Yorgos Pitch: January 29-February 5, 2026
Oscar nominations came out recently, and Yorgos Lanthimos has another movie in his signature, shall we say, “unique” style nominated for best picture. This week, write a pitch for a movie (essentially a synopsis of the plot) in the style of Yorgos. If you’re not familiar with (or don’t care for) him, choose another director to emulate in your pitch and let us know who it is.
The Submissions:
by Captain Quillard
Cold Front
Brock Danielson (played by Jesse Plemons) is chief sports anchor for KMOZ-TV, Spokane’s News Leader. He no longer feels any interest in sports, but needs the job, so he does his best to feign enthusiasm during his five-minute nightly segment before returning to his normal state of being – bored, beat down by life, and absolutely certain that nothing interesting ever happens in his orbit.
Brock’s life takes a turn, however, when he starts to notice a pattern at work. New weekend meteorologist Wendy Graupel’s (Emma Stone) forecasts all seem to end up being freakishly accurate, not only predicting the weather patterns spot-on, but also pinpointing the exact amounts and times of precipitation, down to the fraction and the minute. Brock, accustomed to the other Spokane Storm Team members’ forecasts being at worst wildly inaccurate and at best vague and lucky, becomes intrigued by Wendy’s uncanny ability to predict the weather.
At a staff picnic for the news station employees, Brock corners Wendy and engages her in an interrogation disguised as lighthearted conversation. Despite his best efforts to uncover information about her, Wendy manages to artfully dodge all questions about her past and her personal life – where she came from, who her family is, what other stations she’s worked for, etc. She remains a complete mystery. Later, at home, Brock attempts to research Wendy’s background but cannot find any mention of her anywhere online. It’s as though she doesn’t exist.
In the coming weeks, Brock’s intrigue turns to obsession. Wendy’s accuracy has gotten her promoted from weekend meteorologist to the 6:00 p.m. weekday slot. Brock begins to create spreadsheets that track her forecasts and results, and feverishly shows them to coworkers, ranting incredulously about how her accuracy cannot statistically be possible, and how he is certain there is “something going on.” His coworkers begin to avoid Brock and whisper about him behind his back. He catches wind of a work happy hour he wasn’t invited to when he overhears the camera operator (Jessie Buckley) and makeup artist (Joe Alwyn) talking about how much fun Wendy was with them at the bar. Brock starts to deliver his sports highlights without his trademark enthusiasm, seeming distracted and uninterested in what he has to report. He doesn’t notice that he makes frequent mistakes, getting scores wrong and referring to teams by names of teams from the wrong sport. Coworkers joke with each other, making fun of Brock, asking things like “Did you see that home run the 49ers hit last night?” and “Think anyone will ever beat John McEnroe’s single season rushing record?”
Nearly all of the mail coming into the station these days is for Wendy – fan letters and flowers and packages, including very heavy boxes with no return address arriving almost daily, marked “To be opened by addressee only.” Brock steals two of the boxes and opens them in his car. One is full of electrical diodes and switches, along with dozens of reflective, mirror-like panels. The other contains a padded metal case with a strange, glowing, blue orb inside. Suspicious, but not wanting to be discovered, Brock re-tapes the boxes and returns them to the mailroom.
Back home, Brock paces in a dark room, spiraling down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. He is unable to sleep and drinks heavily until he passes out. When he returns to work, still drunk, he bursts into the office of his station manager, Dale Fendrix (Willem Dafoe), screaming about how Wendy is somehow controlling the weather, dialing it in to match her forecasts exactly. Dale initially tries to calm Brock down, explaining that Wendy is the best “weather gal” they’ve ever had and her “ratings are through the roof,” but eventually becomes frustrated and angry, warning Brock that he needs to straighten himself out or lose his job. Brock becomes incensed and his yelling draws a crowd. He screams to the staff about Wendy manipulating the weather, and then begins to sob when everyone looks at him like he’s crazy. News anchor Elizabeth Dawn (Margaret Qualley) comforts Brock, and convinces him he needs help. She drives him to a mental hospital and helps him get checked in.
