The other day I saw the new King Kong movie directed by Peter Jackson. Out on the edge of the world awaits the mist-shrouded enigma of Skull Island. It is an island of death but also of life intensified in its raw & primordial power. A place where creatures are larger than life & deadly in their magnificence.
In one scene, a grazing herd of brontosaurus stampede in response to a circling pack of raptors. The desperate need to escape, forces these massive creatures into a narrow gorge - into the path of a resting, rescue party of 15 armed & self-sufficient men. Hugely awkward motion, is now mixed with the humour of small and fragile, fleeing men, caught up suddenly in desperate flight. They are driven onward - in front of and between the bone crushing legs of ancient creatures. Stopping means death.
For me this strange juxtaposition is an image of asymmetrical rhythm intensified by the edge of chaos.
The next unpredictable moment unfolds with men & dinosaurs - forced to change direction. The gorge ends ! As focus shifts sideways, momentum forces these tremendous masses dinosaurs & men onwards toward the precipice. All now scramble for footing as the way forward crumbles beneath them, some hurtling over into the abyss.
For me it is the sheer energy – the random, almost arbitrary possibility of death & life, for men & creatures now immersed in chaos.
The ones who survive on this margin are those who move intuitively and without hesitation towards the next unpredictable moment !
The scene climaxes when lumbering flesh & escaping movement is interrupted. Suddenly, the leading brontosaurus stumbles and the entire moving bulk of epic motion comes crashing down. There is nothing harmonious or ordered about it. Large cumbersome creatures falling awkwardly and heavily and tumbling - crushing themselves and everything in their path.
All is now overwhelmed by chaos. The pack of raptors seize their opportunity.
Give me an equal measure of the peaceful unpredictability of the dragonfly... any day !
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