Splendor is the 1999 follow up film to Gregg Araki's closing movie in his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, Nowhere (1997). It continues with his typical themes of youthful confusion in regards to personal identification and interpersonal relations. In comparison to its predecessors, whilst still queer and focused on the extremely personal and malaise in the mundane over any sort of statistical debasement of nuance, however with less of and more mere whiffs of priorly presented grit; taking on a tone which now is deemed as the 'Netflix aesthetic'. Monotone lighting and average storytelling, even in its presentation of polyamorous exploration and young adult's lustful, romantic navigation. Maybe that's the point though, as a way to ground it more as the 90s came to a close and the years of sleek, clean fruitiger aero loomed closer; the method of delivery shifted as the centuries did, and decades of said grit and shit opted for a more bright vision for things, in spite of yet to come Y2K scares or the amassing post-Columbine anxiety, given the film was released in September of the same year said shooting occurred there may have been an effect on the filming of violence depicted against younger individuals; or 9/11 trauma a year and nine months into the new century two years later.
What fascinates me nonetheless, even in not particularly being the biggest fan of this Araki movie is the embedded agency in all the youths. Certainly it got them into precarious and ugly situations: rapes, alien invasions and accidental asiatic convenience store homicide; however even in those wakes there's a continued existence with a vital grit and interesting independence. Going back earlier with something like The Goonies and kids on a free-range mission; or Stephen King's depiction of near-totally free-range pre-teens in the 1950s with the societal restrictions and abuse and all in IT; the agency offered an alleviation almost as much as it could be a deadly detriment. "But, suffering sharpens the wits and makes one resourceful," wrote Ovid in his Metamorphoses in the legend of Tereus, Procne and Philomela; wherein the first name in the title essentially manipulates his way to kidnapping Procne's sister, Philomela and proceeds to rape her, keep her hostage and mutilate her mouth by removing her tongue and ability to speak; eventually getting free via a woven tapestry gotten to her sister; the two kill the child Procne had with Tereus and feed him to him. Needless to say, it's quite a vividly written mythology as in the end, they all turn into birds, but in a way a fever dream one can imagine playing out in say, the akin surreality of the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy.
That said, that Ovid's quoted line is but a platitude in the same vein as 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. It can, as much it can also leave a scar that never heals and never goes away. The Body Keeps The Score and sometimes can't sustain anymore, even as fast as one can ride their motorcycle down the highway as the author Bessel Van Der Kolk details in said excellent exploration and explanation of trauma and treatments to it. To Ovid's poetic mythology or the general parable, it's as much the same in leaving a scar as, "whatever doesn't kill me better fucking run," in either case, whether out of a case for lex talionis or escaping devastating emotional wreckage and contracting baggage.
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