Home

As human beings, it's natural (and, indeed necessary) to believe in the future prosperity of future generations. But in fact, the earth has only finite resources, which we constantly recycle at something less than 100% efficiency; the ultimate unviability of our planet is a logical inevitability, albeit one on a time-frame too large for us to comprehend. Paul Auster, in his book 'The Country of Last Things', imagined a city in which nothing new is ever produced, painting a picture of a world whose own mortality cannot be ignored by its inhabitants (and some saw this as a picture of the concentration camps). In the J.G. Ballard short story on which 'Home' is based, this idea is pushed one step further: a man decides to live off the resources of his own house. The first problem with this idea is that the event horizon is just too close. Even at the start, no-one could hope to survive for long without stepping outside their front door, and there's no social interaction either: this is crucial, because in the 'Country of Last Things', as in Auschwitz, to some extent the survivors feed off those who do not. With the hero denied any possibilities for extending his survival onto anything capable of appearing (from the human perspective) as an indefinite scale, the story is deprived of hope, and left feeling somewhat contrived and silly. Ballard compensates for this by introducing a second idea, that of space as a thing of a fixed size, which the world we know expands or contracts to fit. Thus, as we retreat into a corner, so that corner grows. But the literal representation of this thought is relatively unsubtle.

In Richard Curson-Smith's film, Anthony Sher is excellent as the man who undergoes this peculiar experiment, making the smooth transformation from smug corpulence to visionary mania; and there's lots of black humour as well. But there's a certain thinness to the piece, it's basic concepts exposed and under-dressed; you couldn't watch this and not understand the point. Auster's country is ultimately more interesting.

Bit claustrophobic, but a natural extension of the trend of cocooning and then the Covid 19 pandemic. Well a supernatural extension or remodeling actually, reminding me a little of David Mitchell's "Slade House" or Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" (which I need to return to and complete eventually.) Stories where insanity might not just be in our DNA, but in the actual framework of our homes.

Is there a theme in JG Ballard's work of a traumatic event then leading to a mental unraveling? And does this mirror his own life, the loss of his wife and yet he found an escape route through generating fiction. Exorcising his demons, binding them in font on page? Just an idea...

He does pop up as a doppelganger in certain works if I understand correctly, and Gerald Ballantine here, in a cozy neighborhood not sure if it is Shepperton, might be another. There's a funny line about American cheese (and some even more unsavory items on the menu) so don't watch this over a pizza or anything

I watched it online via youchube (British version of the American?). I came across it while looking for some interviews of JG Ballard, one of which included him recounting with certain pleasure visitors dumbstruck in disbelief upon arriving at his suburban dwelling, with a big lovable dog, three happy children and a fat tabby. Back on the doppel-chain-ganging, color me a bit curious how often a missing tooth appears (or notably does not appear I suppose) in his stories.

Anyways I imagine those visitors did not dare venture up into the attic.

One other art-to-art connection, perhaps fire up Tom Wait's "What's He Building" at your next neighborhood watch meeting before you show this film.