Three months later, we find Brock still in the mental hospital, kept captive and heavily sedated by his doctor (Oscar Isaac), who is controlling him as retribution for a crippling gambling debt he blames on Brock’s sports predictions. Half lucid for the first time in weeks, Brock sees Wendy’s latest forecast on a TV in the hospital. It is currently mid-August and 87 degrees, yet she is calling for a snowstorm the next day. Brock grimaces and then goes foggy, succumbing to the meds and falling back asleep. The next evening, Brock awakens to a loud argument down the hall from his room. Elizabeth has come to check on him and found the doctor’s methods unsettling. She is threatening the doctor with police and legal action and demanding that Brock be released. Distracted by the visitor, the doctor has left his tools within Brock’s reach, and Brock is able to use a scalpel to cut through his restraints and escape during the commotion. He opens the delivery door at the back of the hospital and steps outside, astonished to find the ground covered in a blanket of white, and snow falling from the sky.
Dazed, barefoot, and wearing an open hospital gown, Brock runs through the snowy parking lot and finds Elizabeth’s car with a spare set of keys hidden inside the gas tank door. He jumps in and speeds away, headed for the news station. As he pulls into the station parking lot, he sees Wendy leaving for the night and decides to follow her home to find out where she lives and possibly confront her. As he follows Wendy, he discovers that she secretly has no home – each night she pretends to leave, drives around the city for a while, and returns to the station. Brock follows her inside and finds that she has cobbled together some living quarters in the basement, in a space hidden behind the furnace. Carefully peering inside the space, Brock sees Wendy with her eyes closed, seemingly meditating, and emitting a monotone hum. Her hands twist and turn in front of her in rhythmic motion, and she appears to be levitating about an inch above her makeshift bed.
Brock recoils in surprise and backs up several steps. He hears Wendy’s footsteps and quickly hides on the other side of the furnace. Wendy is headed upstairs, and Brock follows at a distance. She walks through the studio and back to a maintenance area, where she climbs a set of stairs that access the roof. Brock follows and hides in the stairwell with an obstructed view of the roof. A blue glow fills his field of vision, and curiosity gets the best of him. Stepping onto the roof, he sees that the largest of the station’s satellite dishes has been completely covered in the reflective mirror material. At its center, the blue orb glows and hums with the same tone Brock had heard Wendy make earlier in the basement. Suddenly, beams of blue light shoot from the orb in all directions, bounce off the reflective material, and refract into a single laser beam that stretches from the dish to the sky. Wendy and the orb are both humming loudly now, and Wendy’s arms shake wildly at her side. Immediately, the snow stops. Gusty arctic winds are replaced with balmy spring breezes, and the sun shines brightly. Birdsong fills the air and a rainbow appears above the station. It’s warm now - almost hot - and most of the snow has melted away. Brock stares at the sky, mouth agape, half in awe and half smiling at the beauty. As the camera zooms in on his face, we see him clubbed on the head with a blunt object resembling a teleprompter. We get a quick glimpse of Wendy, eyes glowing blue. Her humming stops momentarily, then resumes as the camera focuses on Brock’s legs and feet while his body is dragged off screen.
-END-
by Captain Quillard
Hymenoptera
Multi-billionaire Jameson Tarney (Willem Dafoe) is one of the most powerful men in the world. His net worth equal to more than 2% of the U.S. GDP, Tarney amassed his fortune through a wide variety of successful endeavors in tech, manufacturing, weapons trade, retail, and food imports. He was a special guest at the inauguration ceremonies of the past three U.S. presidents, and the current president does not make any consequential policy decisions without first discussing them with Tarney. His strategic investments, ammunition sales, and pressure on world governments have been solely responsible for starting, ending, or redirecting multiple wars across the globe. Tarney is not so much an oligarch as he is the defacto, barely-behind-the-scenes ruler of the free world. No modern day user of technology or consumer of goods has not had their lives influenced by his reach.
