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Hiacynt (2021)
full spoilers. do not read before watching.
Why doesn't Arek pull the trigger?
This house believes we're looking at the finale of Romeo and Juliet.
The assassin is, well, an assassin. Robert is bleeding on the ground, Arek assumes he's dead. Arek has already been shot, his friends and acquaintances are dead, and now his beloved is dead or dying.
Why doesn't he shoot the assassin? He's being personally hunted by the chief of police, he's being professionally hunted by the state, his life is over, his beloved is dead. And he's a thoughtful guy, he reads Hegel in the original German, he's thinking about life, and his own life, and there's nothing left for him to defend, there's nowhere to run. The assassin works for the chief of police, he will be hunted by another and another...
But of course Robert is a tough guy, and when the assassin takes back the gun and starts to drown Arek, Robert smashes his head in, brutally and fatally, expressing his fury in violence, now his own life is over.
When they finally face each other, Arek tells Robert to run away with him, and when Robert says no, Arek says "I'm not going without you."
The Romeo and Juliet moment.
This seems to echo the moment when Arek is looking at what he thinks is the dead body of his beloved Robert, and the moment, pointing the gun, when the meaning and purpose of existence evaporates, the moment of despair, or the only moment when we are truly free. If nothing means anything then you can choose what is important for yourself.
Two Houses, academia and the law. The boss cop runs a brothel and the professor is the pimp... alike in dignity.
I am haunted. Truly haunted. Top noir, with snow instead of rain.