PART I. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE FILMS: 'THE CHANGELING, CIRCA 1980' AND 'CHANGELING, CIRCA 2008'.

1.0: BLOG'S TITLE: PART I. CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S COMMENTS ON THE FILMS: 'THE CHANGELING, CIRCA 1980' AND 'CHANGELING, CIRCA 2008' /

1.1: BLOG'S CONTENTS:
2.0–2.4: A QUESTIONABLE WHITE IDENTITY /

3.0–3.1: GLOBAL CULTURES /

4.0–4.3: ON (SUPER-)REALISM /

5.0–5.5: PSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM /

6.0–6.6: ARGUMENTUM EX SILENTO /

7.0–7.6: DIFFERENT WHITE ETHNICITIES /

8.0–8.4: AKIN /

9.0–9.6: THE CHANGELING, CIRCA 1980 /

10.0–10.7: CHANGELING, CIRCA 2008 /

11.0–11.6: THE CHANGELING MYTHOS /

12.0–12.2: DISCLAIMER //.

☆☆☆

2.0 – A QUESTIONABLE WHITE IDENTITY: A year has passed since I wrote on my blogger-site 'thoughtsdisjectamembra': I have watched a number of intriguing films and written notes on a few, similar in the psychological-thriller / horror genre as that of the Irish film: 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan; the basis of my five earlier blogs—films such as: 'Smile, circa 2022' by Parker Finn; 'Barbarian, circa 2022' by Zech Cregger; 'Pearl, circa 2022' by Ti West.

2.1 – I am mindful of the fact, the films I critique are focused on the English language and are of the Irish / American countries.

2.2 – As an Australian with Goìdelic / Celtic ancestry, I am ethnically and culturally representative of the English language and Anglo-Saxon cultures.

2.3 – There is the further point to make: when here in Australia, British and American films dominate cinema, what else can be written on?

2.4 – In any case, such films show a questionable white identity that is arguably due to a cultural alterity which remains at the outer parameters of such films's ideological construction—ironically, as that which exists out-side the film as might another calibre of monster be found after one already has been revealed in the unfolding narrative of horror film.

3.0 – GLOBAL CULTURE: Through mubi, viz. <mubi.com>, the access of films from around the world with streaming on the Internet or renting digital copies, an insight is provided to different ways of perceiving the world.

3.1 – Yet still many Han Chinese and Indian films are kept away from "Western World" audiences and, as such, global cultures are a theory rather than reality.

4.0 – ON (SUPER-)REALISM: In my blogs on that artsy, horror-flick: 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021', I made the criticism the film is overly edited: not as an observation on Kate Dolan's direction, or the editor's competence, or the parochialism of contemporary, Irish film, but as an observation made as to the film's (super-)realism existing in the constraints of film-making, as much as the constraint definitive of the Celtic female of contemporary Ireland.

4.1 – That is, as if the film's editing sought to express the overly-edited consciousness of Char by the film being overly-edited.

4.2 – The argument can always be made: "oh, it's only a story, not a piece of journalistic reportage," when it is the case, the truth can be fore-grounded inasmuch that it can be said after-wards: "it is only a story."

4.3 – In my blogs I wrote that the film is representative of a super-realist æsthetic not only punning the ambiguity of the cinema verité style as fantastic, as when special effects or tricks of lighting emerge within the style as equally punned, realistic: truth is represented as based on perception: in such films the audience enters a point of view different from their own.

Figure I. A film still from 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' of Char, acted by Hazel Doupe, in which the camera-shots of interiors become symbolic correlates to the constrained psychological interior of the protagonist.

5.0 – PSYCHOLOGICAL REALISM: The truth is, that the truth exists in such contexts of perspective, which in the telling of truth must be emphasized, because the broader contexts of history, religion and politics when referenced, reveal the effects of the lulling mind; that is, humans are said to only handle a small dose of reality before "the lullaby" is sought after either in romance or the highs of recreational drugs.

5.1 – Yet the realism of constraint, minimalism and foreclosure, which are factors of a dire state of existence—a veritable autism—evokes an absence of detail, a sparseness of style, to contribute to the super-realist æsthetic.

5.2 – Psychiatry with a problematic history of meting out medications for mental illness—such as the earlier discussed lithium salts—cannot contain a truth of reality that the discourses of mental illness claim to address.

5.3 – For example, there is an other-worldiness, a cultural alterity, that permeates the film which cannot be reduced to a diagnosis of autism with-out losing a perspective of the truth.

5.4 – There is the problem, psychiatry and psychotherapy offer discourses from which young women, such as Char, must retract to embrace some alternative, community-hewn, folk-inspired fantasy and ritual life, because such practices facilitate identity rather than anesthetization and programmed "gratuitous concurrence".

