About the work
(An article for an online publication devoted to contemporary culture)
Mass celebrations drive human solitudes into the deepest depths — this is a truism, it is no longer original — to wander among the dressed-up crowds, the lit-up shop windows, the Bengal lights — with a sour expression, and to nurse a grudge against everything. Or to watch that same life from a screen. To take part without being a part.
In the sweet Christmas tale "Gremlins" (Joe Dante, 1984), Kate says something blasphemous:
— I don't like Christmas.
Billy is bewildered:
— But how?! Christmas is… it's…
Now he will say the main thing about the Holiday, the thing that will save the girl's dreary soul. Come on!
— … it's so much fun.
That's it. Christmas is fun. Easter, May 1st (and once upon a time November 7th too) — that's fun.
In another mischievous cinematic masterpiece, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (Henry Selick, from a screenplay by Tim Burton, 2006), the master of Halloween, the chief creative mind of horrors, Jack, accidentally finds himself in the world of Christmas. He is enchanted, he is struck by the freshness of an idea new to him — and he tries to grasp the meaning of the holiday so as to stage it himself.
He dissects party crackers, dissolves teddy bears and gift stockings in acid… He leafs through the book "Scientific approach"… And he finds out, of course — the whole essence lies in Santa Claus…
Mass celebrations drive human solitudes into the deepest depths — this is a truism, it is no longer original — to wander among the dressed-up crowds, the lit-up shop windows, the Bengal lights — with a sour expression, and to nurse a grudge against everything. Or to watch that same life from a screen. To take part without being a part.
In the sweet Christmas tale "Gremlins" (Joe Dante, 1984), Kate says something blasphemous:
— I don't like Christmas.
Billy is bewildered:
— But how?! Christmas is… it's…
Now he will say the main thing about the Holiday, the thing that will save the girl's dreary soul. Come on!
— … it's so much fun.
That's it. Christmas is fun. Easter, May 1st (and once upon a time November 7th too) — that's fun.
In another mischievous cinematic masterpiece, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (Henry Selick, from a screenplay by Tim Burton, 2006), the master of Halloween, the chief creative mind of horrors, Jack, accidentally finds himself in the world of Christmas. He is enchanted, he is struck by the freshness of an idea new to him — and he tries to grasp the meaning of the holiday so as to stage it himself.
He dissects party crackers, dissolves teddy bears and gift stockings in acid… He leafs through the book "Scientific approach"… And he finds out, of course — the whole essence lies in Santa Claus…
Galina B.
Yuliya P.
Anna P.
Elena I.
