#and at its worst it puts a full pause to my work output

[ploverpaw]

working on this again now that i'm finally getting over a week long migraine

i'm at it again..

[razieltwelve]

Pre-Combat Analysis (Final Rose)

Averia took another bite out of her hazelnut-spread sandwich. She blamed it entirely on Diana, but she had something of a sweet tooth. Of course, she wasn’t above using Saviour to prevent tooth decay, but if anyone asked, she would claim she was simply doing it as a way of practicing her control. Nearby, a hedgehog ambled through the pleasant gardens of academy. The critter trotted over, and she gave him a few slices of banana. She had no idea why there were hedgehogs on academy grounds, but she wasn’t going to complain. They were adorable.

Footsteps and fluctuating Aura drew her attention, and she turned her attention to Team RWBY who were marching toward her with a purpose. Or rather, Weiss was marching toward her with a purpose whilst the others followed behind like the good, loyal teammates they were. In truth, Averia had been expecting a visit from Weiss ever since she’d heard the announcement.

Rin Tohsaka had issued a formal challenge, and Weiss had accepted. The bout would be taking place in a week. Naturally, bets were already being taken as to the outcome, and Averia had reason to believe that the majority of the staff were in on it too.

“Averia,” Weiss said. “I need your help.”

Averia took one last bite out of her sandwich and offered the remaining slices of banana to the hedgehog. “Have a seat.”

X     X     X

Weiss was not given to false confidence, not anymore, not after a full semester at Beacon. She’d seen firsthand what some of the monsters of the academy could do. The last sparring session between Elsa and Pyrrha had resulted in a frozen wonderland littered with spikes of metal and other debris.

It would have been so easy to underestimate Rin. After all, she was coming from another academy, and she had access to far less resources than Weiss. But Rin wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t have challenged if she didn’t think she could win, and Weiss wasn’t about to let arrogance get the better of her.

More to the point, she knew basically nothing about how Rin fought whereas Rin undoubtedly knew more about how she operated in battle. The best way to even that disparity was to consult someone who had fought Rin. The fact that the person in question was also one of the greatest combat minds in history was yet another reason to seek her out.

“What can you tell me about Rin?” Weiss asked, deciding not to beat around the bush.

Averia looked at her for a long moment, and Weiss shivered. There was something distinctly inhuman lurking behind her emerald gaze. It was Saviour, the legendary Semblance taking her measure in an instant before it faded.

“First and foremost,” Averia began. “Rin is a specialist in hand-to-hand combat. If she gets close enough to punch you, the fight is effectively over. You will lose.”

Weiss stared. “She’s that good?”

“In terms of pure skill, I would put her hand-to-hand combat skills at slightly under Yang’s. How long do you think you’d last against Yang without a weapon?”

Weiss paled. “Not very long.”

“Rin has a highly refined style that focuses primarily on striking. She can and will pick you apart over time, but she is more than willing to simply wade in and finish a fight if she thinks she can. Her greatest attributes at her speed and technique. She has exceptional speed, and her technique is extremely well-practiced and refined. I can’t say for certain where the style originated since it seems to be a highly idiosyncratic combination of techniques, but the style seems to be optimised for inflicting massive internal damage while showing as few tells as possible. It is a very direct style in terms of its movements and the path its strikes take.” Averia’s lips twitched. “It’s not quite Yang’s flavour of fighting, but I do think she’d be rather good at it.”

“So I need to avoid close combat.” Weiss swallowed thickly. She’d sparred Yang enough times to know how hard it could be to keep a determine melee specialist away without her team to back her up. It was a weakness she was working on, but there was still plenty of progress to be made. “What about her Aura usage?”

“She’s an average one,” Averia replied.

Weiss bit back a curse. An average one was a person whose proficiency in the four main aspects of Aura (control, capacity, output, and regeneration) were all approximately equal. Someone who was weak in one area could be attacked in that area. For instance, someone who had a relatively small Aura capacity could be outlasted by someone with more. “At what level?”

“Hmm...” Averia paused. “I would say that she is in the top 10% of our year in all four attributes.”

“...” Weiss was beginning to get a migraine. “Are you serious?”

“I am.” Averia nodded. “Saviour saw.”

“It did?”

“Saviour sees everything, and it’s trivially easy for me to run the analysis and observation parts of my Semblance during spars.” Averia shrugged. “She has the edge on you in Aura capacity and regeneration, but you do have the edge in Aura control and output. I will say that she uses her Aura extremely well to enhance her own physical performance.”

“That’s our team’s glass cannon for you.” Yang patted Weiss on the shoulder. “Just don’t ever get hit, and you’ll be bound to win.”

“That doesn’t help, you know.” Weiss sighed. “What about her Semblance?”

“Wait...” Yang frowned. “Has she even used her Semblance? I’ve seen her spar a couple of times. She uses Dust a lot, just like you, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her use her Semblance.”

“You have,” Averia replied. “But you didn’t know it. Rin’s Semblance is a form of property imbuing. Essentially, she can imbue certain kinds of objects, mostly gems from my observation, with particular properties. These properties range from simple explosions to binding and trapping. The fact that she often uses Dust crystals and fragments for this makes it difficult for people to realise what she’s doing.”

“Wait...” Weiss shook her head. “Could she do something like throw fire Dust and imbue it with a trapping ability preventing you from dodging once it’s close enough?”

“Yes.” Averia nodded. “That is precisely the kind of thing she can do. She can also imbue, for example, a water attack onto lightning Dust to create an electrically charged cloud. Moreover, other crystals, such as quartz, ruby, and so on, also have particular properties that she can use of.”

“Wonderful.” Weiss sighed. “This is not going to be easy.”

“No, it’s not.”

X     X     X

Meanwhile...

“Rin,” Saber said. “You do realise that Weiss will likely seek out Averia Yun-Farron for aid.”

“I know that.” Rin scowled. “That girl will use every advantage she has, and Averia is a huge one. I’ve sparred her before, so we have to assume that Averia has already worked out my Semblance and fighting style. What we need is someone who can tell us about Weiss.” Rin’s lips curled. “And I know someone who might just be willing to help us, if only to make the betting more interesting.”

Rin knocked on the door in front of them.