5.5 – Paradoxically, psychological realism pervades the super-realist film, because such films typically represent a single protagonist's experiences in an ironic, almost experimental way, since there are constraints made on the expression and representation of such people's lives, who live as the silent minority, are deemed not worthy of our attentions, engender a point of difference, in fact, intriguing for the fact a creativity and liveliness may be found.

6.0 – ARGUMENTUM EX SILENTO: In my interpretation of the film, the psychological focus must be placed upon the sins of the father, argumentum ex silento: an argument made on the fact obvious evidence is omitted, because the film is almost totally female.

6.1 – The particular omissions of the sins of the father as a pressure enforcing silence / censorship, is re-doubled with significance as the ex silento position falling upon the absent father or fleeting presence of the father-substitute, the adult brother.

6.2 – The family life is presented with-out a male causation as the reason for Angela's derailment, when it is known to be the cause for most troubled house-holds and, besides, it is not a point logically eliminated within the film's narrational structure, but is stifled to ever greater extents until the stifling moment of derealisation unfolds: Char is a witch who imolated her mother, an adult changeling: at which point the trace to the father as the culprit is all but extinguished, at least to the mind of Char.

6.3 – In 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan, I find that the hidden door opens to only an extent: had "the investigators", viz. the film-makers, examined the matter thoroughly, another hidden door would have been found in that earlier secret room, such that now the horrors frighten at one point of remove from the dæmon, the mephistopheles, causing the strife.

6.4 – The dæmon will always be clever enough not to leave behind obvious traces of his meddlings, but they will nonetheless be evident because he is an illusionist who plays most of all with perceptions.

6.5 – Similar to the floating lozenge seen in the Hans Holbein the Younger's painting: 'The Ambassadors, circa 1553', (taken as a sign of the artist possibly having a day on the booze), when the art-work seen from the far right reveals the lozenge as a skull, the symbol of piracy and the painting vandal's interference is revealed to be a gesture of an attack on diplomacy.

6.6 – The threat of war-mongering, almost dæmonic, and racism is only foolishly dismissed—perhaps the celebrated psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's 'The Four Fundamentals Of Psychoanalysis, Seminar IX, circa 1994, (SUNY Press, ISBN-10: 0791421841), could be criticized along such lines for doing exactly that, in reference to commenting on 'The Ambassadors, circa 1553?

7.0 – DIFFERENT WHITE ETHNICITIES: 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan, Angela is shown to be an adult changeling, at least through the eyes of the adolescent Char, when it is indicated, beyond the assumptive or contrived world view of Char, that she has dæmonized and wronged Angela as an effect of Aaron's and Rita's manipulations.

7.1 – The hypothesis is: an undeclared, foreign tax is demanded upon the Irish family home, viz. "the macabre tax", in unthinkable terms, that tax of abducting children, who are any-way mistreated due to the superstition of being labelled changelings, whether deserving of their fate or not, irrespectively suffer a tragic fate.

7.2 – Such fate is argued to be a construct of a social order which racially vilifies: to involve Celtic folk being the recipients of racism, despite our being white-skinned and wrongly categorised with the white supremacists, who are often Aryans.

7.3 – The historical propaganda of the 20th century's world wars is largely to blame: in which a white supremacist man from Germany, some regions of France and even England, is mistakenly taken for the white, Celtic man, who is indicated as being usurped by the white Asian / Arabic-Indian man, viz. the Aryan; that is, the white, Protestant men and women of Celtic origins have disappeared.

7.4 – Another fascinating, low-budget film, that is Danish, viz. 'The 12th Man, circa 2017' by Harald Zwart, reveals the differences between the white Celts / Nords to the white, Aryan Nazi, within the war-time contexts, but it is an exceptional film and that fact of ethnic-political difference remains mostly obfuscated or permitted to be confused in mass media the world over.

7.5 – On which point, the further question begs an answer: if the Anglo-Saxons of the Allies won the wars, for what reason are the cultural differences from the Aryans not made clear?

7.6 – Then there is the example of this film: 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan, in which Char's family's persecution is an imploded experience; a fact that is compensated by way of explanation in folk-lore tales.

8.0 – AKIN: There really are only indications of such truths to be examined amid cultures which often collude with the perception that: yes, the usual suspect can be justifiably blamed, when, as that intriguing, ironic and low-budget film: 'The Usual Suspects, circa 1995' by Bryan Singer, examines how the least suspected is revealed, in a reversal of perceptual paradigm, to be the very devil him-self: a revelatory moment denied to Aaron in 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan.

