Pirates 2: Stagnatti’s Revenge
All Art of distinction
produces lesser works
that bear its influence.
This piece,
gentle friend,
is no exception.
Prior medical testimony
indicates the possibility
of arousal
in the mature viewer,
and all symptoms of
dementia praecox
indeed present themselves.
A complete detachment
springs up
because pieces are just things
in the end.
No sacrilization of the object
arises here.
The anatomical narrative
incites a surprising appeal,
much as Truth is a fungus
that articulates itself
in the most unusual
of places.
The sexual swashbuckling
is calculated
to awake tender moments,
apoplexy and sword-fighting
joining lips
under the giant clichés,
as Kipling
spins in his grave
like a rotisserie.
Biologically speaking,
it is reassuring
that the violence
precipitates
no intrinsic change
in the characters.
When they have at it
they produce an effect
much akin
to the romance
of a roaring fire
made of fake logs.
It must be said
the pricks of curiosity
are masculine
in the way they are misconstrued,
and the buildup vibrates
with the tension
of high-speed
tar.
But truly,
the scarlet threads
of sex and pirating
have never before been
so intriguingly conjoined.
And the insertion devices conjure
the philosophical
inquirer.
As this is to realize
that a body can contain so many things.
The chronopolitical uncanny moment
of looking in the mirror
and seeing your mouth
realizing it belongs to an ancestor
you don’t even know,
and that the past is always on you
and the future as well,
lusting.
And this
commingling of parts
does not believe
in the immutability
of anything.
Rather,
it believes in perpetual movement
and transformations in life
constantly accentuated
by accidents and chances
taking form
through fragility and resistance
and the fragility’s resistance
to ambiguities.
Even so,
this reviewer must confess
that a bestial flush
invaded her cheek.
Unable to withstand
the erotic horseplay,
a concupiscence arose
that hadn’t been equaled
since reading
Dante’s Inferno.
In the end,
138 minutes
of electromagnetism
disciplines a type
given to reading Duras
and educates
the hypnotized subject-reviewer
high on analgesics
and ennui
who is now fully conscious
and aware of the facts
as never before
even though she is asleep.
Three stars.
____________________
Vanessa Roveto is a writer and filmmaker currently attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.