Diana’s voice rang out. “Yeah?”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Averia has fought Rin once for a total of five minutes. That’s why she’s so scary. The rest she gleaned from watching Rin spar. She’s a killer robot for a reason. That said, this is not a good matchup for Weiss. Individually, Weiss is the worst 1 v 1 fighter on Team RWBY, and Rin is a fine single combatant. Rin’s biggest advantage is that she can attack at long range (not at Weiss’s level) but will absolutely dominate close-range combat. Weiss’s advantage is that after just a semester of training with her team, she already hits like a truck. She hasn’t become the Glyph cannon of ultimate doom she later becomes, but she already hits harder than Rin can. If she can tag Rin or keep her out and bombard her at range, she will win the fight.

That said, Averia is a master fight planner who can likely develop a way for Weiss to maintain distance. But there might not be anyone who understand how to get close and stay in there better amongst the students than Diana who understand precisely how to leverage durability and physical abilities to close in for melee combat.

Who will emerge victorious?

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

[breadoffoxy]

Prompt: “Wait, did you spike the eggnog?”

Day: 8/31

Pairing: Hoseok x n. Reader

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: language and alcohol use

Word Count: 1,694

A/N: Thank you @yoongs-jeontae​ for requesting this prompt. I had a lot of fun with this one, and I hope you like it! 

The Christmas part was a little bigger than you expected it to be. It was close friends but they could bring a plus one. You weren’t expecting it but nearly everyone brought a plus one. A few brought a plus two thinking no one would notice, but here you are in the back of the kitchen hiding out with Yoongi next to the eggnog to escape the noisy party goers. You did your socializing earlier in the night, but now you needed to recharge. Plus, Yoongi is the best drinking buddy around.

“Guuuuyyyyyysss!!” A loud voice full of energy that you recognize too well bellows in the kitchen. The sound of it is one of your favorite things, as long as it wasn’t screaming your ears off. Still, it is no matter as you are and forever will be whipped for the man who has his head peeking in the kitchen door before bounding in. If this was a cartoon there would be rainbows and sparkles shooting everywhere.

Instantly, your eyes light up and you absentmindedly fix a wild strand of your hair, making the man beside you scoff at how deep you are for your mutual friend. Yoongi grunts when you elbow him not so discreetly, but luckily for you Hoseok says nothing about it.

“Having fun Hobi?” Giggling, you lean forward to watch him approach the eggnog stand.

“Guys.” Hoseok repeats, looking at you intently. “Have you tried,” he pours himself a large glass of the beverage, “this amazing beverage.”

Yoongi snorts again, amusedly watching his friend, and holds his drink up to show that, yes, he indeed has, “You mean the eggnog?”

“Yes,” Hoseok thrusts his arm forward, the one holding the eggnog, and the drink sloshes over the edge of the cup. “the eggnog.”

“I didn’t know you were such a big fan of eggnog?” You tilt your head as your hyper friend greedily drinks said beverage.

Satisfyingly, Hoseok sighs and pours himself another cup. “I didn’t either, but this stuff is so good.”

“Probably because of the little special something something I added in.” Yoongi grins, taking another sip of his drink.

Hoseok mouths the words ‘something something’ as if it held the mysteries of the universe if only he knew what it was.

“Amen to that. I wouldn’t be able to survive this party without it.” You grin, holding up your drink and Yoongi clinks his cup against yours.

It was quite clear when all the gears clicked in Hoseok’s head what the secret ingredient is. His eyes grow wide in panic, and he spits out the remaining eggnog in his mouth making Yoongi and you yell in panic.

“Gross, dude what the hell?” Yoongi grumbles. He’s curled up on his chair almost like an angry cat.

“Wait.” Hoseok is looking at the both of you intently. “Did you spike the eggnog?”

“Yeah…” You tilt your head at him with a frown. “You didn’t know?”

Yoongi and you couldn’t help look at him as if he were crazy because Yoongi’s hand may have slipped a lot. How could he not know there was alcohol in there? The thought befuddled and concerned you greatly.

Hoseok stumbles and sits down in a chair next to yours. “Well, shit.”

“I think he’s feeling it now.” You state obviously.

“Thanks Captain Obvious.” Yoongi grumbles. You glare at the man. He knows all too well you always say the obvious when you are tipsy. “Keep an eye on him, and I’ll get him some water.”

Nodding your head, you turn towards Hoseok, the bright and sunny man slowly turning into a blank slate. “You ok? I never seen you drink before?”

His words are slow as if he has to think hard for each one to form in his head. “That’s because I never do…well I do, but…I’m not good with it?”

“Don’t worry,” you grin, “I’ll take care of you.”

Hoseok smiles at you fondly, “Thanks, y/n.”

“Here you go buddy.” A cup of water appears in front of Hoseok, but Yoongi doesn’t sit back down beside you. “Are you good taking care of him?”

“Why?” You really don’t want to be left alone with your crush while you are tipsy and he is drunk. Yoongi looks away at you as you try to communicate this all with your eyes.

“Namjoon got this new sound equipment…” And you lost your backup. Nodding your head, Yoongi grins at you and nearly runs off. Only music could make him move that fast.

You notice Hoseok chugging the water quickly beside you and you rush to stop him. Putting your arm on his, you force his arm down. “Easy there Hobi. You don’t want to go too fast.”

The look Hoseok gives you makes you want to laugh in his face but also hug him and take him to bed…to sleep of course! The look on his face isn’t sexy at all. It’s a blank slate, and you wonder how much of him is there.

Cooing, you rub his back, taking care of him the rest of the night. Whenever people come up to talk to the two of you, he just stares at them blankly and nods. You have to shoo some of your friends away so they don’t take advantage of his state, telling him ridiculous things.

“Jimin, what if he remembers you sat on his bed without showering after working out. You know he hates that.” You grumble at your laughing friend, confessing when he knows Hoseok won’t remember.

“Look at him y/n.” You don’t, keeping your glare on Jimin. “He’s not going to remember a thing.”

Once you get Jimin to leave, you think about his words. Maybe it is time for you to get some things off your chest. Maybe confessing will make things easier for you. Looking at Hoseok, you open your mouth before closing it and hitting your head back against the wall. It’s still freaking hard.