8.1 – The phenomena of a straw-man may occur, but if the film: 'The Wicker Man, circa 1973' by Robin Hardy, has any-thing to indicate, it is part of an engrained set of rites in which some-one is discovered to be "the odd one out"; in which case, each and every-one is glad it is the demise of "the marked one" and that it is not one's own execution.

8.2 – Should the illusions of a stringent minimalism in the super-realist film, viz. 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' by Kate Dolan, or the carnivalesque excesses of the weïrd and wonderful traditions of the horror film genre, such as 'The Wicker Man, circa 1973' by Robin Hardy, be seen-through, the indicators exhibit a persecution that is mostly unapologetically unjust and fouly corrupt.

Figure II. A film still from 'The Wicker Man, circa 1973' in which the carnival atmosphere provides for jests at the prospect of human sacrifice.
8.3 – It is a point now-a-days that is mostly accepted as a systemic matter, when white, Celtic Christians, viz. Irish, Scottish, Dutch, Danish, etc., are continuously blamed for the atrocities of white or Euro-appearance Asians.

8.4 – The inference is, the white children of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, deserve being labelled as changelings, because they are akin to those other whites, the Aryans, who as Nazis persecuted every-one not the same as them.

9.0 – THE CHANGELING, CIRCA 1980: I ought to do this properly and go one step further to comment that the reason the Aryans are so easily mistaken for Celts is, that the earlier history of Christian Celts in Europe being subjected to genocide, from at least circa 1845, remains hidden: but further, can the white supremacism of the Aryans be taken prima facie, when Germany was known to be under the control of the Han or Mandarin?

9.1 – A gradual over-throw of power, as a rebellion secretly extolled, not for obvious political reasons, but for reasons of stigmatization: the abducting, displacing and labelling of white Christians as changelings, was supposedly done by Aryans: a paradigm changing fact of World history, no less 

9.2 – The film, 'The Changeling, circa 1980' by Peter Medak, that I only briefly mentioned in my previous blogs, mystifies the phenomena of Christian children being invalided by persecutors, often dressed as carers: the children were further mistreated for being disfigured to reveal an horrific history that was known to haunt many people's minds during the 1970s, regarding changelings or witches, may be a healed-over wound that is no longer sensitive, not even to touch.

9.3 – The inherited house of the deceased, disabled child, whose spirit crosses in to the reality of the domestic building, is metaphorically the phantom of the persecutors's minds, who more than likely murdered the child to misappropriate the house and move in.

9.4 – The matter could be one of group psychology: if every-one else is doing it, why should not I? the evils done by the beast that is the herd are supposedly cancelled by the anonymity of the lynch-mob; as is extensively discussed by Sigmund Freud in 'Group Psychology And The Analysis Of The Ego, circa 1921', ISBN-10: 9356374570—I will comment, Sigmund Freud's sociology rather than psycho-sexual theories, remains note-worthy to socio-cultural criticism.

9.5 – Many white Christians were distant cousins to the Aryans who, under the banner of family, committed violences and more serious crimes, which were often over-looked on the proviso family are entitled to commit such acts "within their own ranks".

9.6 – Peter Medak was discerning to make a film which played upon a people's guilt or perverse reminiscence: such tales of domestic hauntings became the staple of a booming, super-natural genre, in which children are ghosts, channelled spirits, became possessed, or provided "indications" of a limbo, or dark history of almost-forgotten tragedies, parallel to every-day living and history.

Figure III. The 'Changeling, circa 2008' film poster shows the actor Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, whose head is depicted above the silhouetted form of her son: or is he an impostor, a changeling?

10.0 – CHANGELING, CIRCA 2008: Almost the sequel to the film of circa 1980, 'Changeling, circa 2008' by Clint Eastwood, is set during the late 1920s, based on the Wineville Chicken Coop murders of circa 1928, at Mira Loma, California, in more direct ways than 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' is based on the murder of Bridget Cleary, Ireland: a point discussed at length in my last blog.

10.1 – The Wineville Chicken Coop murders of circa 1928, at Mira Loma, California, involve the killing of about three to twenty boys, in which the matters of silencing women, mothers of abducted children, is obviated as is the wicked role of a young man who captured and chopped-up boys, as if they were chicken.

10.2 – Yet the gender divide is not apportioned as neatly as the argument averred, the causation is to be found from the male sex; the women, victims who fight their own battles against a corrupt society, are devoid of culpability: the motives are indicated as occurring on the basis of racism.

10.3 – Louise Northcott, the mother of the 19-year old, Gordon Stewart Northcott, conspired in her son's murders of the children: regarding which, a variation of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho, circa 1960' could be claimed as first observing the social pattern of a domineering mother and serial-killer son.

