Just For Lookin' Thru

Watching Styx is an uncomfortable experience throughout, and a film that raises many questions. The film outline has told us exactly what to expect so there’s no surprise when Rike spots the stricken vessel overloaded with refugees, after she has been happily sailing, reading, enjoying her solitude, and anticipating reaching the scientifically created paradise. Rike (Susanne Wolff) is an emergency doctor working in Gibraltar who has set sail on a solo voyage to Ascension Island, part of the British Overseas Territory. Previously barren land, the British introduced trees and non-indigenous planting; now there is lush bamboo and the Green Mountain (cloud) Forest, and she is intrigued by the idea of this fully functioning artificial ecosystem created by Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker (explorer and botanist) and the Royal Navy from around 1843. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution describes the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest yet, in creating the self-sustaining and

In this story of transgression and loss, Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lisa, a dedicated, kindly teacher of 5 year olds. She yearns for creative expression and attends a poetry evening class but is frustrated with her writing. One of the children in her class, Jimmy, begins to pace back and forth across the classroom speaking lines whilst in an apparent trance, as though he is channelling words of an experienced wisdom beyond his years. His poetic nature excites her as he speaks from feeling rather than from thinking, or over thinking, as she does with her own attempts at poetry. Lisa fixates on his words, racing to scribble down every utterance, to capture his lines before they are lost forever. However, it is troubling that, at her evening class, she presents one of his poems as her own work. It is well received, and she repeats this theft of creative copyright and intellectual property the following week. The film suggests that her own latent talent was crushed by the everyday,