A warm weight falls on your shoulder, making you stiffen. Slowly, you turn your head to see Hoseok’s head resting on you. You swallow and then relax, hoping to be comfortable for him. Now seems like the perfect chance.

Taking another swig of eggnog, you call out, “Hobi?”

“Hmmm.” That’s the only response you get from him as he snuggles further into you.

“You probably aren’t going to remember this, sorry…so I guess I’ll confess something to you too. Is that ok?”

The only response you get is a dull “Mmmhmm.”

You rest your head on top of his and whisper, “I like you, Jung Hoseok. A lot.”

This time you don’t even get a reply to your words, making your heart drop. This was supposed to help you, but telling him when all the output he can muster is to stay awake with a blank face wasn’t a good idea. You wanted an answer, some sort of confirmation, anything.

Sighing sadly, you blink away the tears and lift your head up from his. The next time you see Jimin enter the kitchen you wave him down, telling him he should get Hoseok home. You leave soon after, calling an uber, and heading home alone. It takes a long time for you to go to sleep.

It isn’t until midafternoon the next day that you get a call. Looking at the screen, you hesitate seeing Hoseok’s name. You never hesitated before.

Stop being so ridiculous. With a huff you pick up your phone and answer, “Hey Hobi, what’s up?”

“Morning.” Hoseok’s voice is deep and gruff as if he just got out of bed. It does something terribly beautiful to your insides.

“You mean good afternoon.” You correct.

“Yeah, that.” There’s a pause on the line before he continues, “So about last night…”

The way he trails off so uncertain makes you speak up after the silence drags on. “Sorry about the eggnog. I had no idea that you didn’t know. You really are bad with alcohol.”

“Ugh, it is the worst. You think I would pick up tolerance to it after a while.” He groans.

“Nope, apparently not.” You chuckle, and then the silence continues.

Hoseok’s next words come out in a rush, “I was wondering if you wanted to maybe grab some coffee, or brunch? Shit, it’s too late for that now isn’t it?”

Laughing, you say, “It’s never too late for those things.”

“Great, it’s a date.” You freeze at his words, and he continues on. “I’ll come pick you up, if that’s ok?”

“Yeah…sure, that’s fine.” Your words come out in a stupor, the word ‘date’ still tripping you up. “Uh, just text me when you are on your way, I guess?”

“Great!” Hoseok, clears his through after the surprisingly loud exclamation. “That’s great. I’ll just have to do my…mourning routine,” the both of you chuckle, “and kill Jimin, but I’ll be ready after that.”

“Woah, hold on. Why do you have to kill Jimin?” Sure, Jimin is a brat at times, but murder?

Hoseok laughs as if he is privy to a joke that you are not. “Don’t you remember y/n? Last night…or I guess two nights before, he sat in my bed after working out. You know I can’t stand that.”

Hearing those words, you almost accidentally drop your phone in shock. “How…how much do you remember about last night?”

“Hmm, its pretty foggy but I remember a lot of things…I think.” He chuckles at the end before his tone turns serious. “That’s fine, right? For me to remember what you said.”

You close your eyes and sigh. “If you like those things I said, then yes, but if you don’t…can you please forget them?”

“Guess I’m never forgetting them then.” He says softly. You would say something but you are doing your best not to scream, cry, or do anything embarrassing. “So, I’ll see you on the date then?”

Nodding your head, you realize he can’t see you after a moment and stutter out, “Y-yes, I’ll see you then...on the date.”

You hang up from the call before you can hear his laughter to go run into your bedroom and scream into a pillow.

[tapatapreview]

Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones Review, Buy at Rs. 28,490

Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones review : The WH-1000XM4 is the newest in Sony’s famous line of flagship wireless headphones. Premium wireless headphones have been launched in India just over a month after the global launch, and are available for purchase at Amazon, Sony retail stores, big multi-brand electronics shops, and Sony’s online shopping site shopatsc.com. With the 1000XM4, Sony decided not to reinvent the wheel again, but to put slight changes around the board and further refine what was already a successful product.

Priced at Rs. 28,490 in India, Sony WH-1000XM4 is the latest flagship in the wireless headphone line of the Japanese business. The successor to the WH-1000XM3 looks pretty much the same at first sight, but there are some changes both on the top and under the hood that make this a stronger pair of headphones.

Sony’s 360 Reality audio style, which offers surreal space audio experience, is among the most over-the-top functionality. LDAC support for 990 kbps bitrate transfer for your higher-quality titles is also available. Mind you, aptX support is gone so the Hi-Res audio playback performance will take a dive.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Design

Visually, the 1000XM4s are the same as their counterparts. They even come in the same two colours, but there’s no way to tell them apart when you see someone wearing them. The only distinction is the interior of the left earcup, which is where the optical wear recognition sensor is mounted.

Nothing especially incorrect with that, as the architecture of the 1000XM3 was already very refined, with equal parts of minimalism and versatility, allowing it to fit into most scenarios. The choice of fabrics is also top notch here, with high-quality polycarbonate on the exterior and supple faux leather on the inside.

Sony decided to maintain the core concept of the 1000X series through its several iterations. Versions 3 and 4 differ somewhat from 1 and 2, but they both share the same unmistakable appearance.

Also See : Redmi 9i price in India, Full Specifications, Detail Review

It’s not a bad thing to me. An aesthetically appealing style with a polished, elegant look that is discreet enough to be worn outside without attracting attention to it.

The headbands are flexible with a satisfactory sliding mechanism. One problem with the moving, though, is that it needs to be done while the headphones are off the ears. That’s because if you wear it, the headbands get bent, stopping the ear cups from falling easily onto the metal bars.

On the exterior of the headphones, you’ll find two circular power / pair control buttons and a 3.5 mm aux button that switches between noise cancellation and ambient sound. The outer portion of the right earcup serves as a touch-capable control panel that can be used to trigger, pause or skip music and increase or lower the volume.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Features

The Sony WH-1000XM3 was feature-rich upon publication, full of creative control schemes and clever implementations of its noise cancellation technology. Everything that was wonderful about the WH-1000XM3 headphones was turned over to the latest WH-1000XM4 predecessors, along with some new tricks, too. They ‘re not all gimmicks, though — they ‘re practical features that really function as advertised.