10.4 – The matter of mens rea is unexplained, but according to the available information sources, Gordon Stewart Northcott bought the land on which his farm stood, despite the fact of his youth and history of molestation and abuse within his own family.

10.5 – Gordon Stewart Northcott was not taking a "macabre tax" as such, to live on the land of the farm, nor was he answerable to an older, male figure; unless that older man was afforded censorship through media reports, books and film.

10.6 – The case was already mired by the Los Angeles police's activities to send mothers impostor, "changeling" boys, when, after a few years of being missing, the mother could no longer authenticate the child as he tried to fit in to a home that was better than an orphanage.

10.7 – There is the possibility that white Asians, who existed in California as Anglo-Saxons, were tasking particular men or families with the murder of Anglo-Saxon / American boys, a point of which the white Asian police of California conspired to usurp the original boys with an impostor, "ethnic other".

11.0 – THE CHANGELING MYTHOS: The film 'Changeling, circa 2008' is less concerned with supernatural genre stylizations than for being a drama of a film noir re-historization of the infamous serial killer, Wineville Chicken Coop murders of circa 1928, California.

11.1 – The folk-lore connections to the changeling seem to be absent in Clint Eastwood's film-noir crime-thriller, yet the the noun 'changeling' is imminent: used as the film's title, the irony is, how a fantastical myth provides no mythified narrative; it provides an historical drama in the film-noir style.

11.2 – Once again there are fragments of truth to be discerned amid a style: this time film noir, which in an exalted or reflexive style resists complete delineation, a cohesive picture; 'You Are Not My Mother, circa 2021' is high-end / super realist stylization in which the unpretentious style of realism is exalted over meaningfulness.

11.3 – Is the inference, Gordon Stewart Northcott was considered an adult changeling, who, in living to an adult age, was found to murder child changelings, that is, to foreground the link to the mother Louise Northcott, presumably then a "witch" who ordered the murders?

11.4 – Through Clint Eastwood's film the changeling mythos is only loosely attached to a reality that seems to exist beneath the surface of an earlier revealed reality.

11.5 – There is no problem of racial integration or cultural / ethnic territorialities at 1920s California—quite unbelievably—on which point, the usurpation of white boys for other "white" boys, may not necessarily have correlation to a myth, but a gradual usurpation; an invasion of attrition at the neighbourhood scale, conducted "just quietly" amid the lucrative Western World society of California.

11.6 – The media has been involved to sort of record it and mitigate it, as might propaganda be used, sensationally, as an extension of folk-lore: the truth always refers to a conspiracy which must be denied, mythified or brocaded in style.

12.0 – DISCLAIMER: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

12.1 – Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is used within the editorial-educational rights's context.

12.2 – Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 10 April 2023, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Copyright 2023, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey.

☆☆☆

Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Part V. A Further Commentary On The Film: 'You Are Not My Mother', Premiered, 13 September 2021, at Toronto, Canada.

1.0: Blog Contents:

2.0–2.7: Omitted /

3.0–3.5: The Bridge Builder /

4.0–4.4: "Blud Und Boden" /

5.0–5.3: Making Use Of Sociological Methods /

6.0–6.4: Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause /

7.0–7.4: The Sexes /

8.0–8.7: The Case Of Bridget Cleary /

9.0–9.5: Persecuting White Christians /

10: Cannibalisation /

11.0–11.2: Disclaimer //.

☆☆☆

2.0 — Omitted: Until now my series of blogs on the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan, have treated the 'Faustian bargain' as part of an hitherto undiscussed cultural complex that I will tentatively call: "the macabre tax", viz. the forced taking of one's own life or children, such as implicated "by signing one's own life away [to the devil]" or "by making a pact with the devil". As such phrases are often stated and inasmuch are readily at hand: point towards an already existing wide-ranging awareness of such macabre tax, the quite obvious concern that is unofficially represented is irrespectively treated as marginal, or irrelevant history, or part of fanciful folk-lore. The question begging an answer: is that how the perpetrators perceive such matters?

2.1 — It is mostly omitted from serious social analysis and instead is found among lulling children's tales, such as: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', based on a rat-catcher, who introduces rats to the town later to demand a fee for removing the vermin, is accused of extortion, then, out of revenge for no receipt of payment, re-appears on the Feast Day of Saints John and Paul, 26 June, to take the children with him—and note, the narrative is, in fact, recorded by 'The Lüneberg Manuscript', circa 1440 / circa 1450, of Lower Saxony—refer to 'The Herzog August Bibliothek' web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://www.hab.de/en/digitising-the-medieval-manuscripts-in-the-ratsbuecherei-lueneburg/>.

