Kansas’s Reviews > The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing > Status Update

"For I've come to see, in retrospect, that there was a void at the heart of the films that Laing destroyed, and that through his descriptions of those films he was attempting to fill, somehow, that void, as if talking about the films might fill in the meaning that they themselves lacked."

"For the first time I think of Laing in relation to that other Lang, Fritz, whose Metropolis had transformed everyone who saw It into detectives of film. Lang, for whom in M and the Mabuse films there was no such thing as truth, only illusions, pitiful illusions, his characters pretending to be one thing when they are in fact another, until the character betrays himself."

"By this time the movie has slowed down to a Henry James pace and you get the feeling that what"s being talked about isn"t really what's being talked about. Everthing's at standstill, but time is still flowing. In fact, you can almost see It moving across the screen even after minute no one in the film says a Word,"

There was something about his eyes that seemed mechanical, as if there was another pair of eyes behind them, and perhaps even a third pair behind those, so that you weren't sure what Laing was seeing when he looked at you."