The 1000X series has always had these touch movements, and I’ve never been a fan of them. It’s a fun idea to demo your clients in a shop or show off to your friends, but it’s not the most realistic and user-friendly way to control it. First of all, the movements are only accessible on the right ear cup, but whether you’re left-handed, even if you’re right-handed, you’ll find them very awkward

The adjustable button also returns to the Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones, and you can adjust its function using the Sony Headphones Connection app. I tended to use it to monitor active noise cancellation and hearing modes, but you can also set it up to easily call Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. You may also invoke the default voice assistant on your mobile by clicking it once and leaving it up.

The only piece of bad news is about the codecs. WH-1000XM4 supports SBC, AAC, and LDAC, but multi-device pairing does not work for LDAC, because based on what is provided by each of your paired systems, you will be taken to AAC on both or SBC on both. Right now, this is the premium you pay for multi-device matching, that you’re going to lose some audio quality for the sake of convenience.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Audio Performance

Sony uses the same 40 mm drivers in the Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones as in the WH-1000XM3, but there is no sound and blend between the WH-1000XM4 and the WH-1000XM3 headphones that followed them. It’s a warm and balanced sound that does well to deliver a wide variety of sounds as needed and specifics that can be penetrated by a strong bass output.

WH-1000XM4 supports SBC, AAC, and LDAC codecs for transfer over enhanced Bluetooth 5.1 connexions. There is no support for aptX and aptX HD codecs, since Sony has now moved to MediaTek processors on its headphones, which lack native support for these codecs. While LDAC is fine and has fairly broad support for Android these days, it’s not as reliable as aptX codecs because of its ability to slip back to lower bitrates when the relation is less than ideal. I’m going to explore this further in the networking section.

The mid-range also profits from cleaning up the bass area. The bloated bassline of the WH-1000XM3 blew into the lower mid-range, producing extra warmth in male voices and making the sound a boom. The mid-range WH-1000XM4 is even more stable in contrast. It’s not ahead, but it doesn’t go to the back of the mix, and basically, there’s a strong sense of balance all over the board.

Also See : 15 hot tech skills to get a job — Without Certification

Active noise cancellation on the headphones is excellent; standard home noises such as ceiling fans and air conditioners have been virtually blocked out, and the headset has also had a significant effect outdoors. The level of silence stopped short of being exaggerated and unsettling; rather than feeling like sitting in a vacuum, it felt more real and realistic. Importantly, this made a major change to my desire to immerse myself in and interact in music, with less distractions and less background noise. This, of course, even improved when viewing Reality shows and movies.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Battery Performance

Although the Sony WH-1000XM4 didn’t get a boost in battery life relative to their predecessors, they still delivered a significant 30-hour noise cancellation switched on and about 38-hour noise cancellation switched off.

30 hours would be enough for quite a few videos, several flights or days of regular use while at work. In addition, this time, there’s still fast charging. You will get around five hours of charge from a 10-minute top-up, according to Sony. It takes about three hours for a complete fee. Luckily, all this is going to happen via USB Type-C.

Also See : FAUG Game : Can it make space in our heart similar to PUBG?

When used in this worst-case scenario mode, the 25-hour battery life is not bad, but definitely not the 30-hours claimed and far more spectacular. Luckily, the headphones have a fast charging option that offers a 10-minute charging of around five hours of use. This feature works as expected, and I got about six hours of use in the same worst-case test situation as the 25-hour test figure from before, so thumbs up for that.

Conclusion

The last complaint is about the life of the cell. While not bad by any stretch, Sony ‘s goal fails a tremendous margin. Battery life is something that Sony’s headphones are usually excellent at, and I anticipated to see more in this respect. Not only do these headsets assert the same number as the previous generation edition, they also fall short of that goal.

It’s tempting to give the WH-1000XM4 a rough time because of their height. After all, many believe these to be the finest wireless headphones on the market, and they still cost just a penny. Although I would refuse to name them the best without making any comparisons with their rivals, I’m going to say that the WH-1000XM4 is a very, very fine pair of headphones and that you should actually buy them if noise-cancellation, wireless audio and sound quality are your goals in that order.

All of this makes the Sony WH-1000XM4 is the very best pair of wireless headphones you can purchase right now, with a long shot.

For the latest tech news and reviews, Follow TapaTap Review on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Originally published at https://www.tapatapreview.com on September 19, 2020.

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘HOUR OF THE WOLF’ “You’re nothing but frightened…”

© 2019 by James Clark

      I kicked off the Bergman trilogy comprising the films, Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1969) and The Passion of Anna (1969), by way of Shame. But one could start anywhere here, inasmuch as all three of them represent a steep ascent toward—not the famous “silence of God”—but the long-hidden finality of death as tempering the farce of advantage. There was the attraction, in Shame, for its fulsome violence and its unspoken (forgotten) heresy, buried by a world-history crazily intent upon becoming iconic, even if tiny.

We’ll pick up from there, by another very humbled figure, namely, Alma, the wife of a rather well-known and admired painter, Johan Borg, in the film, Hour of the Wolf. Unlike the forgetting of that unfamiliar reflection, in Shame, Alma has incorporated a degree of disinterestedness being the gem of the aforementioned film. But, like Eva-the-forgetful, Alma, remarkably warm though she could be, there was about her a striking inefficiency, a decorative tip of an iceberg—while the full accomplishment remained a huge oblivion. Whereas the opening of Shame adopted an almost sit-com miasma, here instead, what we  experience, and yet being far from the depths of creative magic and profound joy, is a punishing, but soft, third-degree. “Listen, we’re not quite finished yet… No? Alright…”