40 years ago, Jameson Tarney became the guardian of his niece and nephew. His brother, William (John Turturro), was dying from an advanced form of cancer when he became a single parent as a result of a car crash that killed his wife (Joan Cusack in a non-speaking, flashback role). William’s twin children, Ryne and Melissa (Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz), were just three months old when William asked Jameson to take them, knowing he had just months to live and lacked the physical ability to raise them in the meantime. Jameson accepted, and secretly became their guardian without adopting the children, knowing that his very public profile would endanger them if the arrangement became known.
At the onset of the guardianship, Tarney quietly purchased approximately 7,300 square miles of land in the Mojave Desert. Deep within the sandy landscape, he built a large, underground bunker, featuring several rooms connected by a tunnel system. Ryne and Melissa were moved there immediately, cared for and raised by Swedish au pair Astrid (Olivia Colman), though Tarney himself spent quite a bit of his time there as well, instilling a set of principles in the children that included the expectation of them working hard to maintain the home and contributing their talents toward the common good of all who lived there. Ryne and Melissa had everything they could need materially, and were cared for with kindness and love over the next four decades. Yet they were never allowed to leave the bunker and, in fact, were kept entirely unaware of the existence of a world outside. Over the years, other orphaned children were brought to live in the bunker at ages too young to remember their former lives, until present day, when the number of bunker residents now tops 260.
Each bunker dweller does his or her part for the colony, according to their abilities and talents. There are some who gather ingredients from the soil and prepare food, while others distribute the meals fairly and equitably across the community. Other residents have jobs in healthcare, childcare, home goods, clothing manufacturing, and the arts, while the strongest and fastest among them spend their days in construction and maintenance - constantly building and repairing more tunnels and rooms and expanding the bunker network across hundreds of acres underground. There is not a true hierarchy or class system - more of a system of organization for the efficient and effective accomplishment of tasks - and while some of the best food and supplies are ferried daily to “Queen Rebecca” (Lea Seydoux), that is only because she was born without the ability to use her limbs, and the “Queen” title was one given to her by the residents as a term of endearment, not of class or caste.
Melissa is mostly happy with her life, but occasionally feels like she’s missing out on something. Despite being twins, she doesn’t share Ryne’s enthusiasm for being an important cog in a wheel that makes everything work for the colony at large. She wonders if she’s selfish, but can’t help feeling like there must be more to life, that she might in some ways be “better” than her peers, and that whatever the “more” might be, she deserves it. She tries to talk with Ryne about it, but he tells her to be thankful for what she has and to stop daydreaming about things that don’t exist when she could be helping out with tunnel construction in her spare time.
One afternoon, the colony gets some new visitors. They are strangely dressed (wearing business suits, which the bunker dwellers have never seen), and carrying strange objects (notepads, pens, and laptops). Back above ground, an anonymous tip made by a desert hiker to Child Protective Services resulted in a courtesy call to Jameson Tarney, delicately trying to check on the welfare of children while also not offending a powerful man and generous donor to numerous related causes. Recognizing the need to at least appear to accommodate this inquiry, Tarney had agreed to allow two investigators access to the colony, on the condition that if they observed no abuse or negligence of children, they would tell no one about his bunker and guardianship.
The investigators, Darren Petrie (Jesse Plemons) and Sara Stahl (Emma Stone), are toured through a few of the colony’s tunnels and rooms, with an emphasis on the food preparation and healthcare areas, as well as some of the childcare facilities. Despite their overall sense of the bunker being unusual and its colony of orphans somewhat unsettling, Darren and Sara cannot find anything they feel to be obviously threatening to the children and, the state’s homeschool laws being what they are, they can’t fault Tarney for not sending the children to public school when he seems to have provided a well-funded education system underground. As they are shaking hands with Tarney and preparing to leave, Darren and Sara spot Ryne and Melissa playing a homemade board game in the corner. Tarney sees their gaze and beckons the twins over to meet the agents, explaining with pride that they were the original residents of what is now a sprawling community. Darren and Sara ask if they can spend some time talking with Ryne and Melissa and are allowed to do so. After a few minutes with all four talking together, they decide to split up and have Ryne show Darren around the colony some more while Melissa shows Sara how to make tea from desert roots.
