Original subtitles

Hi.

How have you been?

I know it's coming up to the first anniversary of your father's death.

It doesn't matter when in your life that happens

you will feel a certain joy, emptiness, regret,

all those emotions seem to tangle.

Remember what I may have written earlier�

Rolie Polie Olie Small and smart and round

And in the land of curves and curls

She's the sweetest kid around

Rolie Polie Olie Small and smart and round

And in the land of curves and curls...

Oh, what happened?

You OK?

What's up?

Hi, Karli. Everything OK?

I guess you've arrived already. How was the drive?

We miss you already over here.

Send me a sign? Kiss.

I read something that made me think of you, here it goes�

What does it mean to live in a room? When does it become truly yours?

Is it when you've put your three pairs of socks to soak in a pink plastic bowl?

Is it when you've heated up your spaghetti over a camping stove?

Is it when you've used up all the non-matching hangers in the closet?

Is it when you've pinned to the wall an old postcard

showing Carpaccio's �Dream of St Ursula�?

Is it when you've experienced there the throes of anticipation...

or the exaltations of passion, or the torments of a toothache?

Is it when you've hung suitable curtains on the windows,

put up the wallpaper, sanded the parquet flooring?

How much can four walls bear? Or two corners?

At which point do they just break from feeling so much. Or from seeing how much everyone feels.

I think of this while remembering that I've never really loved anybody in this room where I sit,

but I picture others before me keeping promises they once made each other in the same room where I am now.

And now I'm drifting along the streets of downtown. And I see the cracks on the sidewalk that I didn't see before

or that maybe weren't there once, but with all that time, all that life and all that feeling,

they couldn't hold it any longer and now show themselves shameless as if they were wrinkles on skin.

I hadn't seen them before because as a little girl I looked up at the sky a lot.

Because my grandfather used to point at all the planes and would tell me...

"That plane is carrying eighty passengers, they're going to a city that's three hours away from here..."

and I can't remember the pilot's name

"because that particular airline hires people really often and I can't keep up with all of their names."

I never had a reason to look at the cracks on the ground because I looked at the sky and I looked at my grandfather.

But he's gone now, so there's nothing left to look at except these fractures.

Because the last conversation we ever had was about that airline, and only now do I understand why.

So I choose to see the cracks, because if I look up at the sky I'll never stop breaking.

I think of myself walking around with my small hand in his,

feeling that downtown belonged only to us.

But it wasn't just ours, and I think of that when I see all those people who walk at a quick pace,

looking down at the cracks and not up at the sky.

How much did these downtown streets have to bear until they had no choice but to fall apart?

I guess you've gone for drives...

you know, when you pass several hours in the car...

to go to the sea

or to a volcano

or to just anywhere

setting out in the morning when your eyes are still sore

and you drink tea from a thermos at some pretty place along the way

and at noon you eat fruit in a meadow

you know just an ordinary kind of drive.

And while you're in the car...

you think of lots of things:

"When I left home this morning, I couldn't find my camera filter..."

"Where did it go?"

Or...

"What was the name of that actress I saw on TV yesterday?"

Or...

"My shoelace is ready to break."

or, "I'm really scared of having an accident."

or, "I wonder if I'm not going to grow any taller."

You think of a lot of things, right?

And then...

those thoughts and the scenes you see moving by the car,

they pile up on top of each other.

The fields and the houses, they come closer, little by little

and then drop far away behind you... don't they?

And so...

that scenery and the stuff inside your head mix together.

People waiting at bus stops and a drunk in formal dress staggering along

and a woman with a basket full of oranges

and fields of flowers and mountains and forests,

you see them and then soon you can't see them anymore.

So they mix in your head with what you were thinking about before.

Do you know what I mean?

That lost camera filter and the fields of flowers and the mountains and the forests�

all come together.

And then I slowly mix them around, just the way I like,

the things I see and the things I'm thinking,

taking a long time and pulling out dreams and books I've read and memories

to make�how can I say it?

A photo?

Yes... a scene like a souvenir photo.

And bit by bit I add to this photo the new scenery I keep seeing.

And finally in this photo I have people talking and singing and moving around, right?

You understand?

You know, I have them moving around.

And then every time, every time, it gets like this huge sort of palace,

there's this thing like a large palace in my head,

with lots of people getting together and doing all sorts of things.

Then it's really fun to finish this palace...

and look inside.

It's just like looking down at earth from above the clouds.

Because there's everything there, everything in the world.

All kinds of people talking different languages;

And the pillars in the palace are made in many different styles;

And food from everywhere in the world is laid out on the table.

There are all kinds of people, really all kinds of people.

There are men with no legs, and beggars, blind men and clowns.

There are bloody soldiers, generals with golden galleons,

There are quincea�eras and prima Donnas,

and matadors and body-builders,

and nomads praying in the desert

and they're all there and doing something.

And I watch them.

Listen...

A while back, when I went up to Popocat�petl volcano with Emiliano and the others...

I dropped acid, and I tried to make that palace,

it didn't turn out to be just a palace...

but a city, you know?

A city.

A city with I don't know how many roads and parks

and schools and churches

and plazas and broadcasting towers

and factories and harbors

and stations and markets

and zoos and government offices,

and slaughterhouses...

And I even decided on the expression and blood type of every person living in that city.

And I keep thinking...

Nobody will ever be able to make a movie like what's inside my head,

I'm always thinking that.

A woman falls in love with a married man...

he goes off to war...

and kills a child in a foreign country,

that child's mother saves him in a storm without knowing what he's done.

Then they have a girl.

She grows up and becomes a whore,

and gets involved with a very cool gangster.

But then a judge is shot and murdered,

and this judge's father was in the Gestapo during the war.

And finally the girl, she's walking down a road lined with trees,

while a Brahms piece plays in the background.

Well, I mean, not that kind of movie.

It would be like when, you know, you cut up a big cow and eat just a piece.

No, that's hard to understand, but listen,

Even with a small steak you've still eaten the whole cow,

you know?

Just like that, I'd like to see a piece cut out of the palace or the city in my head,

like cutting up a cow.

I think it really could be done.

I think it would be a movie like an enormous mirror,

a huge mirror, reflecting everyone who saw it.

I'd really like to make that movie.

If there were a movie like that I'd run and see it.

The palace is always by the sea and it's just beautiful.

It's my palace.

And while I'm enjoying myself like that, the car reaches where it's going, and...

And while I carry out the luggage and put up the tent and change into my swimsuit,

and other people talk to me...

I'm really having a hard time trying to protect the palace I've made.

When other people say things like...

Hey, the water's nice here, not polluted�, or something like that,

it just knocks down my palace.

You understand?