Penelope
FADE TO: INT. CIRCULAR ROOM OF CASTLE RUINS
The room is dim, lit by wall-mounted candles with one WOODEN DOOR. In the centre is a black DENTIST'S CHAIR around which are various SURGICAL TOOLS on METAL TRAYS. Standing by these is PENELOPE, a FALLEN ANGEL, in WHITE ROBES. She has only one WING. Where the other is supposed to be is a BLOODY STUMP. The blood is soaking the back of her robes. She is doing nothing.
The door opens.
[ SFX - CREAK ]
A GIRL walks in. She is dressed in TORN CLOTHES. She addresses PENELOPE.
GIRL: You are Penelope?
PENELOPE: Yes.
The GIRL closes the door.
[ SFX - CREAK ]
GIRL: You embody change, correct?
PENELOPE: Actually, it’s freedom. I embody freedom. [ smiles pleasantly ]
GIRL: I see.
PENELOPE: [finishing] - through change.
GIRL: Very well. [forceful] I want to be free of love.
PENELOPE: [smiling but confused] Free of love?
GIRL: The love I have for a boy who no longer loves me.
GIRL takes a PENDANT from around her neck, opens it and shows it to PENELOPE.
PENELOPE: [whilst examining the pendant ] Is this him?
GIRL: Yes.
PENELOPE: Why doesn't he love you anymore?
GIRL: He still does, in some ways. But not enough. He said it was not to be.
PENELOPE puts the pendant on one of the trays of surgical tools.
PENELOPE: Okay, your love for him - what shall I change it to?
GIRL: I want it unrecognisable.
PENELOPE: I can change it to a sudden, inexplicable indifference?
GIRL: That's not enough.
PENELOPE: Not enough?
GIRL: I want it mutilated. Badly enough that every memory of it will tarnish. I want it changed from start to finish. I want to be free of it. That’s what they say you do.
PENELOPE: [ nodding ] Well, they’re right. You want to be free of this love and its history?
GIRL: Yes.
PENELOPE: Why?
GIRL: [ affronted ] Is it your business to ask why?
PENELOPE: It will help facilitate the miracle.
Pause.
GIRL: Because it's easier this way.
PENELOPE: What’s easier?
GIRL: Moving on. Forgetting. Coping. It would be easier if I do not believe it was love. It would be easier if I believed it was malignant.
PENELOPE takes a SCALPEL and SHARPENS it.
[ SFX - SHARPENING BLADE ]
PENELOPE: You'd prefer to have experienced and lost something painful rather than something beautiful?
GIRL: Is that unusual?
PENELOPE: I try not to reason with wishes - I just clarify and grant them.
GIRL: Then yes, you are right.
PENELOPE gestures to the GIRL to sit in the dentist’s chair. The GIRL is hesitant, but PENELOPE pats the chair's seat and smiles at her. The GIRL gets into the chair.
PENELOPE: [ pondering ] Hmm. I could switch the love for a feeling of betrayal?
GIRL: That would suffice, but I trust him too much to believe that.
PENELOPE puts the SHARP SCALPEL against the GIRL's TEMPLE and cuts a line of BLOOD around the side of her head. She is marking out a pattern for dissection.
PENELOPE: Okay. How about I switch the trust for mistrust and then the love for betrayal?
GIRL: Yes. That might work.
PENELOPE has drawn lines of BLOOD across the GIRL's FOREHEAD and sides of her FACE. She puts down the scalpel and picks up a CIRCULAR SAW.
PENELOPE: Excellent, then. Let's begin your transformation.
GIRL: Will it hurt?
PENELOPE: Not you, no.
[ SFX - CIRCULAR SAW WHIRRING ]
FADE TO: BLACK
The room is dim, lit by wall-mounted candles with one WOODEN DOOR. In the centre is a black DENTIST'S CHAIR around which are various SURGICAL TOOLS on METAL TRAYS. Standing by these is PENELOPE, a FALLEN ANGEL, in WHITE ROBES. She has only one WING. Where the other is supposed to be is a BLOODY STUMP. The blood is soaking the back of her robes. She is doing nothing.
The door opens.
[ SFX - CREAK ]
A GIRL walks in. She is dressed in TORN CLOTHES. She addresses PENELOPE.
GIRL: You are Penelope?
PENELOPE: Yes.
The GIRL closes the door.
[ SFX - CREAK ]
GIRL: You embody change, correct?
PENELOPE: Actually, it’s freedom. I embody freedom. [ smiles pleasantly ]
GIRL: I see.
PENELOPE: [finishing] - through change.
GIRL: Very well. [forceful] I want to be free of love.