2.2 — The specific narrative has been a recurring literary theme, not losing relevance, such as demonstrated by Robert Browning's poem: 'The Pied Piper Of Hamelin', circa 1842, for which the abduction is dated circa 1376; or the tale of: "The Rat-catcher" in 'The Red Fairy Book', ‎Dover Publications; a new publication: 1 June 1966, [Longmans, Green And Company, London, circa 1890], ‎367 pages; ISBN-10: ‎048621673X; ISBN-13‎: 978-0486216737, by Andrew Lang, 31 March 1844, Selkirk, Britain, until 20 July 1912, Banchory, United Kingdom—the renowned cultural critic, folk-lorist and anthropologist.

2.3 — The concern of the truth being of such horrorific proportions that it can only be told through fantastical contexts, viz. folk-lore, or super-natural / horror, or super-realist / psychological thriller genres, is the main point to be made: paradoxically, the truth can only be told through a fabulous lie; but the further question required an answer is: to whose benefit is that fictitious arrangement, exactly?

2.4 — In historical or report-based texts, such modern histories are generally absent of the horror: euphemistically referred to here as "the macabre tax"; and the assumption to make is: if there is no such horrific news then such events do not take place—surely, a logical deduction to make due to the pervasive surveillance culture of many cities, that is, when such surveillance can be contrived, controlled by who taxes.

2.5 — The point is, the matter of such tax appears hitherto officially discussed, particularly in any theoretical context, that is, unless the holocaust of Northern Europe during the 20th century is the one and only time such horrors occur in rarity; as a one-off trait of wide-scale war. It simply could not occur regionally or regularly—a point that contemporary French literature appears to confute by numerous authors telling of an experience of holocaust-like character, such as exemplified by: 'Le Rapport de Brodeck / Brodeck's Report', circa 2007 / English translation by John Cullen, 7 January 2010; a novel by Philippe Claudel; Quercus Publishing: London; 288 pages; ISBN-10: 1906694680; ISBN-13: 9781906694685; or the post-holocaust night-mare of: 'Le Non De Klara / Refusal', circa 2002, by Soazig Aaron, publisher Maurice Nadau, ISBN 2862311723, 9782862311722, in which "Klara", a pronoun and noun re-encoded dialectically to refer to a Nun, such as of the once pervasive order of Saint Clare of Assissi, portrays a protagonist who is refused entry back in to society because the cultures of caritas and such cultures' representatives are rejected, that is, within the new—or perhaps very old?—system of the macabre tax.

2.6 — The silence on the matter of such tax may be caused by the register of a degree of poetic license whenever it is spoken of; in saying some-one has made a pact with the devil, hyperbole is said to be demonstrated, if only to convey the feeling of cost involved by establishing a particular contract—on which point the discourse refers to that interminable matter of exploitation in which the pay rate is incommensurate with the demands of a type of employment: really enslavement.

2.7 — The tyrant / dæmon as the merciless boss is subject to an extensive examination in cultural texts, such as in reference to C.S. Lewis's text: 'The Screwtape Letters', [circa 1942] 12 April 2012, 224 pages; ISBN-10: 0007461240, ISBN-13: 9780007461240; often in these contexts the religious and profound are displaced to the secular terms of exploitation found in employment law and the great machine of civilisation turns it's cogs as part of an impersonal system supposedly permitting an attitude of indifference.

2.8 — Or where the arena of the court ought to be the bastion of counter-action against the oppressions of society, it regulates the mechanisms of persecution: the whole-scale elimination of quite blameless folk, trundled in a conspiring system of persecution. Franz Kafka's 'The Trial', Tribeca Books, 11 October 2011 [circa 1915], 160 pages, ISBN-10: ‎1612931030; ISBN-13: ‎978-1612931036, is one of the so-called existential or "demythologized" fictional musings on the court system gone awry; a textual treatment found more tangibly examined as disability discrimination in the film: 'Let Him Have It', 4 October 1991, by Peter Medak, produced by Canal+ et al., Britain—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0102288/?ref_=m_tttr_tt>.

2.9 — Filmic texts of American popular culture, such as the: 'Devil's Advocate', circa 1997, by Taylor Hackford, produced by Regency Enterprises—refer to: the Internet Movie Database web-site, accessed 18 June 2022, at: <https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0118971/>, are seen to portray the courts and legal firms as the very places where the devil him-self can be found; a cloaked figure who betrays his privileged position to wrought ruin upon people's lives in the name of greed.

3.0 — The Bridge Builder: There is, then, the under-pinning Christian-Judaic religious symbolism, viz. of "the devil": the Slanderer or Satan who obstructs freedoms of movement, both literal and figurative, to prevent particular classes of people from flourishing: it is the case that the classes of people must be oppressed and kept destabilised by interference and sabotage.

