Film & TV

The Gunners final pre-season match, hosting Cesc Fabregas' Como, began at 2:30. Because I could take the M to Delancey/Essex, I'd be able to watch the first half while on the train. This was enough to make cancelling on the movie outright unjustifiable, especially for someone (me) claiming Stalker as their favorite film.

Phone in hand, streaming the Arsenal YouTube channel, the match followed a familiar pattern to the previous few. Arsenal pressed the living shit out of Como in the first ten minutes, creating 2-3 opportunities they could/should have score from, and then got tired and settled into relatively feckless possession.

But the Hale Enders impressed again.

MLS was confident and progressive on the ball. He took his goal well, but will have been disappointed with his effort just minutes later, opting to strike with the laces and blazing the ball over instead of wrapping his left foot around the ball and using the defender as a natural guide to his angle of approach. To get minutes ahead of Bruno Guimaraes, he will have to do better from those positions. The idea that he should be sold is a non-starter.

Ethan Nwaneri's off-ball running was improved and his touches in the midfield third more refined and connected. I'm long on the record about believing his best position to be higher up the pitch, but there is no doubt he has the physicality and 1v1 technical quality to play in midfield.

Still, I've always seen him as more Phil Foden than Rayan Cherki. Neither player connects particularly well with those around them, and Nwaneri is no different. This is his biggest hurdle to becoming an elite midfielder—playing the game with others.

Regardless, in this current version of Arsenal, he is one of the 20 best players. A loan shouldn't be out of the question, but I'd prefer the club make use of his talents, especially in a season where so much of the squad has dealt with fitness and load-management issues.

Max Dowman was ever-dangerous, again displaying show-stopping 1v1 talent off the right and continuing his claim to start the Community Shield and perhaps Premier League opener. Dowman, in theory, should be a contender to start in any iteration of Arsenal this season, particularly if the club does not bring in a star player off the left.

Marli Salmon made his case to remain with the first team to start the season.

Arsenal are still expected to sign a defender, perhaps Ezri Konsa, which would make Salmon Arsenal's "9th" defender. That's a good situation for the 16 year old. He should want to be in and around a team with characters and elite performers. Playing against the best, up to a certain age, is the best possible development.

Even against average opposition, Gabriel and Hincapie offered very little in possession. Eze looked bright and was sharp on set-piece duty. Kepa got beat at his near post by a good strike from Martin Baturina, Gabriel Jesus was lethargic and Viktor Gyokeres anonymous.

Gabriel Martinelli was good, looking fast and dynamic as well as confident on the ball, including a mazy dribble in midfield where he beat 5 players in less than 2 seconds. There are not many players available definitively better than the Brazilian. Especially compared to a player like Viktor Gyokeres.

As necessary as a LW signing is, Arsenal cannot ignore the need for a CF to grow under and challenge Kai Havertz. Christian Kofane and Pio Esposito are standout candidates available for £75m or less. Off the left, Marcus Rashford (£30m) is the most logical, though it would not be shocking to see Bradley Barcola or Kenan Yildiz arrive if the fee is between £75-100m. That's far more likely for Yildiz.

Theo Julienne also debuted from the start. He was very good on the ball in the final third but struggled in defense. Assane Diao had the beating of him every time he isolated Julienne, and Martin Baturina split him and Dowman with remarkable ease on the goal. A loan to a club in Netherlands/Belgium makes sense.

1-1, Arsenal dominant. I knew some of the big players—Calafiori, White, Mosquera, Bruno G., Merino, Odegaard, Tzolis, Havertz; perhaps even Zubimendi and Madueke were due to play in the second half. I was fine with missing it.

Naturally starting about five minutes late, the beginning of Solaris perfectly coincided with the end of the first half. I tucked my phone between my legs, spread my milk duds throughout the popcorn, and got ready my index card spiral rolodex.

Struggling to remember all my thoughts from my last experience at The Metrograph, I had decided I would take notes, no matter how sophomoric it may look, if the desire struck me. Perception be damned.

I also made sure to rip my pen.

On my Travel Basketball team we had Film Study every Saturday morning. This was a humiliation ritual. We were not very good and we played in a very competitive league, which meant we lost. A lot. I was the point guard, which meant I had the ball a lot, too, making me an easy and necessary target.

We would rarely get passed the first ten minutes of gameplay within our allotted 90 minute review. That's how many mistakes there were. Wanting me to improve and learn from the experience, my father sent me in, notebook and pen in hand, to take notes. To learn I'd have to write it down. This obviously was a point of mockery amongst my teammates, and even coach.

Still, every week I arrived, pen and paper in hand, my father checking my recorded lessons afterwards. As Kelvin stared in disbelief at Henri Burton's testimony, familiar feelings of embarrassment overtook me. How I rued being picked up by him. How I hated being forced to confront my mistakes. How mistreated I felt. I also remembered feelings of gratitude when those notes, that analytical way of approaching sport, made me better. Then shame, and regret, for never expressing it.

As Kelvin's father made clear his frustration of his son's crude handling of Henri Burton, I heard the crashing of two feet planting themselves atop the balcony before the first row. Fantasies of the balcony's collapse streamed through me. Would I sense it, crumbling? How much time would I have to make a decision? What would be best?

I could try to jump off the falling balcony into the crowd, but could seriously injure someone, or multiple someones, in the process. I could go into a fetal position and protect my head, but that would be ineffective and pathetic. I'd need something to hold on to and something to break my fall. How strange it is, to come to a theatre and think about everything not on the screen.

Appearing as Kelvin's deceased wife Hari, Natalya Bandarchuk is mesmerizing. Her combination of looks and performance put her into immediate conversation as the most beautiful woman in the history of Film.

Sandrine Bonnaire (Vagabond), Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club), Audrey Tautau (Amelie), Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), Faye Wong (Chungking Express) and Parker Posey (Waiting for Guffman) also came to mind. So did Cesca, every bit their match.

Hari is made aware of its immortality, causing great distress and an attempted suicide. If that doesn't make it a woman, I don't know what ever could. I mean, fuck. Kelvin sent her away in a rocketship and she came back. Sounds like a woman to me. The best kind, too.

Bandarchuk's apparition is the product of some sort of communication between the ocean planet and the Solaris Space Station, where the Alien projects the astronauts' greatest fears, regrets, and shames back at them, like a low self-esteem mirror. It's a forced confrontation, to be sure, but whether or not it is a necessary evolution the planet requires of the humans remains unknowable. As does the purpose of such a confrontation.

Hari's genesis, as well as the technologies involved, are not explained because they are not important. But it's hard to watch something and be unsure you understand.

So much of modern storytelling is hyper expositional, leaving little room for interpretation in its competetion for the attention of even those who have 'pushed play'. Post-irony, post-cringe, post-capitalist, post-Israel. We don't know where we're going so our media has to answer every question. It's made me dumber, no doubt. Nicotine, weed, diet pepsi.

As the film alternated between monochrome and color and the camera wandered through the futuristic and decrepit halls of Solaris, we are invited into rooms seemingly alternating in their light and spacing. It provided a compelling ambiance to the thick thematic fog and a shield for my mind to wonder about its own reflection.

Kelvin says that the salvation of humanity is in its shame. Dr. Snaut believes that asking existential questions is for unhappy people. I wonder whether these philosophies are reconcilable. I wonder whether Arsenal can win the Champions League. I wonder what the Coyne Brothers will think of my pitch.

Find your dreams come true...