As Sara talks with Melissa over tea, it quickly becomes clear that the children of the colony know nothing of the world beyond its walls. She is shocked to discover that Melissa has never been above ground and outdoors. Melissa is skeptical at first when Sara mentions the world outside, but eventually breaks down crying at the realization of something she knew deep down all along - that there was much more out there. Darren, meanwhile, has come to the same conclusions with Ryne, but senses that Ryne will be emotionally and mentally unable to process the new knowledge of the world outside, so Darren keeps it to himself and gathers what information he can while appearing to stick to topics related to Ryne’s 40 years of experience in the colony world.
The agents leave the colony and compare notes. Horrified at what they’ve uncovered, they know that they must free these children from the bunker, but cannot go through normal channels due to Tarney’s power and influence. Sara reveals to Darren that she and Melissa formulated a plan of escape during their talk. The plan calls for Melissa to gather Ryne after midnight and flee together using a map Sara drew of the route to the exit. This will only free two of the hundreds of residents, but the agents will then gather more details from interviewing Ryne and Melissa in order to determine the best course of action to help the other children and hold Tarney accountable.
That evening, Melissa talks to Ryne about the escape plan, and tells him they are leaving together in a few hours. Initially, Ryne laughs off Melissa’s tales about a world outside the colony, but as she fills him in on the details she learned from Sara, Ryne’s disbelief turns to anger. He tells Melissa she is being ungrateful and disloyal to Tarney, a man who has given them everything they needed and seen to their care for their entire lives. Melissa shouts at Ryne, arguing that Tarney is a monster who has held them captive for decades and deprived them of the truth and the ability to live their own lives in the real world. “We’re his prisoners and his slaves!” she screams, before gathering her emotions and pleading with Ryne to escape with her. Ryne refuses, telling Melissa that the colony is his home and he is never leaving. Exasperated, Melissa leaves Ryne’s quarters and sets off to pack her belongings. Shortly after midnight, she slinks through the system of tunnels, following the map Sara had given her, and makes her way to an area of the colony she had never seen before. Finding a long ladder, she begins to climb in the dark until she reaches a hatch. Melissa turns a large metal wheel, pulls a heavy lever, and the hatch opens. She climbs outside and stands in amazement under the stars in the night desert sky. Nearby, she spots a strange machine like none she has ever seen. It is Sara’s car. She climbs inside, and Sara drives her out of the desert to civilization.
The next 18 months are shown to us in two montages of short vignettes and scenes. The first is of Ryne’s life in the colony. Ryne has become distraught and overwhelmingly depressed. Abandoned by his twin sister, he misses her terribly and feels like an essential part of him is lost. Ryne no longer has the energy or desire to complete his tasks and fulfill his role in the colony. He is never seen out walking in the tunnels, opting instead to spend all of his time in his quarters, sleeping, crying, or staring into space. His depression has not been caused by his knowledge of the world outside - he spends no time thinking about that world or its possibilities. He simply feels alone, disconnected from the colony, deeply sad, and without purpose.
In the second montage, we see Melissa in the outside world. Initial scenes show her excited and dazzled by the abundance of new objects, people, places, and experiences that have come into her life. She feels free and fulfilled for the first time in her life, and she is happy. As the scenes progress, we see her slowly becoming disillusioned with the real world as she discovers how selfish, greedy, inauthentic, and mean people can be. She sees incredible inequality, with so many people suffering while so few have such a disproportionate and unnecessary bounty. She becomes aware of “leaders” - presidents and czars and kings and queens - titles earned not out of love and respect like the colony’s Queen Rebecca, but out of corruption and lies and power and fear. She discovers war and disease and famine and other horrors, most seemingly the result not of chance, but of religion or hate or desire or money - and often a vile combination thereof. Melissa is able to roam anywhere she likes on a nearly infinite world, but she feels trapped. As the montage closes, we see her anxious, sobbing, and regretting her choices.