Figure 1. 'Die Teufelsbrücke Saint Gotthard / The Devil's Bridge Of Saint Gotthard', circa 1804, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, oil on canvas, 76.8 cm x 62.8 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich.

3.1 — Yet what I argue of, the macabre tax, that under-scores the narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is some-thing else: atrocity in the back-yard; the maniacal amid the every-day; yet it is still a matter apparently out-side rational thinking or discussion because psychology must place it's devils on it's particular bridges to work within the over-all system of "civilisation".

3.2 — The folk-lore of The Devil's Bridge / Teufelsbrücke serves as an illustration of the crossing of traditional oppositions that the devil figure is often considered to demand remains opposed and obstructed. With construction of the bridge "new ground", that is, new knowledge, will be gained, of which the devil would prefer remained inaccessible. The bridge builder must endure unbearable conditions to construct the bridge, in which case the bridge builder emerges as a hero, rather than a traitor who has betrayed even his own family to attain power, such as in the cases of Faust or Aaron.

3.3 — The notion of "the pact with the devil" was, during Wolfgang Goethe's time of 19th century Germany one of freely made choice; whereas the narrative of 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, indicates a family over-taken by an insidious influence foreign or super-natural to the regional community.

3.4 — I have already discussed how Mephistopheles disappears in: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, to leave behind no trace of his presence—expert criminal that he is—to reveal a male presence in the family home, the character of Aaron, left-over instead, as an index of a demeaned masculinity; as an adult son who is coerced in to copulating with his sister, and further, demeans her and her daughter too: significantly in ways which are inimical to the family and the father's natural culture.

3.5 — The case seems that regarding: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, that the devil has not waited for the bridge builder to emerge out of one of the homes of the village to go to the river to construct his juncture between the opposite points of land; the devil has anticipated the movements of the potential bridge builder; the devil has entered the home to derange the family members and further apply an unspeakable and, or, or immemorable macabre tax; possibly to the extent the devil has promised a better way of life to the immediate father or father substitute, such as Aaron.

4.0 — "Blud Und Boden": The phenomena may have a less fantastical correlation with the practice of "blud und boden / blood and soil", of spilling blood in to the earth in order that a people may be able to claim it as truly their own; as a type of naturalising, except that often revised or contemporary texts interpret the phrase as referring to the abstracted notion of the "national body".

4.1 — The German Nazi were of Aryan, that is, Iranian-Median or Scythian / Hunic racial supremacism, rather than Anglo, Nordic or Saxon, as is often confusingly reported as white supremacy—there are different whites—such that the highly militaristic society of the Aryans is found expressing the loss of life as a necessary sacrifice; whereas genuine Northern European Christian cultures bear heavily any loss of life.

4.2 — The holocaust and genocide of the Jewish Semites and Christian Slavs are extensively documented, but the killing of children is some-thing else that must be told through the lulling effects of the fantastical—religion is often kept out of the discourse because tensions mount in regard to specific enmities, such as the Israeli against the Palestinians, or vice versa, at which point the context of genre has changed and matters are taken more seriously, if not cynically.

4.3 — The religious texts are subjected to the cynical reader who reads a pseudo-history, yet the truth nonetheless is found as an illumination and enlightenment of the nature of humankind.

4.4 — The accounts of the Old Testament state according to: 1 Kings 11:7, that Solomon erected a high place for [the idol of Molech] on the Mount of Olives, and from that time till the days of Josiah his worship continued, 2 Kings 23:10, 13. The calf-type idol sculpted of brass, hollow and heated by fire within, Molech, is the fire god of child sacrifice; is similar to that other demi-god, the Minotaur, to which seven youths and seven maidens were sacrificed as the fulfilment of King Minos's tax, applied every nine years on the people of Athens as recompense for the loss of his son: such occurrences echo through the halls of time, in mystified symbolism, to resist having the semblance of a precise relevance to now.

5.0 — Making Use Of Sociological Methods: An amount of blind faith is required to give credence to the claims such horrors occur now, when people are more willing to place faith in what is hopeful, unless fear is a type of hope in reversal and that which is goodly is too paradoxical to conceive: a point of not so much cynicism but faithlessness and Godlessness.

5.1 — Faith, of course, is insufficient "sola fide"; there is the matter of proof of faith, a work, in this case of reconstruction, that is, with what little structure that is available to reconstruct a glimpse in to the family life of North Dublin, the film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, a type of psychological interpellation must be applied that more realistically perceives triggers of external occurrence as the cause of Angela's depression, rather than accept the often touted notion, mental illness or disabilities of a physical category are similar to the stigma of a changeling as incurable or innately defective, automate abjection and persecution.

