In search of Catherine

Her bread and butter were Truffaut and Godard, raised on shorts like ‘Everybody Is called Patrick’ and watching coquettes coyly stroll the streets of Paris, raising their collars to cover their collar bones which scream love me, caress me with your interest. So inevitably, she sought out such unhealthy ideals as torn romance, love triangles amongst close friends, affairs, and marriages, broken bonds, and unspoken desires. She was raised on these warped perceptions of freedom in romance, yet she could not attain these in her own life. She strove to be caught up like Catherine with two men, two best friends fighting over a woman whom they both love, but she only ended up as the fool. The unwanted fool, everywhere and nowhere to be seen. She caught herself up in the trappings of her very own love triangle, stuck in the ruined ideals of her own imagination. Torn between a hopeless desire for monogamy, attachment and an attempt to adapt to more modern practices of ‘free love’. But all she was left with was an emptiness so heavy it pushed all her desires down into a single box, locked up. Waiting to be opened by some charming voyeur, her hopes and dreams lingering again. For she had mastered the art of tricking herself into wanting to be French whilst really being as traditional as marmalade on toast. But what could this poor thing do? Nothing but continue to delude herself until her true desires were met. In the meantime, she’ll tell herself that she wants it, that she wants to be French and to be loved, touched, seen, caressed and to be passed on like a short film herself, to be seen and watched time and time again, until she finally makes the cut for the real thing, the full feature.