PENELOPE: [smiling but confused] Free of love?
GIRL: The love I have for a boy who no longer loves me.
GIRL takes a PENDANT from around her neck, opens it and shows it to PENELOPE.
PENELOPE: [whilst examining the pendant ] Is this him?
GIRL: Yes.
PENELOPE: Why doesn't he love you anymore?
GIRL: He still does, in some ways. But not enough. He said it was not to be.
PENELOPE puts the pendant on one of the trays of surgical tools.
PENELOPE: Okay, your love for him - what shall I change it to?
GIRL: I want it unrecognisable.
PENELOPE: I can change it to a sudden, inexplicable indifference?
GIRL: That's not enough.
PENELOPE: Not enough?
GIRL: I want it mutilated. Badly enough that every memory of it will tarnish. I want it changed from start to finish. I want to be free of it. That’s what they say you do.
PENELOPE: [ nodding ] Well, they’re right. You want to be free of this love and its history?
GIRL: Yes.
PENELOPE: Why?
GIRL: [ affronted ] Is it your business to ask why?
PENELOPE: It will help facilitate the miracle.
Pause.
GIRL: Because it's easier this way.
PENELOPE: What’s easier?
GIRL: Moving on. Forgetting. Coping. It would be easier if I do not believe it was love. It would be easier if I believed it was malignant.
PENELOPE takes a SCALPEL and SHARPENS it.
[ SFX - SHARPENING BLADE ]
PENELOPE: You'd prefer to have experienced and lost something painful rather than something beautiful?
GIRL: Is that unusual?
PENELOPE: I try not to reason with wishes - I just clarify and grant them.
GIRL: Then yes, you are right.
PENELOPE gestures to the GIRL to sit in the dentist’s chair. The GIRL is hesitant, but PENELOPE pats the chair's seat and smiles at her. The GIRL gets into the chair.
PENELOPE: [ pondering ] Hmm. I could switch the love for a feeling of betrayal?
GIRL: That would suffice, but I trust him too much to believe that.
PENELOPE puts the SHARP SCALPEL against the GIRL's TEMPLE and cuts a line of BLOOD around the side of her head. She is marking out a pattern for dissection.
PENELOPE: Okay. How about I switch the trust for mistrust and then the love for betrayal?
GIRL: Yes. That might work.
PENELOPE has drawn lines of BLOOD across the GIRL's FOREHEAD and sides of her FACE. She puts down the scalpel and picks up a CIRCULAR SAW.
PENELOPE: Excellent, then. Let's begin your transformation.
GIRL: Will it hurt?
PENELOPE: Not you, no.
[ SFX - CIRCULAR SAW WHIRRING ]
FADE TO: BLACK
posted by Juliet is Bleeding... | 2:41 am
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That was mesmerizing!
I wish, I could do that!
What would you do,
if you love this guy and you know he loves you too -
But -
then he says he doesnt loves you, coz you know he cant marry you?
Best cut your losses and move on.
How to MOVE ON?
Teach me!
Stage one, preparation. For this you will need one room which you will not leave. Soothing music. Tomato soup, ten tins of. Mushroom soup, eight tins of, for consumption cold. Ice cream, vanilla, one large tub of. Magnesia, milk of, one bottle. Paracetamol, mouthwash, vitamins. Mineral water, Lucozade, pornography. One mattress. One bucket for urine, one for feces and one for vomitus.
(Trainspotting, 1996)
LOL! You are awesome!
It helped. :-)
Btw, I call myself Serendipity!;)
Fuck that. I'd take indifference any day. It would be far easier to live with a truth that doesn't hurt than an illusion that does.
(Also, a love that isn't "enough" might as well not be love at all. Its impotence insults, wounds, and abandons. Real love does no such thing. It cherishes and protects and fights if need be.)
The brilliance of Trainspotting never ceases to amaze. Neither do your posts, JiB. ;)
Ta for compliments, you know I get off on all of them.
Tree: The girl prefers a reality of lost hurt than of lost beauty. Your parenthetical is something she'd say.
You are right JiB!
Tree: Does Real Love ever exist?
-Serendipity:-)
To love someone who doesn't love you back causes cancerous pain. You can kid yourself that you are trying to cut your losses and move on but the hurt deep inside will not allow a successful Penelope transformation.
Right. It's about acceptance vs. denial. Both are types of freedom, but Penelope only embodies the latter.
Acceptance is a harder but more secure freedom, whilst denial is a quick but unstable fix.
The transcript of the film exactly matches the book? News to me.
And anybody that says "for christ sakes" is clearly insane.