I’ve been watching movies lately. The movie “number 23″ intrigued me from the moment I knew that it existed. Having a teenage relationship with numerology and The Principia Discordia. My number on the swim team was 23. Many of my best friend’s email addresses have the number 23 in them somehow. It’s an old obsession come to life… but back to the story.
I never saw it in the theater. It’s been years since movies on the big screen have moved me to actually make the trek out.
number 23 is a dark and bizarre unfolding of a life forgotten. Pulp Noir mixed in with something else, a strange form of quasi realism that seems to actually hold the film together and yet contribute to the pulpy-disjointed psychosis that takes hold of the main character Jim Carrey. Paranoia comes on slowly, noticing connections that evolve into a singular focus on the number.
What happens when who you *were* starts invading who you have become?
Personally, I love the delta between the hard-ass pulp detective and the mild mannered guy in the present. At all times in his narrative, he appears fearful of himself, timid.
His tragedy is that he has both a present and a distant past. Recent past has been forgotten.
How long can you hide the truth from yourself. Especially when you find a book that is your own confession. Yet the fragile reality unravels. The more a vague picture emerges, like astrology coaless into reality. Then, paranoia.
You see what you search for. Everywhere.