“Alright” takes off with Alma’s telling the camera and us, in flashback, of the shocking death of Johan; and her inability to keep him in one piece. She begins by emerging from her thatch-roofed, wood-framed cottage, with head bowed and tired eyes. Having already made to the world the details of her telling, this would be an investigatory journalist’s follow-up, in hopes that the disaster could provide more cogency. “I’ve given you the diary. And you wonder why I choose to stay here? We’ve lived in this house almost seven years. Come winter, I can come to the mainland, work at the store as I have done when money was short. The baby is due in a month. The doctor examined me in May, before the very last time we came out here. We’d planned to stay here until August. We were going to be completely alone… He was afraid… He liked that I was quiet…” Then, on the heels of that jumble of tenses, she abruptly delineates (in flash-back), how they had commissioned a small power boat and driven to their island hideaway. The arrival is shown to be touched by murky light not without a harsh beauty. This positive moment links to the boat of death, in Shame. Ebb and flow of engaging challenge. “We found a wheelbarrow in a shed on the beach. When we got here, we were happy to see the apple tree in bloom. Then we discovered footprints under the kitchen window in the flower bed, but forgot it.” (Long pause, in which the investigator could begin to discern that the quiet ones are also stupid ones.) “Yes, we were happy… Johan was uneasy.” (What sort of logic do they subscribe to? Probably a logic not far from that of Eva and Jan, in Shame.) “He always grew anxious when his work did not go well, and it had not gone well for some time now.” (The same precious and unscrupulous aesthetic, from the violinists’, in Shame?) “And he became sleepless. He was frightened, as if he was afraid of the dark. It had gotten worse in the last few years.” The decisive prow of the thrust of Johan and Alma’s boat brings to the story a baseline of decisiveness which awaits them, and all of us. Johan launches the returning driver with clear-enough decisiveness. He gathers his baggage—including, many frames waiting for successful performances—and grimly moves a pushcart to the cottage over very difficult terrain. In the arrival with its delight in the apple tree, she rushes to embrace Johan wholeheartedly; and receives a half-hearted buss and then a brush-off as he heads indoors distractedly and with a sour visage. Next day, he proposes drawing her; and the precious, nineteen-century proceedings seem to lack the promise of shoring up a tired routine. The white sheets blowing wildly on the line near the exercise to shake things up loom as an embarrassment and a warning. Was the second investigation alert to such matters?

This second cinematic rendition of the lost arts’ “giant,” for the sake of a more candid portraiture of the marriage and the mystery whose highlight brings us an Alma—a name for a circus performer whose highlight was to, briefly, invade the realm of Aphrodite, goddess of love whereby carnal mortals, in the Bergman film, Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), make short-shrift of her reign—alarmingly squelched by the hardness of existence. That night, she’s seen sewing far into the night, a process of mending, becoming a confluence. While she stays with her largely mundane priorities, Johan (a name involving the great musician, Johan Bach, and the uncanny dynamics of music) falls prey to incoherence, stalking about the room and feeling driven to reveal to her and her rendition of coherence the grotesque apparitions which haunt him in dreams and in waking, and which have become the staple of his productions, seemingly unloved and unsellable. (That he may once have concentrated upon the tried and true of a widely popular style of work, may account for his not attracting attention, until now, from the neighbors.) Not content to merely bring to Alma’s attention the disturbing work (never seen), he flogs each piece into her face as he carries out a running commentary brimming of both his supposed great struggle and great fear. “Now look! I haven’t shown them to anyone!… This is the one who turns up most often. And he’s almost harmless. I think he’s homosexual… And then there’s the old lady, the one always threatening to take off her hat. Do you know what happens if she does? Her face comes off, you see…” On to his piece de resistance, “He’s the worst of the lot. I call him Bird Man… He’s so strangely quick… and he’s related to Papageno of [Mozart’s 1790 opera] The Magic Flute.” As Johan raves on—“…and especially the Spider Man” [Bergman’s 1960 film, Through a Glass Darkly, features a protagonist who becomes convinced that God is a giant spider]—Alma becomes appalled at his grotesque researches, closing her eyes being all she can do.

In a sort of rally, she manages to put aside the aesthetic output in favor of attempting to assuage the insomnia which the ugly visions have produced for him, visions of horrors he prefers, over facing beauties without personal eternity. (As we are about to discover, it’s even more complicated than that.) He demands, “You must stay awake a little while longer…” Alma, a study in contrast, looks into the kerosene lamp and now her eyes are open and clear. He covers his face with his hand, and she resumes, on a steady keel, that modest and promising play upon thread. In contrast, his insomnia and violent rudeness (to come), being traceable to fear of death, the investigation more closely coincides (sews with) the problematic militancy of Shame. Before the night is over, Johan provides to the multiplicity of scrutiny a display of his obsession. “A minute is actually an immense span of time… Wait, here it starts…” Alma draws much closer to this matter than she did about the grotesque figures. “Ten seconds,” he gazes at the watch. She infers where this is going, and she doesn’t like it. “These seconds… you see how long they last? The minute isn’t over yet!… Ah, finally… It’s gone now…” Feeling some kind of poison (plague) in the works, she returns to her sewing (now small accomplishment, in the dark atmosphere. “Say something,” he demands. “Talk to me, Alma…” Changing the deadly subject, she brightens up. “Hey, you, there’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. Are you listening? [his head has been bent over his chest]. We’ve lived together for seven years now… No, that’s not what I was going to say… Now, I know. Isn’t it true that old people who have lived for a lifetime together start to resemble each other? They finally share so much, their faces take on the same expression. What do you think that is?” Getting him to rise to this bid would be miraculous. But Alma does have a theory which, though unimpressive from the point of real delivery, shows us that her heart is bent on the right part of that cosmos miraculously responsive to loving courage from a finite sensibility. “I hope we will get so old that we think each other’s thoughts… and we get little, dried up, identical wrinkled faces…” (“Identical,” being a hopefully possible way of overcoming his cowardice, selfishness and coldness.) “What do you think about that?” (He’s sleeping, just as Albert, the ringmaster, was sleeping through the story of the hell-on-wheels Alma who reached so high that she became an instance of Aphrodite herself. Our Alma here, however, becomes more a person of interest in her gentle weaknesses, than in her fumbling strengths.)

