The Pressure of Neglect
Inside, A Review
Once, when I was younger and working one of my first jobs, a customer approached me while I was reading. He asked what book I had, what I was studying in school. Without warning, this absolutely random person told me, “your one job is to not become a pessimist.” He left. I never saw him again.
His warning didn’t make fuller sense until later and until I understood what was at stake with pessimism.
Not too many movies get to me, but recently I came across one that struck deep. The movie is called Inside, and it stars Willem Defoe. Here is the trailer. I think it’s helpful to understand this letter.
This movie is Pessimism.
An art burglar is inexplicably/accidentally trapped inside a famous artist's apartment for maybe a year, right in the core of New York City. He falls into madness over the course of the movie. He makes several attempts to escape and get to the outside world again. He draws on the walls. He eats everything possible. He bears tormenting heat and cold. He passes time with small projects and trying to escape.
Nothing works. By the end of the film, we have watched him cry, scream, dance, eat, shit, and obsess over people through a security camera. Sometimes, honestly, it doesn’t seem so hellish, though. He is able to conjure up some nice snacks, have a little night cap, and spends the evening with a sketchbook working on his craft and simply being an artist. These little joys are in spite of the cage but always covered by the fact that he is in hell.
At a certain point, he has a dream where his security camera obsession is somehow inside with him, near, but they never touch. She hovers so close to him, moving near his mouth and neck, floating her hands over him, but they never touch.
There is a scene where I had to close my eyes, actually. It is night. There are fireworks everywhere outside. It is a distinct mark of time, perhaps the 4th of July, or something massive and communal. There they are, everyone else is outside having fun, and here is this mistake of a life trapped in a room somewhere.
It is key to recall that it is a mistake that he is there. He should not be there. He is a thief. He “wasn’t supposed to be” in this room. As his earlier attempts at escape failed, he noticed the unique lighting setup in the ceiling. One of his projects throughout the movie was building a tower to stand closer to it then fashion tools to examine and dismantle it for a possible escape. He eventually makes it to the top of the lights and makes his way through the ceiling at the very end.
We do not know if he escapes or what becomes of him.
There is no payoff in this movie. No one knows he is locked inside. His suffering is without witness, and there is no one to validate his ingenuity or wounds in obscurity. There is no intimacy. There is no one to see him. There is no one to see him crumble under the pressure of neglect, or his resilience by self-directed projects, or to give company in his squalor.
The premise is this: life is a mistake. You suddenly come to life, thrown into consciousness, and are tasked with having to figure things out, wondering why some things are painful and some things are pleasant. There is no point to the suffering, though, and joy is a brief negative to the positive reality that you are in hell. So you make a few projects to distract yourself, finally arrive at a last stand to make sense of your little life, and then, beaten down by burden and neglect, find enlightenment by succumbing to your suffering.
It is brutal and unfair and a brave movie to make after 2020 (or because of it).
Simply said, it is essential that this depiction of life is not true, though certainly real at times. What is at stake with Pessimism is a true will to live.
Building on the theme of my last few letters, my first line of defense is this: I have friends, and I hug them. Inside cannot be true while I have others with me.
Trevor
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