Afterimage

Until I’ve caught up with some of the other spring anime, I’m stalling on watching more of Kaiba, but for the sake of curiosity, I can’t stop myself from streaming an occasional clip on YouTube. The above excerpt (from episode 3) is wonderful. You don’t need to understand the dialogue to feel what’s happening, just listen to the music and check the facial expressions. A nostalgic, tired-looking grandma sits to play her piano, and with each sad note, another long-forgotten memory rings back into recollection. Her sister, her child, her husband, she suddenly realises all of what she’s lost, and now, life having passed her by, tears roll down her wrinkled cheeks. Full of regret, she remembers everything, she’s all alone. The music stops. You know, this is what great animation is capable of, sweeping, moving, sad, wonderful human feeling.

Listening to Björk’s Vespertine album, I’m flooded with feeling. It’s not like memory, as that implies the memories are mine. The feelings (or maybe, emotions?) I’m writing about are inextricably linked to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. While reading the books, Northern Lights in particular, her fragile Vespertine was my soundtrack. Usually, I’m not one to listen to music whilst reading, yet the landscape of both is so full of icy wonder, I’m frozen in those feelings; like the snow-flake that reflects in your palm for those fleeting few seconds before melting away, it’s a wonder of the moment, a passionate affair, here today and gone tomorrow.