It’s a busy day in the bunker. The colony is humming with excitement and preparation as Jameson Tarney is returning from his private section to the main community areas (whenever Tarney leaves the bunker on business or other travels, the colony is led to believe he is merely taking some time to himself in his private section). Workers are sprucing up tunnels, food service is preparing a feast, and the art-focused colonists have been rehearsing a grand celebratory performance. Tarney arrives and is greeted with love and happiness. He settles in and is talking with Astrid when they hear a distant noise - a series of thuds reverberating through the colony walls. Astrid offers to take a look, but Tarney says he’ll check things out himself. Tarney follows the sound out of the main colony area until he reaches the tall ladder. Above him, the noise is now very loud - someone is pounding on the metal hatch from the outside. Tarney climbs the ladder and can now hear a voice along with the pounding. It is Melissa, shouting and begging to be let back in.
Tarney opens the hatch and is reunited with Melissa. They embrace at the bottom of the ladder and she tells him of the horrors she experienced outside. She is sorry, and asks if he can forgive her and welcome her back to the colony. Asked why she left, Melissa explains that she needed to see for herself what else was out there, and that she previously thought Tarney was a terrible person who was holding her hostage. Tears in his eyes, Tarney explains that he built the bunker to protect Melissa, Ryne, and the other children from the real world. Despite owing his fortune and status to things like capitalism, greed, power, war, and corruption, Tarney’s entire life has taught him to hate those things and believe that they are profoundly toxic. He long ago decided there had to be a better way for society to live, and taking guardianship of Ryne and Melissa was the spark he needed to create that better society. Melissa cries and apologizes to Tarney for doubting him, and he holds her close and comforts her. A tearful Melissa raises her head from Tarney’s chest and exclaims, “Ryne! How is he?” Tarney sighs and tells her about Ryne’s depressive state and how he has not been the same since Melissa left. Melissa says that she must see him right away, and the two make their way through the tunnels to arrive at Ryne’s quarters.
Ryne’s door has been closed for days. Melissa knocks loudly and calls to him, telling him she’s back and that she is sorry she left him. She begs him to come to the door and let her in, but hears no response. A crowd has gathered and are all calling to Ryne to come out and rejoin the colony. Workers from construction come with tools and work to pry the door open. At last, the door swings open and Melissa screams in horror. Ryne has hanged himself with a rope woven from desert roots. Tarney drops to his knees and sobs. As Melissa stands silently in the doorway, more than 100 colony residents swarm past her, cut Ryne down from the rope, and begin disassembling his body to use for food, parts, and supplies.
-END-
Kinds of Blindness
[This film has a very specific visual tone and feel. It takes place in a world that looks similar to ours, but where things are always a little off. Colors are sometimes muted and sometimes oversaturated, but never quite normal. Costumes have people dressing mostly like we do, but with mismatched or exaggerated clothing or slight alterations that pull the viewer out of the world as if viewing it from a distance. People speak with stunted, semi-monotone dialogue. Landscapes and backgrounds are very obviously painted, two-dimensional sets, and bring a strange, Alpine feel to what otherwise is portrayed as a midwestern town. Many scenes are filmed using fisheye and wide angle lenses, and everything is just slightly out of focus, blurry, or given a cloudy, cataract-like feel through the use of distressed lens filters. The world of the film feels familiar to us, but definitely uncanny and at times unsettling.]
Emmet Sputnik (Willem Dafoe) is an 80-year-old widower who owns and operates a family business specializing in window treatments. He lives alone and makes every attempt to stay active and involved in life, but has been lonely for companionship since his wife of 54 years died last year.
