.png)
The soft croon of a choir resonates warmly, supplemented by a soothing static buzz borne of sundry conversations, all words incomprehensible except for the ones that leave their mouths:
“If I had my way, you would never grow old,
And sunshine I’d bring every day …”
Though their voices befall us with bewitching perspicuity, it eludes the crowds of people gathered in the vicinity. Just as their conversation is to us, the music is background — a pleasant hum that contributes a general sense of conviviality, one of many touches employed to soften the atmosphere.
Nobody is privy to the fact that they are rhapsodizing life and death — perhaps they are too busy or otherwise indisposed. Perhaps they find the words meaningless, nonsensical — maybe even despicably enigmatic and turgid. It’s irrelevant to fixate on the reason. The camera pans languidly, confirming their distracted nonchalance. Perhaps some of these figures are living in the present, discussing their plans — but human fallacy renders us incapable of the omniscient totality of the here and now. The camera alone possesses the sole capacity to capture the infinite breadth of the moment, bereft of character and existing solely to reflect.
Though it sees all, it does not know all. Thousands of stories mingle together as discussion drifts desultory from person to person. Conversation is suspended in eternal limbo, old ponderings withering as new ones bloom from their barren branches. From death springs life; and from life grows death.
The camera treads intuitively closer, guided by a remarkable magnetism until it steadies its eye on the backs of two strangers. Each one is perfectly absorbed by their own predicament, content to stay cruising as the smaller pieces of a collective sum. Between their turned backs and behind the counter is a bartender, and it is he who delivers the first spoken lines of ONE WAY PASSAGE.
“I haven’t made one of these since 1906,” the bartender reminisces idly, hands going through what are undoubtedly unconsciously memorized motions as spirits blend into an inviting libation. “Not since the Earthquake.” Though the bar is busy and he is plenty adroit, he remains calmly engaged in his present task. When the impatient recipient attempts to swipe it for himself, he is chastised firmly yet lightheartedly by the master craftsman. “Gotta wait a minute, let the oil sink in.”
But our recipient does not want to wait. He has no desire to court time, nor to extract any deeper implications that potentially compose it. What good would letting an unfulfilled expectation marinate for a few seconds longer, naively hoping to harvest wisdom as opposed to frustration. There’s a frightening impetuosity that governs his nerves, equal parts self-destructive and self-preserving.
The figures across from one another are curiously disparate in their philosophy of life. The bartender elongates what is ultimately an ephemeral task, taking occasional pause to enjoy the beautifully complex transformation that he has engendered. The recipient fidgets impatiently like an upright marionette, stiff and suspended against his will.
At last, the finished product is presented to its purveyor — and as he hastily grabs the glass to down it in one fell swoop, the unidentified woman beside him informally makes his acquaintance. As her elbow collides with his back, the unexpected impact sends the glass’s contents lurching up and out of the glass. Save for a few paltry drops, the drink is gone.
As the two parties inevitably turn to face one another, they are confronted by the unexpected. The man, irritated, is temporarily subdued by the discovery that the accidental culprit is a beautiful woman. She marvels for a moment before breaking into a smile. “I’m so sorry.”
The tone has changed despite the ballad’s constant droll. Unexpected warmth and ease emerge, perhaps tempted by novelty, but present all the same. “And I’m so glad.”
In her hand rests an exact duplicate of the beverage that was ordered. “Such a beautiful cocktail, too,” she laments with a sigh. “It is,” he answers, abandoning all and any significance belonging to the spoiled drink. “The Paradise Cocktail. There seem to be a few drops left.”
“Always the most precious,” she insists. “Last few drops … that’s luck.”