   That much said, let’s, however, get fully involved with the rest of the island, in its capacity to reveal how bad things can become, and thereby posit energies Alma cannot muster. The bright morning, following the long, dark night, shows her taking out to the yard their stale white sheets and being addressed by a woman in white, a very elderly woman, the likes of which has been seen in many previous Bergman investigations, where only an oracle can get to the bottom of what’s going on—which is to say, a mortal having, like the first Alma, brought to bear by her courage and wit and grace, a possessor of a rare vision and feeling. Her gambit is, “Can you feel my hand now, my fingers, the veins under my skin?” (That being a similar gambit by Jacobi, the murderous mayor and expert on texture that opens doors, in Shame.) Then she announces she’s 216 years old [quickly amending, and unconvincing, to 76]. Not only does she enjoy a remarkable (but not immortal) age, but she has such a closeness to the ways of Aphrodite that she transmits to worthies, like Alma, how factors of a power, paradoxically indebted to resolved mortals, can be put within apprehension which might result in furtherance of becoming aware of needing a warrior dimension as well as a that of a remarkable care-giver. As with Alma’s almost forgetting the gift (a half-gift, in fact) about a brave spouse lifting the spirit of a cowardly spouse, the uncanny stranger almost forgets to impart that Johan’s diary, under their bed, is must reading! On the somewhat soulmate’s departure, the younger sewer is seen from a pedestrian distance and optics which hobbles her as a candidate for audacious deeds. She gets only as far into Johan’s diary (presented by voice-over), as, “I have recently been ill. Not seriously, but unpleasant enough…” Then we cut to the diarist/ painter (an event already recorded in the first investigation; but open to more deep revelation), at work along the shore being interrupted by the owner of the island, Baron von Merkens, also owner of an ancient castle there (a devout soulmate of Knight Augustus Block, in The Seventh Seal) and also demonstrating an extremely pious side, far less benign than that ancient aristocrat. “Would you and your wife care to join us for a simple family supper?” (Words like “simple,” “family,” and “supper,” being implicit weapons, in the range of a non-simple stranger.) Going through tortures—as yet metaphorical—from this worst luck for a solitary soul, he conventionally replies, “That’s kind of you…” “It will be very simple [or, does that term mean, crude]. But I’ll give you a good wine. And our salmon fishing is renowned [crushing; and hooked?]. I should also say that my wife and I are among your admirers, your… fondest admirers…” [eliciting wild excitement].

That shot in the dark, as thus under arrest (Jan, in the film, Shame, often chooses to hide when anyone comes his way), becomes supplemented by the further reading of Alma’s discoveries from the diary. Near the area where he was ordered to face the [simple] music of the castle, he becomes interrupted by a woman, Veronica Vogler, whom he had been very intimate with for years without Alma’s awareness. She had  interrupted the painter’s tantrum in realizing that the work had lost its depths. The striking approach of her liaison—her legs entering the upper area of the frame and then her full and impressive blonde attractiveness—becomes an ironic vignette, in light of the rather witless follow-up. (Moreover, the lust on that second look would infiltrate a fuller phenomenality for the sake of delving into the qualities—pro and con—of the experience.) “Do you see this mark?” she indicates, over her right nipple, where she had exposed that breast. “Be more careful, my love, or it will end in disaster [another implicit warning]. Don’t you remember? I was leaving for a party, and I was wearing my green brocade dress. Afterwards, I had such trouble putting my hair up again. And then I forgot my gloves… I have something I must speak to you about… I’ve received a letter that I must show you. It was sent yesterday: ‘You do not see us, but we see you. The most terrible things can happen. Dreams can become unveiled. The end is near. The wells will run dry; and other fluids will moisten your white loins. This is decided…’ I almost became ill reading it.” (She emits a little laugh in being fondled—the machinery of his imminent murder beyond his grasp.) “Be so kind as to help me with the zipper of my dress…” (Alma is seen reading this with deadened eyes.) In another entry of Johan’s waywardness, he is, while on a walk, waylaid by an intellectual, in suit and tie, who is well aware of the artist’s career. So persistently garrulous is this stranger, that Johan eventually smashes him in the face, bleeding his nose. (The prelude to this blow-up, entails the pest’s rather cutting harangue, “This place must be a painter’s dream or what? I’ve lived here for quite a while [in the castle, as we’ll soon discover]. One returns to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and commits new crimes!… At your age, a certain caution is to be advised… My name is Heerbrand, psychiatric curator… I finger people’s souls and turn their insides out.”) That both Veronica and the pedant are delivering a warning that the floundering radical has engendered a murderous trap, would take a more balanced sensualist to discern. (The Swedish welfare state might be in play here, insomuch as a degree of free thinking could involve a secure tolerance for unconventional ways. Pointedly, I think, the locale is a German island—Germany having a history of intolerance regarding innovative points of view. That a rigorous comportment in face of a skittish normality is urgent, constitutes the essence of this film.)

   Welfare-state laissez-faire could be an ingredient in the situation that Alma (lacking the critical fire of the earlier Alma) quite readily puts aside the evidence of her not being a large part of his life, in order to sustain a saintly solicitude transcending the marriage. She’s prepared soup, a bit of everything, and pours it. He spikes his lunch with strong alcohol, and she produces a lengthy report of what she has to buy for their immediate sustenance. “What you gave me this month is almost gone.” (Bergman’s wit always reliable.) He quickly hands over everything in his pocket, but she wants him to hear the details of the shopping to come. “Don’t just shovel over money like that. You have to look at my accounting.” (Is the litany to come—e.g., “You need a new toothbrush. The one you have looks horrible…”—a subtle rejoinder, from a tepid player?) During the lunch Johan devours many slices of bread, as if Scrooge himself were  transacting with a generous server. Another itemization is, “Then 50 Kronor for your boy’s birthday.” Eventually he tells her of the simple family supper, on Friday. “I know,” she says. “How did you know that?” he asks. She leaves the table.

