On first viewing the main thing that the film is ‘about’ to me is the process of transforming violence into art. What we see is the end result of a very long process by which, over the course of millenia, violent impulses have been refined and directed further and further from destructive ends. After all, real violence is simple and common. It is the car crash, the bottle thrown in a drunken shouting match, the brick through the window. Real violence is very straightforward.

Practicing the motions of violence is fundamentally a non-violenct act. Studying the form of violence is fundamentally a non-violent act. Therefore a life dedicated to the study of the forms of violence is a life of non-violence.

Some might say that people study violence in order to make the actual violent acts more severe. But on closer inspection this seems not to be the case. Does being trained in the motions of violence make it more likely or less that you will kill someone in a fight? Does being trained in the form of violence make it more likely or less that you will need to use violence to bring about some desired end? I would argue less in both cases. It is easy to get distracted by the fantasies of Bruce Lee or Captain America. But in reality the student of violence spends very little time and energy hurting others. If studying violence has some direct use then, it is in increasing the likelihood that you will ‘win’ some encounter, or that you will have your will in another. The threat of violence or the skillfull application of a measured quantity. These could be practical outcomes of a study of violence.

Less directly, mastering the forms of violence communicates a great deal to those around you, long before you need to interact or express yourself. In this sense the study of violence is even more non-violent than the direct case. It becomes simply a ‘known’ that so-and-so commands such-and-such a quantity of violent potential, and people behave accordingly. Again, this is often subverted in fiction– think Yojimbo or Seven Samurai, where the threat of overwhelming violence is ignored and usurped by the upstart. But in everyday life more often the knowledge of overwhelming violent capacities is pacifying– think about the modern police state, where the government has such a monopoly on violence that the population only performs violent acts when inebriated or otherwise incapacitated.

Less directly still is the mere fact of how you spend your time. Going back to the study of violence as a non-violent act. In the course of a normal day how many acts of violence might a hot-blooded young man pent up like a rat in close quarters with dozens of other pubescents commit? There is no doubt that much of human history was filled with these latent and casual acts of violence in densly populated places– aka cities– since they came about. Does studying violence make this less common? Does the act of building a repertior and a vocabulary of violent semantics make you less likely to lash out at someone near you? We can certainly hope so– if there is a physiological component to human violence– an akathisiac drive to commit certain acts with ones body– then exercise should allow us to burn through them in a controlled manner. If there is a psychological component to human violence– the agoraphobic instinct driving us to lash out in the marketplace– then exercising the will to violence should teach us how to control it.

The film portrays a dance. It is an increasingly ‘violent’ dance, but even the sword dance at the peak is fantastic– that is not how one wields a sword when one wants to do a violent deed.

Fencing, on the other hand, is violent. That’s why they wear so much armor. Boxing is violent too, but its a blood sport, the lack of armor is the appeal. But forms of ritualized violence, from the martial arts of China to the dances of Kandy in Sri Lanka, are fundamentally non-violent. Despite what films would have us believe.

It makes me wonder if we could learn any lessons from this process. The process of studying and semanticizing and stripping-back to abstract form that neuters physical violence so beautifully, while maintaining and even heightening the human element. Martial arts are wonderfully human after all, they have lost nothing of the elemental charm of the brawl. If anything they are more beautiful, uniting the forms of the mind with the forms of physiology.

In society today we make things illegal if we don’t like them. We ban them and chastize the practicioner, giving them fines and bad credit ratings. And ultimately threatening them with the violence of the state and incarceration if they don’t play along. Is there a better way?

Take racism for example. Racism, in its truly violent form, is not simply the grunting of slurs– that much effect could be achieved with any swearwords or even a raised voice or an obscene gesture. When racism is truly violent is when it leverages real elements of a persons ethnicity or culture to harm them. It could be achieved by highlighting an odious episode in a countries history (the British Empire for Brits, the Caste System for Indians), or an embarrassing statistic about their physiology (Koreas finger pinching conspiracy, American obesity rates).

What would the martial art of racism look like? It would have to take the racist act of cultural or ethnic violence and transform it into something beautiful and generative and productive. Since racism is a rhetorical form, a form of violence in the noosphere, this martial art would also be a form of rhetoric. A rhetorical art if you will. In fact there are cultural tropes very much like this. Sparring and piss-taking, common in British and Irish culture, often attacks a persons weaknesses. But among friends it does so in a way that dminishes the weakness, rather than the person, and makes the fear into a joke. And flirting with racial tropes is common those who can get away with it– ‘people of race’ themselves, or just people who are friends.

In this sort of play-violent rhetoric the crucial element is trust. And to bring it back to the meditation on violence, this is a significant element of martial arts sparring. You trust that your opponent knows the same rules as you and will obey them. But on a deeper level you trust that they are drawing from the same vocabulary, and that ultimately they mean you no harm. Trust allows us to push our deeds, physical and spoken, right to the brink of real violence– and even beyond it, if blood sports are your cup of tea– and still stay safe.

Interested to see what the second viewing gives me.

Interlude: Lingua Ignota x Brainbombs

I enjoy the work of Lingua Ignota. I fear the work of Brainbombs. I listen to Lingua Ignota’s albums with a sort of pleasure. It has an honesty and consistency that a lot of similar music lacks– what are most screamo bands actually screaming about? Not to diminish depression and anxiety disorders, but being the victim of rape and domestic violence, well, it’s very easy to understand why someone would feel inspired to scream about that.

Brainbombs, however, don’t scream. They do shout a little, but mostly they speak in a loathsome drawl that makes my skin crawl. I’ve never managed to finish a brainbombs album without weeping. No other music has that effect on me. And yet, I keep going back. I probably return to Brainbombs more often than to Lingua, though I never manage to stay as long.

I believe that Brainbombs make the better art. Frankly, for someone trying to be ‘brutal’ Ignota is very melodic, musical and often beautiful. Brainbombs is brutal. Brainbombs make the most brutal music I’ve ever heard, more brutal than Merzbow, more brutal than anything that transforms suffering into art. I think XiuXiu came close on some of his early albums. But as careers progress and one becomes more alienated from the material– as you get wealthier and fall into the Eminem trap (‘they say I cant rap about being broke no more’)– the musicality and theater ramps up.

Theater in the vaudeville sense. Theater in the opera sense. Theater in the pantomime sense. Brainbombs don’t perform theater. After all, the worst thing an actor can do is act. Brainbombs become, and in becoming, in being, their work is hugely more powerful along exactly the axis that Ignota is pursuing.

Compare the refrain at the end of SPITE ALONG HOLDS ME ALOFT with its mirror in Brainbombs, Kill Them All.

On the other hand, Lingua Ignota’s cycle of albums, from her operatic noise intro that sets the theme to the screaming brutality of the three main albums– which become progressivly less painful and more beautiful again– to her latest, under a new name, where she sings redemption songs from the Sacred Harp canon, is a beautiful rendition of the heros journey. A perfect exemplar of the healing power of violent art.

Somehow I find myself imagining a timeline where Brainbombs found redemption. But this is not the best of all imaginable worlds, and not every sinner finds their path.