Luck, fate, fortune — all words assigned in an attempt to make some semblance of life and chance, of the sovereign omniscience that supersedes human will in its enigmatic splendor. It’s a concept that will never fail to fascinate and intimidate, one that rouses the stillness of conscience in pursuit of the dredges of limited comprehension. For centuries, it’s remained a central theme of the arts — the exception to the impervious nature of knowledge acquisition. To wrestle with mortality is to make sense of something that never presents itself predictably nor logically, and even if no concrete conclusion can be reached there is still comfort to be found in its wake. Such tireless excavation undoubtedly begets an outpouring of expression, taking shape in ways that transcend the constraints of its definition through generous expansion in relatable terms. These interpretations bring unity and comfort, forging bonds borne of mutual sentiment. Through camaraderie and kinship rises palpable understanding, even if such an illusion rests in the collective union of the people.
ONE WAY PASSAGE is such a manifestation of this desperate yet beautiful persistence, cleverly disguised and packaged in such a way that its deeper implications are easily overlooked in favor of its glamorous appeal. It’s no coincidence that its events are precipitated by striking symbolism, where destinies cross by way of shattered gimlets. Its contents, now strewn about, are proof that Paradise — whether it pertains to life or death — is too large and preternatural a thing to be physically manipulated.
—
Death & Life in a Glass
The symbolism of the concoction in question runs far deeper than what initially meets the eye, wielding metaphor in both an accessible and obtuse fashion to appraise life and death. Surface readings offer literal facts, the most significant one being the piquant namesake of the drink. Though easily decipherable, it remains vague, like the definition of Paradise itself. The story begins and concludes with a toast, with slight variations that establish the passage of time.
Its specificity connotes intent, a preternatural ordainment that both epitomizes destiny and mortality in one. The two characters in question are both chasing and fleeing something greater than their comprehension, and seek out temporary reprieve in an alcoholic beverage that functions on a literal and metaphysical level, for it embodies death as much as it intoxicates in its physiological, tangible existence.
Powell captures the urgent pessimism that clouds his character with great aplomb, and these behavioral aspects are reflective of something much greater than the promise of alcohol — something that remains incomprehensible until the moment it occurs, absconding with its hostage into the cavernous unknown. In brilliant abstraction, the drink becomes synecdoche for death, yet remains self-reflexive enough to construe and convey more than one philosophical definition. Dan and Joan inhabit the two poles of a vast spectrum that explores one’s comfort and acceptance of the mortally unknown.
Ironically, what makes death most comforting is its uncertain arrival — and this lack of tangibility denies it elevated importance or fear amongst the many other thoughts and stimuli that gallop through the mind. Such phenomena are incessant and superfluous — at times a great detriment to focus, and others a great remedy for avoidance. To Dan, the cocktail represents death. His eagerness to consume it stems from the debilitating anxiety affecting his cruel and unusual situation. It’s unclear whether or not he’s wise to his impending arrest upon immediate introduction, but such a fact is at best largely irrelevant or partially responsible for his defeatist attitude. Falling into the trap of the police, while invariably dreadful, allows for Dan to have stable footing and rest his bones. Dan, albeit reluctantly, is resigned to his fate — and though never explicitly stated, also likely harbors a sense of reticent gratitude for its occurrence. Ascribing to a nomadic life through measured surreptitious means is taxing and attenuating, particularly when assertion of the self guarantees inevitable consequence. Dan is exhausted from his efforts to outrun himself and his reputation, having reached a point where capitulation seems like inviting repose. When initially making Joan’s acquaintance, he is guarded and aloof. The seeds of an electrifying union have been sown — but Dan, not wanting to exacerbate his grief — concludes the encounter with a sense of thundering finality. Of course, the schadenfreude of kismet has other ideas in mind, leading to a reluctantly intoxicating courtship that engenders a total transformative reckoning of his character.
His cynicism is so consuming and debilitating that it makes him a defeatist, completely robbing him of all and any resolve. He’s so obstinately rooted in his philosophy that he actively attempts to resist Joan’s advances, figuring that any long term investment would be futile given his status as a wanted fugitive. Perhaps, however, their meeting awakened something within his subconscious — for seemingly out of nowhere springs an act of rebellion. He resists his arrest not once, but twice, a stark departure from his state of abject contrition just moments before.