From the perspective of von Merkens, this taking custody of our protagonists would be like apprehending elusive desperadoes. The swirl of the initial entry, with hosts, relatives and Germanically academic hangers-on in finery, exchanging pleasantries, recalls, vaguely, the networking parties thrown by Fellini and Antonioni. But, after the shuffle in the greenery, we are confronted with a huge table of food and drink (almost a lab) and massive candelabra ablaze (here recalling the oracle’s dinner, in Smiles of a Summer Night [1955], and her graceful confrontation of a pack of wolves being her daughter’s friends). Alma is virtually invisible amidst the forces making much of their financial wealth and crude audacity. Johan, though he doesn’t faint under pressure, like Jan, in Shame, presents a picture of agony. The host, as if in a signal to attack, prates, “I’m completely incapable of feeling aggression.” Promptly after that, someone (the camera catching diners with confusing close-ups, snippets of seeming monstrous parts of faces and hair) calls out, ironically, “Here we’re used to humiliation. We find it pleasurable, our fangs have remained intact…” Ernst, von Merkens’ brother, relates, “I once bought a painting from a well-known artist and invited him over, along with a lot of people who appreciated a good joke! Then I hung it upside down. What a laugh we had then! My God, how we laughed… What do you say, Sir Artist? Wasn’t that a fine joke?” (In Shame, Jacobi, the militant mayor, roughs up violinist Jan, in a similar way. But Jan eventually gets to shoot Jacobi dead. Here something else occurs. But the animus is worth placing often.) The “family” cruelly laughs out loud, causing Johan to barely swallow his salmon. Panning to Alma finds her in shock. Ernst continues: “… the sores never heal, the puss never ceases to flow. The infection is constant—worse, faster, or slower toward the end. The resistance of the heart  decides the outcome…” A lunging pan from that to Johan discloses him close to tears, in having fallen into a trap (a trap, in fact, very hard to circumvent, particularly in view of his chronic weaknesses).

The next stage of “the simple family supper” clearly discloses the heart of the core of the venom. It begins with the hostess’ worry that she’s “constantly losing weight [dying of cancer]…I travel the world over, consulting specialists…” (Johan’s losing credibility is also a mystery of sorts being reversible.) “Sometimes the loss just stops,” she rattles on, “as it did this summer, but then it starts again. My husband thinks its psychological… that it all began when we lost our money. I embezzled the family fortune!” (The dynamics of the coverage of the speakers represents the crucial acrobatics for which the party is missing in action.) Such operatic sensationalism continues as if an overture to the explosive climax. The ruler’s mother exclaims, “I am an old hag. There must be a limit to the hurt.” Someone replies, “No, Madame Countess, I have never heard of any limits at all!” The Countess then pulls her serviette taut and chews on it. Then the subject of Veronica Vogler hits the fan—“I understand you know her. And very well, after what I’ve heard…” The host, who had spoken those words, turns to Alma  and asks, “Have you also met her?” In close-up she replies, “No,” and her face is a mixture of hurt and anger and hopelessness. The conversationalist then taunts, “Such hatred in those eyes!” This promptly, militarily, elicits a chorus of harsh laughter. Johan, now onscreen, drinks his good wine without pleasure. The perspective shows three candle flames at his chest, like medals, being what he ironically might have deserved. Someone shouts out, over the carnivorous mirth, “Fredrik, the cacti you planted need to go. I mean, I don’t enjoy them at all.” Pan back to Johan, who has lost a medal of flame. He covers his face with his white serviette. Now the flames have left his chest. He desperately pours more wine. “Actually,” someone remarks, “I am allergic to them” [that is to say, not cacti but efforts to maintain an austere carnal equilibrium and its sensual medium, which the smart money has not only neglected but put a bounty on]. Johan’s flames are off the grid; but, over his shoulders, there are the King and Queen chess figures. Count Block, in The Seventh Seal, had become famous, in that dimension of the film world having an attention span, for challenging Death to a chess match, by which he hoped to be rewarded in the form of immortality. Hold that thought!

   After so much spleen in the dining room air, the coffee moment—in the library—might have been expected to ease up. But the sugar on the run was to be the piece de resistance, the drama’s dark resolution. A small prelude of this stage of this world war entails the hypochondriac hostess, at the departure from the table, eclipsing the King feature. Also, there is pedant Ernst putting a non-solicitous hand on Johan’s shoulder, and Sir Artist pushing him away, an infraction causing the wag to become livid. Johan covers his face with his hand, sensing a difficulty to come. He comes up to Alma, still seated. “Help me a little,” he asks. “Yes,” she says. Unprepared for the wolf pack (some also their landlords), there would be some tentativeness; but we remain aghast at the passivity of our protagonists, as if chided for being kinky serfs in the 12th century. (Such a thrombosis also surprises us in watching Shame, where supposed professional violinists, Eve and Jan, losing their position, behave like trailer trash.)

Our two today drag themselves to more abuse, in a precinct of literacy, classical rationalism in all its wits. And though the spotlight falls upon a bemusing puppet stage, don’t be fooled for a second that brass knuckle attack could not coincide with rationality. Soon, after the guests of honor are placed, the lights are extinguished for the sake of a deadly clarity. Performance being a raison d’etre here, the little stage also becomes an altar, with a series of candles to light—the formulaic nature of the distribution being cemented, in contrast with the variable candle flames haunting Sir Artist. That the showman, being one of those experts the castle can’t do without, resembles old-time Hollywood boo, Bella Lugosi, dovetails with the same cheesy hard sell as the fanatical armies in Shame. The master of ceremonies orders, “Music”—unaware  that that word covers the logic of his most lethal nightmare. The opened curtain discloses an ancient battlement, with a puppet on a string sidestepping to center stage (perhaps in hopes of sidestepping something that doesn’t agree with him). An operatic baritone, singing in Italian, begins his aria, and the residents produce a warm applause. The camera cuts to the anxious, cigarette-smoking hostess, rivetted to the supposed bravery of the saga. Then we see the grandmother—the host-couple having salted away their children in prestigious schools—galvanized by the sermon-to-come. Another takes off his glasses to meet the forces being evoked. We see Alma, in close-up, struck by the wholesale fascination. Pan to Johan, sweating, morose and looking down to the floor. A cut to the puppeteer produces a close-up  of stark lighting on his face and an auxiliary, large shadow of a mouth on his chin. Despite the complexity of the story of the destruction of the Queen of the Night, Bella comes through with some easy listening. “The Magic Flute is the greatest example. [He blows out all the candles but two.] Tamino’s guards have just left him in the dark courtyard outside the Temple of Wisdom. The young man cries in deepest despair, ‘Oh, eternal night, when might shalt thou pass? When shall the light find my eyes?’ The fatally ill Mozart secretly emphasizes these words. And the reply from the chorus and orchestra is also, ‘Soon, soon, youth… or never.’ The most beautiful, the most shattering music ever written. [The puppeteer’s teeth resemble fangs.  Cut to the target, Johan and his problematic troubles.] Tamino asks, ‘Is Pamina still alive? [An ancient angel comes to light.] The invisible chorus answers, ‘Pamina, Pamina is still alive.’ Hear the strange and illogical but genial rhythm… Pami… na! This is no longer the name of a young woman… but an incantation, a sorcerer’s formula… But still the highest manifestation of art… Would you not agree, Sir Artist?”