5.2 — The film: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, reveals a perspective in which the world is flat, that is, before the so-called Copernican Revolution, that proved the earth to be spherical: to extend upon the analogy, then using psychological interpellation, I have rendered through these series of five blogs the narrative of the film that is portrayed flatly in three-dimensions by examining the assumptions, which are all too easily and readily accepted—the first assumption being that the filmic text is completely fictional.

5.3 — While I refer to psychological interpellation as part of the deductive method that anticipates behaviours caused from triggers rather than an innate causation, I substantiate this approach in reference to applying both a standard set of intertextual analyses focused on a comparative method; such as found in the most basic structural anthropology espoused by Claude Lévi-Strauss or folk-lorist Vladimir Propp, who are credited with the notions of the mytheme or narrative unit, as a narrational set of relations, and as it correlates with a psycho-social complex, in which there is located the psychoanalytical concern of foreclosure, viz. Mephistopheles——Faust, or Mephistopheles——Grand-mother, and daughters——Faust or daughters——Grand-mother, and not: daughters——Mephistopheles or the Law; such that it can be asserted the over-all faculty of the work exists within the disciplines of sociology, viz. literary / cultural discourse analysis based on anthropology / psychoanalysis through an intertextual analytical method.

6.0 — Treating The Symptoms And Not The Cause: Confronted with the almost impossible conditions of joining a point of impasse of the super-realistic æsthetic—subtly infusing the social scientific discourses through the quality of it's subject with implausibility—and a societal "establishment" that may function to discourage the building of bridges between the sexes, cultures and classes of people; I nonetheless argue that this macabre tax is extolled; that the agitator, the Mephistopheles, has slipped away, a shadow cast as quickly as it has faded from the action of the narrative, to perform his greatest trick yet, to leave the blameless behind and let accusation fall upon them. 

6.1 — From the out-set, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, portrays an elderly woman as a suspected murderer of an infant, that is as much as the super-realist æsthetic will permit the consideration to be made: the immolation is it-self omitted as a mark of the foreclosed suspicion that the style plays with.

6.2 — The elderly woman is seen to limp with a pram to a bushy area away from the neighbour-hood where a fire is lit and the baby, placed on the pile of dead branches, watches the elderly woman stare back at the infant; the old woman, Rita, acted by Ingrid Craigie, stares with suspicion, disbelief and welled-up eyes, as the flames suffuse her face with an orange glow.

Figure 2. Film still at 03:15 of 93:00: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, by Kate Dolan.

6.3 — It would be presumptuous to blame the elderly woman of immolating the child—there is the fact, an infant is not reported as missing or burnt dead later in the film. The trap would be to confer credence to the fallacy of: 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc', that is: 'because of this, therefore that': because of this scene, the elderly woman immolates children. The assumption is coaxed, that some-one is guilty because of an happenstance placement amid circumstantial evidence; condemnation occurs at the risk of a complicity with the devil's deception.

6.4 — Could the arrangement, the set-up, not be a trick of the devil? The devil, that master illusionist, demands from the arrangement, that on-lookers confer to his trick of controlling the people to perceive a blameless person as guilty for the devil's own crimes: he has ordered one of the mothers to do that which he would do, but for the fact, he must evade a direct connection to the collection of his tax.

7.0 — The Sexes: The structural elements of a narrative based on a witch often involves a pact with the devil: the narrative of Washington Irving's 'The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow', circa 1820—adapted to film: 'Sleepy Hollow', 17 November 1999 at Mann's Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles—portrays the character of Lady Van Tassel as pledging her soul to Satan: a moment that is found in the film: 'Belladonna Of Sadness', circa 1973, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, in which the character of Jeanne makes a pact with the devil who is a spirit of the wilderness rather than a tycoon.

7.1 — The devil is considered to bestow a woman with her witch status as a matter of an agreement; such that the division of the sexes cannot exonerate one side and only blame men.

7.2 — The world that comes in to view through the film, 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is mysterious as much for the expression of an adolescent girl's brain-washed perspective, as the decontextualisation of greater causes of historical significance: if not God versus the devil, then, what?

7.3 — The further point is: to be disconnected to the causes of true history is to establish a position neither interactive with or consequential to the changes of history: what occurs in Char's world is of no consequence to any-one else.

7.4 — The primary concern is, rather than treat the symptoms, the cause is seen to be treated: which comparatively refers to the Mephistopheles who has slipped away from sight and accountability, as exemplified by the Irish narrative of: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021—he will return and cause the recurring patterns of strife when measures of intervention lack.