One evening, as Emmet is closing up shop, a beautiful young woman (Margaret Qualley) walks into the store. Seeing Emmet getting ready to close, she apologizes for coming so late and says she’ll return another time. Emmet tells her it’s fine - he has nowhere to be and there’s no need for her to make a second trip. He asks what he can help her with. The young woman says she needs help selecting the right kind of Roman shades for her home, and Emmet spends the next 20 minutes showing her various options and explaining the benefits and drawbacks of each. She is charmed by Emmet’s sense of humor and the care with which he explains each shade without being condescending. She selects a style of shade and gives a downpayment for the order. The woman thanks Emmet for his help and for being such a nice person. She asks his name, and then tells him her name is Presbyopia, but admits that no one can ever remember it, so her friends call her Pia. Sensing that the old man is lonely and enjoying his company, she asks him if he’d ever want to get coffee or go for a walk with her. She clarifies that the invitation is platonic, and they both chuckle at the ridiculousness of the thought that it would be otherwise. Flattered and starry-eyed, Emmet says that he would adore a coffee or a walk, and they make plans to get together that weekend.
Over the next several weeks, Emmet and Pia spend a fair amount of time together. Pia loves having someone mature to talk to and enjoys Emmet’s jokes and perspective on life. Emmet finds Pia fascinating and lovely, and while he is well aware that there could never be any romance between the two of them, he is nonetheless smitten with her beauty and youth, gets lost in her smile, and craves more time with her whenever they’re apart. As they continue getting to know each other, Pia reveals to Emmet that her biggest pet peeve is all of the rules society has imposed upon us. Written or unwritten, she feels there are just too many things we’re told we cannot do, lest we be punished, formally in the form of jail or fines, or informally in the form of being shunned or looked down upon. Pia finds it all confining and wonders why we can’t all just be left alone to be however we feel like being and do whatever we feel like doing. Emmet thinks he understands what she means, and says he agrees. The next time they see each other, Pia asks Emmet if he would be willing to be part of a social experiment she has concocted, involving breaking some of society’s rules. Emmet asks what she means, and she explains that her first idea is very simplistic, but she’d love to see how it plays out. Wanting to make Pia happy, Emmet agrees to participate in the experiment. His first task comes two nights later, when he attends a fancy dinner party hosted by some old friends. At Pia’s instruction, Emmet uses the dessert fork to eat his salad. There is no major fallout or reaction from his faux pas, but he does notice the host raise an eyebrow. The servers bring Emmet a new dessert fork when cake is served, and, recounting the experience to Pia later, Emmet admits that he did feel a slight thrill and adrenaline rush when breaking that simple societal rule.
Pia’s first few assignments are all similarly very innocuous. She has him interrupt customers while they are talking, wear white pants after Labor Day, and other harmless infractions. Soon, she ups the ante a bit, asking Emmet to jaywalk, roll through a stop sign, walk on the wrong side of a crowded sidewalk, and fail to return his shopping cart to the parking lot corral. Emmet is still enjoying the thrill of “being bad” almost as much as he enjoys how it makes Pia happy. But he begins to feel a bit uncomfortable when her requests involve him lying to a friend, skipping out on a restaurant tab, and shoplifting. Emmet wants to end the social experiment or at least dial it back to the more harmless rule breaking, but whenever he hesitates in agreeing to Pia’s requests, he gets the sense that if he refuses, he will no longer get to spend time with her. Reluctantly, Emmet completes each task in order to keep the companionship he desires.
