view
Jul
13
lollipops
One of the gang members, immaculately dressed in all-black and small like a child, walks along a seedy street holding an oversized rainbow lollipop. DP: Yoshio Nakajima.
view
Si muero antes de despertar [If I Should Die Before I Wake] (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)
Dec
19
National Hard Candy Day
Lucio (Néstor Zavarce) and his new friend sharing one of her fancy 10¢ lollipops. DP: Pablo Tabernero.
Lucio is the class clown, a ne'er-do-well relying on his police-dad's rank and classmates' homework. One of these classmates, a smart little girl, promises him fancy lollipops in exchange for protection. And she has a secret for him too, about the origin of the candy, and the nice man giving her those and other nice things. Under oath, she tells Lucio everything and then promptly disappears. With his friend gone, killed as he later finds out, and an oath weighing on his heart, what can Lucio do when another girl goes missing?
“Only a child can kill the monster.”
– narrator
Cornell Woolrich's haunting tales of childhood lost leaped from Ireland to Argentina. With some similarities with Fritz Lang's M (1931), this fairy-tale feels more oppressive; due to the helplessness of a boy's power in an adult world and his understanding of grown-up responsibilities. A restored version in wider circulation is long overdue.
