THE ASPHYX (1972; d. Peter Newbrook, w. Brian Comfort)

Bookending modern-day scenes "contain" film’s own asphyx (spirit; meaning), reversed chronology (epilog ancient man walking into prolog accident) reinforcing immortality theme (ending before beginning preserving victim’s "life"), Grotesque walking in daylight + constable/consciousness’s "My God – he’s still alive" influence of past-subconscious on waking life.

Flash-bkwd to 1875 as widower Sir Hugo Cunningham arrives home w/ fiancée Anna (mind introducing psychic info into consciousness: intended not-the-mother [intermediary psychological construct bridging mother-attachment + romantic love] to kids Clive + Christina inability to generate life for death-and-immortality-obsessed father [all men, separated from regenerative femininity]) + introduces her to C+CC (double initials psychic wholeness) + adoptive son Giles (not a "C": foreign characteristic attached to persona [in this case, con-science]; from poorhouse, as from neglected/disadvantaged unconscious), who wants to marry "sister" C (not-incest insular sleeping mind + G’s desire to ascend socioromantically – to perfect self).

Sir Hugo + partner at Society for Psychical Research (i.e. soul brother, who eventually turns on him) Sir Edward take photos of point of death (men – w/o benefit of womb – "focused" on exit-point); report findings to SPR: pictures mysteriously tainted w/ smudge supposedly representing soul leaving body (birth of death, photography [dir himself former cinematographer] similarly fixing realm btwn life + death, documenting former on "dead" celluloid + immobilizing heretofore evanescent activity), later recognized as death-spirit entering (sexuality, reversal à la pro- + epilog time-noodling: photog’y imbuing meaningless moment w/ significance, all art inspired by threat of death).

While motion-filming (movies further clouding metaphysics, preserving actual mvmt of eventual dead) Clive + Anna boating across river (Styx, film – all + particular – documenting oedipal rite of passage, youth propelling "vehicle" while beauty – up front – steers twd other side), when Clive struck by branch (nature thwarting art/progress, as repeatedly happens to Hugo), tipping boat (plunge into unconsciousness), his body recovered, hers carried on current (lost potential connection to fem side/regeneracy, Hugo xchg’g Anna for Asphyx); next films hanging (body in suspension, as dreamer in sleep), during which Asfixed in booster light (alternative, artifical, enriched light of imagination giving form to previous "smudge"), unable to reach victim till light turned off (unconsc’ss gained).

Realizing Asphyx can be trapped (à la folk tales involving capture of devil/death) + body made immortal (dualism [separation of mind+body] + materialism [soullessness of Things] cornerstones of Western civilization, leading to disaster), Hugo enlists Giles in experiment on real guinea pig (not-the-father’s dysfunctional legacy to not-the-son: conferring ability to stave off death rather’n pwr to create life), insistence on secrecy from daughter/conscience latent shame, her Eyes w/o a Face freeing of pig leading to early demise, she made unwilling accomplice on discovering G+H immortalizing latter, trapping his asphyx (dtr giving not-birth to father the mind’s incestuous closing in on self), which they inter w/ son’s body (children metaphor for parents’ longevity; also kid confused/related w/ death in deepest unconscious) under combination lock (subconscious coding of contents) only Giles has "key" to (Hermetic link btwn un/consciousness, as btwn family + outside world [+ upper + lower classes] + conscience as similar link btwn body + soul).

Hugo consents to their marriage if they consent to immortality (1 = other: eros is forever – but eros cleansed of thanatos: flaw in his philosophy [N’oublie pas que tu va mourir]), leading to Christ/ina’s death-by-guillotine (each’s rigged exit symbolic of life: H’s by electrocution [he removed from physical world, + epitome of genius "spark" that proffers life but also takes it], hers Edith Scob [of Eyes…]-like dissociation from world/body also under rich father/consciousness’s domination) when pig chews thru cord; Giles, now similarly cut off from potential union w/ fem other, turns vindictive (conscience taking action) + engineers self-immolation (gasing self, he ethereal, ephemeral presence [played by modest Rbt Powell]), taking w/ him "code" (key to spiritual union + human understanding that is death; 1st + last film of similar student of cinematographer-mentor Freddie Jones: it’s a great trick, but he can only do it once).

Hugo seen in coda 100 yrs later freeze-framed btwn colliding autos as btwn worlds in tableau vivant of effect of dualism – Old Way still alive in post-idealist 70s, a spiritual constant drifting deathlessly btwn opposed/contrasted centuries, i.e. eternity.