The next round of tasks begin to take on a meanness and a physicality that Emmet does not like. Pia has him roughly bump shoulders with an elderly woman on the street, knocking her down. She demands he feed a laxative to the neighbor’s dog, and pinch a man’s leg in the armrest on the train while barely bothering to make it look like an accident. Emmet completes the tasks, but pleads with Pia to stop. She becomes irritated and threatens to never see Emmet again if he doesn’t continue the experiment. Her next assignment is to violently attack a stranger and leave him or her permanently maimed in some way. Emmet is appalled, but wants to make Pia happy. He manages to negotiate with Pia to include some of his own terms: Emmet will do it, but he will need extra time so he can complete the task when he feels ready; and instead of attacking a complete stranger for no reason, he will only do it if someone wrongs him in some way so it feels less random and unjustified. Pia agrees.
At home, Emmet feels anxious and can’t sleep. He knows the things he’s been doing are wrong, but he can’t stop thinking about Pia and imagines her disappointment in him if he can’t go through with what she asks. He worries that he’ll never see her again, and he fears going back to the loneliness he felt before her. Emmet vows to throw himself into his work and not think about it for a while. He has a busy week ahead of him at the shop anyway, so he can stay focused on that for a few days, and maybe he’ll forget about Pia with time and won’t have to break any more rules.
Things are going well at the shop. Emmet has had a rush of customers and has stayed busy. He hasn’t thought about Pia in several days, and he feels relieved to no longer be committing faux pas and crimes. One afternoon, a man (Jesse Plemons) comes into the shop. Obviously in a foul mood, the man approaches Emmet with a package and a receipt, telling Emmet that he had sold him “a piece of crap.” Emmet asks what the issue is, and the man tells him he had recently purchased a set of window blinds from the store. He claims that Emmet had assured him that the blinds would block out all light in the bedroom, but says they do no such thing. The man angrily relays that each morning he wakes up to a shaft of bright light coming through the blinds, shining directly in his eyes until he is sunblind, causing him to stumble around the bedroom and stub his toes on his dresser.
Emmet has no memory of selling blinds to this man. He asks to see the receipt and calmly tells the man that these blinds were purchased at another store. He looks at the blinds inside the package and tells the man that he doesn’t even carry this brand in his store. The man becomes incensed and asks if Emmet is calling him a liar. Shouting loudly and disturbing the other customers, the man demands that Emmet refund his money, plus 50% for his trouble and stubbed toes. He also wants Emmet to pay for repairs to the window frame, since installation of the blinds has left screw holes in the drywall. Emmet remains calm, but informs the man that he cannot refund money for a purchase not made in his store, much less damage caused by such purchase. He offers to show the man some blinds he has in stock that he’s sure will fix the issue. The man screams and curses at Emmet, hurls slurs and other invective at him, and vows that he will put the store out of business through bad reviews and word of mouth. As he storms out of the store, the man yells back at Emmet that “we have rules and laws in this country,” and you “can’t just ignore those if you want to be a good person.” This jolts Emmet’s memory - he immediately thinks of Pia and her experiment, and he is angry at the man who accused him of breaking rules when he was doing nothing wrong. In a sudden fit of rage, Emmet walks out of the store, runs up behind the unsuspecting man, grabs his head from behind, and jabs his thumbs into the man’s eyeballs, filling his sockets with blood and taking the man’s eyesight permanently.
Emmet falls to the ground, shaking and crying, horrified at what he has just done. The man next to him is screaming in pain and sobbing that he can’t see anything. One of the other customers calls the police, and explains not only Emmet’s attack, but also what the man had done to instigate it. They are both arrested. This being a small town, the jail has only a few areas to keep prisoners. The injured man is given medical attention, then kept in one of the jail cells until he can be transferred to a secure hospital. Emmet, deemed a violent threat who cannot be put in the same cell as his victim, is placed in solitary confinement, adjacent to the injured man’s cell. The solitary room is pitch black. Emmet cannot see his own hand in front of his face. He has no concept of time, how much space is around him, or if there is even a bed in the room. He lays on his back on the floor. He is alone again.
