Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them. Many of us are still surrounded, bunkered by books, records, Blu-rays, and the occasional videotape, even with the increased virtualization of media. In any case, media collection as it is today no longer seems to require so much furniture. At the end of his essay, Benjamin erects a dwelling in his precious library and disappears inside it. Even streaming queues, playlists, favorites, and the like, which may seem rather impersonal dwelling places by comparison time-shares, perhaps?
The dreamer dreamsβand lives inside the dream. It is the work of a collector lost in the labyrinth of his own collection. These excerpts are stripped of their original context and even their soundtracksβthe only sound we hear before the final credits is the voiceover narration, written and spoken by Beauvais in dry, clipped cadences.
The combination occasionally seems overwhelming: a torrent of images and words. But the effect is singular, mesmeric in its rhythmic intensity. The short, precise sentences of the narration, along with the cool monotone of his voice, have a literary quality.
Beauvais largely reserves this venom for the inhabitants of the small Alsatian village where, he tells us at the start of the film, he finds himself marooned at And movies. Lots and lots of movies.
During the day he tends to minimal chores and earns money eBay-ing some of the thousands of records, DVDs, and books that crowd the corners of his house.
