simple survey of my mind as it exacts a look at the inaccessible back of things.” The film is an inside journey of Norman frantically searching for an answer amidst his personal battles and outside dynamics such as the creation of his graphic novel, Luna, pressures from his “actual” life and the “outside world” in general. The film becoming an inside-to-outside journey paved the way for realizations both from the film, filmmaker and its audience.
The comic-book part of the story embodies the actual framework of how the human mind works- fragmented and hyperactive and yet, understandable and significant. It also shows how our lives significantly move in parallel to our passion which in Norman’s case, graphic novels. As Bergson claims, “Consciousness shows our body as one image among others and our understanding as a certain faculty of dissociating of distinguishing, of opposing logically, but not of creating or constructing.”
Moreover, the film shifting into an experimental film from a narrative emphasizes the “fatigue” that Deleuze refers to. According to him, it is “the nervous exhaustion that drives the author to collapse, to lose his grip, exhausted from having to walk upon a plane as virgin of traces as the sea” which resembles the emotional state of Norman. The film has a free rein as to where it will come from or where it will head to, same way that the audience can freely formulate conclusions or interpretations about the film. The loop and violent repetition of images were inspired by the “state-of-mind” montages- compulsion from “Requiem for a Dream” and “Trainspotting”; melancholy from “Amelie”; and novelty from “Kill Bill”.
Deleuze summarized the essence of cinema in his claim that “Cinema does not imitate normal perception; rather, it reveals the ‘mechanism’ of perception.” The “physical mechanism” pertaining to the camera and the “metaphysical means” being the human mind itself whether it’s the mind of the seer or the agent.
Reference:
*1 The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema ed. By Gregory Flaxman Copyright 2000 University of Minnesota Press.
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