A swift swing pan puts the victim on the spot. A pan to Alma finds her very worried, not able to “help a little” in finessing past a murder. Johan, the born and reckless iconoclast, replies (as they knew he would), “Pardon me. There is nothing self-evident in my creative work, except the compulsion to do it. Through no intent of my own [that last phrase being a half-truth  thought to be clever]. I have been pointed out as something apart, a five-legged calf, a monster. I have never sought for that position, nor do so now to keep it. Yet I may well at times have felt  the winds of megalomania sweep across my brow. [Alma tense in his apologia, missing the point of his execution.] But I believe myself to be immune. I need only for one second remind myself of the unimportance of art in the human world in order to cool myself down again. But that does not mean the compulsion does not remain…”

Here we’ve just been granted a gift of the high skill of theatrical drama which Bergman often deploys to penetrate a consciousness so salient and so readily missed, at the heart of not merely human history but the history of everything, being an acrobatic and juggling dare which initiates and interplays significantly the uncanniness of life itself. Of course Johan is murdered for his annoying and incomplete nerve in the Gestapo snake pit. And of course Alma comes to reveal to the interviewer how lacking in substance her loyalty amounts to. But the uniqueness of this film—as sharing with the films, Shame and The Passion of Anna—comprises depth of challenge in the mine field of freedom. With respectability on the basis of living forever (full-bore or largely hidden) becoming more pathological by the day, the challenge of the completely new presses up upon Bergman and upon us, in such a way that it is a certainty that very few will take the dare.

The blitzkrieg of the puppet show and Johan’s faux pas, stirs up a gush of faux congratulation. “So speaks a true artist. This is a real confession. Magnificent! What courage! What clarity! I suggest we raise our glasses to our artist—not only a genius but a thinker, too! I’ll be damned, I never would have suspected. A flowering rose for your hair.” (Johan’s drink seems to be bitter to him.) The grandmother, bedecked by an arsenal of rings, broaches, bracelets and sharp fingernails, seeming to embrace the rebel, manages to cut open some facial skin and shed some blood on the prey of the wolf pack. “Our artist is wounded! I’m so clumsy!” Alma rushes to him, tells him to stay calm and tells him he’s had too much to drink. The wolves laugh. She brings him outside for some fresh air; and they’re followed closely. The expert he recently bloodied  now goes on an offensive we needn’t pay any attention to. The sense of the saga has run its course. And the dilemma of flourishing there stands powerfully in our face.

Inasmuch as the brutes prefer a long and playful kill, there are reams of bemusement. We’ll keep it short. The artist family shows us how pitifully unprepared, for the phenomena of creativity, they are. The hostess needles Alma about Veronica; and, finally leaving the roast, she has no heart to delight in the inspiring seascape path and supernal moonlight. Instead, she announces that she has read the diary. “It makes me sick with fear… But if you think I’m going to run away, I won’t!” Back at their disappearing house and home, Johan pulls up a supposedly profound idea that an “hour of the wolf,” in the dead of night, involves fateful truths. “The old people” [like him] swear by it. Then he’s on to the subject of abuses from his parents when he was a child, and finding solace from his mother’s “forgiveness.” As if the beatific current, with its caressing, were to be freshly in play, he finds himself able to tell Alma about an abuse he inflicted by this coast not long ago, beating a rude young boy to death by means of multiple pounding with a large rock. (Quentin Tarantino, definitely an aficionado of this work, deploys, acrobatic stuntman, Cliff, in his film, Once upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), to frequently beat to a pulp annoying entities of every description.) Feeling that tempering would make an improvement, Alma responds, “You said once that what you liked about me was that God made me in one piece, that I had whole feelings, whole thoughts. You said it was people like me… It sounded so lovely. I was wrong. I don’t understand anything. I don’t understand you. You’re nothing but frightened…” Soon after dawn, an emissary from the castle proffers a handgun, supposedly to control wild predators. A second invitation is given, with the added attraction being Veronica. Alma takes umbrage about that, and Johan fires a volley of shots from that security factor. (Prior to that, she insists, “I’ll stay.” Moreover her wounds are superficial, and she escapes; the dribble of the action revealing—for hopefully critical souls—a swing to Hollywood.) Johan, the supposed widower, returns to the fun house. Veronica is placed under a shroud; he takes the cloth away and caresses her, and then the height of love laughs in his face, as do the others. He delivers to his detractors the melodramatic challenge, “The mirror has been shattered. But what do the splinters reflect?” [We’d love to believe that the shake-up has allowed some sense of a mortal being instrumental of two ranges. But that seems to be beyond the forces here]. One of those who sneers is the oracle. She gives us a little clinic as to descending to cheapness. And she deconstructs herself into her constituent parts, as a display of matter being honored to die a spiritual death. An amusing moment in Johan’s pursuit of Veronica involves the latter’s lover, a priest, who, in a fit of jealousy, walks up a wall and then upside down, along the ceiling, like Fred Astaire, in Royal Wedding (1951). The proceedings of killing Johan in the swampy surround are far from royal. But Alma does, partly, raise the tone in her attempt to save a difficult relationship.

   She tells us, and those closely tracking her and her misadventure, “I thought it best to follow him. He might harm himself.” She has a question to ask of the investigator (s) of the war. “Isn’t it true that when a woman has lived a long time with a man…she becomes like that man? Since she loves him, and tries to think like him… and see like him. They say that it can change a person. Is that why I began to see those   ghosts? Or were they there anyway? I mean, if I’d loved him less could I have protected him better? Or was it that I didn’t love enough? Was that those ‘cannibals,’ as he called them? Was that why he came to grief? I thought I was so close to him. Sometimes he said he was close to me. One time he said it was certainty. If only I could have followed him all the time. There’s so much to keep pondering. So many questions, I don’t know which is which and I get completely…”