13 DEMON STREET
"The Girl in the Glacier"
(1962; w/d Curt Siodmak)

In Swedish mining town (neutral territory mind at rest/inhibitions down, enabling unearthing of valuable psychological material), team discovers figure in block of ice (cherished pre-historic/-conscious artifact aka archetype or childhood sense-impression, "frozen" so as to preserve) which turns out 2B naked female (preadolescent erotic attraction/fixation, similarly arrested) which holds allure for scientist (logical mind most likely to freeze + bury such info) Sven Sjöstrom, not wanting her on display "in her nakedness" (guilty fixation; manly man not wanting own fem-self seen in its nakedness).

Debate back at university (semi-conscious dream-theater place of study + experiment) over whether to "break ice" (make social contact/analyze ["to break up"]/mature: bring into present) or leave intact (virginal/unreachable) leads Sjöstrom to parry w/ authoritarian colleague Olsen for custody (child-rivalry w/ father over possession of mother); sneaks in at night (dream) to serenade "frigid" wmn (vs own negligee’d wife back home: wmn’s sexual independence threat to man’s dominion) he names Angel/ica (idealized/unreal-ized sex-object removed from own earth[l]y nature), killing Olsen (prevailing over not-the-father [psychological construct enabling child to realize taboo urges] in deepest-isolation refrigeration chamber) + frosting him (ostensibly rendering impotent but also destroying img of own maturity) on discovery w/ her.

Questioned next day (light of reason) by university head Dr Hov (superego) in concert w/ conscious-authority cops (conscience trying to reach him + resolve issue), repairing to freezer + invoking own mythic-prehistoric i.d. (connecting w/ primal-erotic impulse similarly frozen "before our love was fulfilled": unresolved oedipal desire for communion w/ own fem nature); observed leaving by wife Inga (childless middle-ager, ice-wmn herself frozen out of preoccupied husband’s attentions) + confronted at home (efficiency apartment, prominent bed centrality of issue) w/ accusation of infidelity (Other Wmn facet of Inga [whose name contained in angelIca] he relates to but keeps in cold storage so as to maintain Otherness + distance from fem self [+ loyalty to mythical Mom], ultimate sleeper/dreamer of film wmn’s untapped potential, soon to emerge on own).

That night, returns determined to thaw her (simultaneous communion w/ unreal + attempt to relate to it in flesh), inspired by her opened eyes (impossible in ice: own awakening femininity, and coming-into-consciousness of femininity in general); when she drowns in trapped water (as in his idealization: recognition that she interior, his attempt to realize fantasy destroying both) he attempts to chop her out (sexual violation, her static snapshot-reactions blips from the unconscious, as in drms), as witnessed by Hov/cops (returning consciousness + reason, putting end to unbridled reverie).

Wraparound narration by exiled "criminal" Lon Chaney Jr (buried guilty memory) emphasizes "crime" enacted (admission of error in repressing fem/sexuality, supernatural character archetypal nature of material), Lon 2B freed (mind at peace in dreamless sleep) only on discovery of one more heinous than his own (unidentified: Original Sin, of which no one actually "guilty," Sjöstrom’s crime unconsciousness of motives/consequences, he redeemed in end by epiphany/return of Hov).