Days or seconds or months or hours pass, and Emmet slips in and out of consciousness. When awake, he begins to hallucinate. Where before he saw only total darkness, he now begins to see colors and shapes, starting with the sort of orange color of the inside of one’s eyelids when closed to the sun, then progressing into swirls of magentas and blues, and distant clusters like galaxies and star formations. Emmet feels scared at first - alone, lost, unsure of what to believe, unable to distinguish reality from dreams. He hears a beautiful voice singing to him, sounding like the most gorgeous symphony he could imagine, combined with a quiet lullaby his mother used to sing to him. The voice soon becomes a woman (Emma Stone), hovering above him, backed by ethereal light, smiling and singing the beautiful song. The words are in a language he does not know, but he can feel that they are telling him the woman is here to save him from himself and from all his troubles. Her voice is so beautiful - the sound of it feels like it is holding him aloft, like floating in a warm pool of water. He no longer feels lost - all feels right with his past, present, and future. He is not alone. “Emmet…” the woman whispers. “You know my name,” he thinks, “What is yours?” “I am Grace,” she replies. Grace continues to hover and sing her beautiful songs. She wears a flowing garment that buttons in front. Smiling and looking Emmet in the eyes, she begins to unbutton the garment. As it opens, a warm yellow light shines from her chest, temporarily blinding Emmet with its glow. As the light begins to dim, Emmet is no longer in the solitary room, but on a mountainside.
[Here, the film switches from its fisheye and wide angle lenses to regular ones. The picture is no longer blurry, and the colors feel normal instead of over or undersaturated. The scenery once obvious paintings has been replaced with realism - actual footage of a beautiful Alpine mountain town. While a gorgeous setting, this is obviously of our own world.]
Emmet follows Grace through a wooded area and into an open field with tiny yellow and white flowers dotting the hillside. He asks if he could pick some flowers for her hair, and Grace replies, “You can do whatever you like. There are no rules here.” He selects a small mountain bouquet and offers it to Grace, who shapes it into a woven flower ring and places it on her head like a crown. “There’s someone you should meet,” she says. She leads Emmet into a picturesque village where everyone seems happy. Someone taps Emmet’s shoulder. He turns around to see Pia’s face smiling at him. Her eyes are bright and sparkling, her hair falls lightly over her shoulders, and where her torso and legs had been when he last saw her, she now has the body of a deer.
“You completed the experiment,” Pia smiles. “I’m so sorry it was so difficult for you. But you did it. And I’m so very proud of you.” Emmet stammers and blinks in amazement. “I… I thought I’d never see you again. What is this place?” “It’s home,” Pia replies. “Home,” Emmet repeats. “But where is my house?” “It’s anywhere you want it to be,” says Pia. “You’re free to do whatever you want to do here. Be however you want to be. There are no rules or expectations or customs in this place.” “Have you always wanted to be a deer?” Emmet asks jokingly. “Not really. It just felt right, so I did it,” Pia explains. “I see,” says Emmet. “Yes,” Grace chimes in. “You DO see. You didn’t at all before, but I think you do now.” “What do you mean?” Emmet asks. Grace says nothing more but resumes singing her enchanting song. “Thank you for all you’ve done, Emmet,” Pia says. “You’re a very kind and special man.” She turns and gallops off into the forest. “Are you hungry?” Grace asks. “I’m famished!” says Emmet. Grace hands him a piece of cake and an entree fork. Emmet laughs and takes a bite. “Delicious!” he exclaims. “I’m so glad you think so,” Grace says as she removes his eyeballs with a coffee spoon.
As he lays bleeding in the Alpine meadow, Emmet can hear the injured customer’s voice muted by an unseen wall. The man is singing mournfully.
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found…”
-END-
Next Week’s Assignment:
Every Olympic host develops a set of pictograms representing the various sports. Usually, they are similar in style to the host city’s Olympic logo or borrow elements from it. You can see examples of this year’s set about 3/4 of the way down this page here. For this assignment, pick an Olympic sport (or a few of them) and develop your own pictogram for it, ideally tying it in some way to a city of your choosing.