Joan stands as his antithesis in every regard, presenting an piquantly opposite philosophy toward life, death, and the ambiguity that bridges them. She has made peace with fate, and instead of sulking actively chooses to channel every remaining drop of her extant energy into celebrating the compendium of her life’s achievements. When she is chastised by her doctor for what he interprets as reckless and indulgent behavior, it only serves to further empower her quest to abandon all inhibition. It’s nihilistic in an entirely different vein, self destruction with no standing consequences because the inexorable conclusion is imminent death.
She is faced with a similar yet markedly different debacle than Dan. Whereas he is assigned an exact date and time of death, she is told only that her time is quickly escaping with no definite telling of when or where she will succumb. Instead of letting this unknown constant invoke fear and thus consequently dictate her numbered days, Joan opts to cope by tapping into autopilot and cranking it into overdrive. In a bid to maximize what little time she has left — and to avoid idle rumination on a decidedly grim fate — she keeps herself booked and busy to the point of exhaustion.
The beauty of their unlikely union rests in their collaborative harmony. Near perfect equanimity is created when Joan’s destructive hedonism collides with Dan’s grim indifference, and magic transpires as they become further entwined throughout a voyage that’s constantly moving toward its final destination: a shared fate that rests in different outcomes. Each one, though devout and robust, becomes a victim of the all or nothing mentality — and the resulting imbalance entails critical points of vulnerability left unaccounted for. When together, however, they compensate for their collective foibles to obtain an ephemeral equanimity that allows them both to evolve and grow in character and mindset.
—
The Paradise cocktail is just one of many examples of abstract expressionism employed throughout ONE WAY PASSAGE, revealing an incredibly intricate framework of abstraction that delves beneath the surface to rhapsodize death by way of familiarity. Hidden in plain sight rests a subtle allusion to the foundational touchstone of the mythos of mortality — namely, the fabled vessel of the river Styx. Like the constituents of the moribund ferry, Joan and Dan are making their irreversible pilgrimage to the other side, and the journey is ripe with both literal and metaphorical subtext. Travel by definition demands the passing of time, and while that variable doesn’t hold any bearing over Dan’s fate, it certainly plays a pivotal role in Joan’s. Regardless, this dualistic and iconoclastic dimension is reiterated once more in the choosing of their final destination.
Both Joan and Dan are headed for San Francisco — and as fortuity would have it, they discover that they share foundational origins in its streets, despite never having met one another before. As it turns out, they will conclude their days in the very same spot. By that notion alone, San Francisco transcends its geographical identity by assuming the role of the metaphysical threshold that jointly links and separates life and death. Colloquial dialogue takes this a step further, as demonstrated in a prescient exchange between the sights that await them.
DAN:
The Golden Gate.
JOAN:
I remember an old hymn. How’d it go?
“Keep those golden gates wide
open …”
DAN AND JOAN:
“Keep those gates ajar …”
DAN:
Yes, I remember that. I was born
here in San Francisco. And when I
was a youngster, I used to think
they were singing about this Golden
Gate. I thought it was the only one.
JOAN:
I hope you were wrong.
—
ONE WAY PASSAGE eloquently deconstructs and then reassembles death as we know it. Though its primary focus concerns the bittersweet goodbyes of two disparately joined souls, it also erects a subtle yet symbiotic relation to life and rebirth. Dan and Joan are able to spend a day offshore together, enjoying what is essentially the closest substitute for a life unhindered by the limits of nature. They indulge in a world that is entirely their own without interruption, entertaining a fantasy made possible only by immortality alone — a dreamscape that defies convention to transcend reality at the movie’s end when two cocktail glasses inexplicably toast and shatter. Even in the foreground rebirth is cultivated, when one-time criminal Betty and arresting officer Steve abandon their pasts to embark on a newfound adventure together. Like the very subjects it aims to capture, it eludes definition in its paradoxical quality of simultaneously existing as an astute, layered analysis as well as a superficial escapist vehicle that possesses the unique capability to provide thoughtless entertainment despite its deeper dogmas. Ambitious and nuanced, it remains a masterful work that is perennially ahead of its time.
Comentarios