the film I watched three times in one week

Sometime in late April I watched Bakshi's Wizards three times in a week. I do not remember choosing to. The DVD was already in the drive on the second and third nights. I only noticed on the fourth night, when I put in something else.

The film is from 1977. Rotoscoped in parts. Animators traced live-action footage frame by frame. The result looks drawn but the movement underneath is real.

The plot detail I keep returning to is not the plot. It is the propaganda reels. The villain, Blackwolf, finds old war footage in a ruin. He projects it onto the sky above his own soldiers before battle. It works on them the same way it works on the enemy. His troops do not need to understand it. They do not need to agree with it. They see it and their bodies change posture.

The film is clear about this. The footage is not language. It does not argue. It is a pattern of images that bypasses the part of the mind that would refuse.

The good wizard, Avatar, wins the final confrontation by pulling a pistol from his robes and shooting his brother. Before he fires he says seven words. I counted them the third time. "I'm glad you came, Blackwolf. I killed you." That is eight if you count the name. Seven if you do not. I have counted again and I still do not know which way is right.

The two wizards are brothers. Twins, per the prologue. One studied old natural magic. One studied technology and manipulation. Mirror images. One left-handed in the frames where he holds the projector remote. I checked. It is the same three frames each viewing.

There is a scene where a fairy watches the reels and afterward cannot say what she saw. She describes the effect and not the content. She says she felt it in her hands first.

I do not know why I watched it three times. The disc is a 2004 release. I bought it used, from a shop in Powiśle, in 2019. The previous owner wrote a name inside the case in pencil and then erased it. The impression is still legible under a lamp. Seven characters. I am not going to write it here.

Peter Dickinson's book on dragon biology was on the shelf next to the DVD case. I moved it to a different shelf last month and I have not moved it back.