Mexico Trilogy - Excerpt

The white plumerias are at the window, as expected. The woman withdraws her head. The man is in the bathroom to our left. He is shaving. He becomes visible to us only as the camera draws back and turns, slightly. The razor scrapes at his cheek. This scraping is the only sound audible, other than the slight hiss—it sounds like a hiss—made by the film moving through the camera. The camera continues to retreat. It drops lower and pulls away. A wide angle lens is used. Our perspective, as viewers, is thus altered in a predictable way. The man recedes to our left, diminishing to our left, the woman somewhat less so to our right. Without moving they draw further apart. That is the effect we are after. She is lit through the window. The massed plumerias glow in this light. Her shadow crosses to our left, as black as pitch, as black as night, as black—

Only at the very end, with the camera almost on the floor, is the third person visible. It is the priest. He sits at our left foreground, his swollen leg propped up before him. As the scene ends he claps, politely.