8.0 — The Case Of Bridget Cleary: To cross the thresholds of the fictional to the historical, the further argument is made: 'You Are Not My Mother', circa 2021, is based, at least in part, on the Irish case of Bridget Cleary, a young woman who was immolated, at Ballyvadlea, County Tipperary, Ireland, on 15 March 1895, for allegedly being either a witch or changeling. 

8.1 — Bridget Cleary disappeared and returned to her family no longer her-self; was ill and three days later, her husband, Michael Cleary, and father, Patrick Boland, and seven further family members, burnt her alive.

8.2 — Three extensive case studies of Bridget Cleary have been published:

8.3 — 'Murder Of Bridget Cleary', by Carlo Gébler; Hamish Hamilton, circa 1994; 160 unnumbered pages; ISBN: 0241132061, 9780241132067, 9780349103150, 0349103151.

Figure 3. The cover of Angela Bourke's 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary, A True Story', circa 2006—refer to point 8.4, directly beneath.

8.4 — 'The Burning Of Bridget Cleary', by Angela Bourke; New York: Penguin, circa 2001; 279 pages; ISBN: 0141002026, 067089270X, 9780670892709. 

8.5 — 'The Cooper's Wife Is Missing: The Trials Of Bridget Cleary', by Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates; New York: Basic Books, [circa 2000], reprint circa 2006; online 477 pages; ISBN: 9780465030880, 9780465012084, 0465012086.

8.6 — A further text shows the case of Bridget Cleary as a witch trial, not a matter regarding a fairy's changeling, that is titled: 'The Tipperary, Or Clonmel, Witch Case: transcripts of newspaper reports etc., concerning Bridget Cleary, burned as a witch, and the trial of her husband and neighbours for murder, circa 1895', by Doctors William Osler and George Foy, circa 1917. 

8.7 — Because all nine family members were convicted, five of murder, the further four, of wounding, the social science of law demonstrates that the stigmatising mechanisms of folk-lore, such as the applied label of the changeling, is found only to motivate hatred, violence and murder.

9.0 — Persecuting White Christians: The folk-lorist of the state of Idaho, the United States Of America: Dee L. Ashliman, refers to the German folk-lorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimms' accounts: '... of changelings being thrown in to water, beaten severely with a switch, left unfed and crying in an open field, or placed on a hot stove', and further notes, that such ordeals are reported as common, told in reference to the changeling legends of Northern Europe, which: '...do not misrepresent or exaggerate the actual abuse of suspected changelings': in 'Changelings;

An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.

9.1 — Dee L. Ashliman reports: 'Court records between about 1850 and [circa] 1900 in Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Ireland, reveal numerous proceedings against defendants accused of torturing and murdering suspected changelings'—in 'Changelings; An Essay', copyrighted circa 1997; refer to the web-site of The University of Pittsburgh, accessed 18 June 2021, at: <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/changeling.html>.

9.2 — The cruel and unusual punishments meted to children based on a stigma constructed through the changeling myth, to confer the superstition that a child had not developed a deformity or disability, but had been replaced with a child not of the parents, that is by other-worldly beings, has allowed the vilest cruelties known, not only to children but adults with fair complexions of North Western Europe and colonial regions, often Christians.

9.3 — Within the discourse emerges the problem of racism against white-skinned folk of a Northern European heritage—as distinct from white-skinned Berber, Iranian, Hun or Han ethnicities—and that is predicated against Christians, viz. is Christaphobic or of the Anti-Christ.

9.4 — Where domestic abuse might be terms of reference, as though family members are involved, the motivation being racist and religiously intolerant, more correctly applies persecution; the matter is not simply white against black.

9.5 — The figure of the adult changeling, as discussed in Part IV. of my blog, regarding the film of 2021 and music, such as by the band Toyah, involves a reduction of white-skinned Christians to the status of children; who might be considered unborn, that is, fœtal; are held to be the equivalent to souless flesh; as live stock raised, as cattle are raised, for ingestion.

10.0 — Cannibalisation: In regions of Ireland the thought of cannibalisation may be startlingly or one of disbelief, when truthfully the matter is old; such as demonstrated by the text 'A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children Of Poor People From Being A Burthen To Their Parents Or Country, And For Making Them Beneficial to the Publick' ("A Modest Proposal"), circa 1729, in which the Irish clergyman and author Jonathan Swift, 30 November 1667, Dublin, Ireland until 19 October 1745, Dublin, Ireland, ironically advises the poor Irish to sell their children to the rich as food.

11.0 — Disclaimer: This blog post is the exclusive intellectual property of Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–; Google email: craigsjlacey@gmail.com; by way of law, no hacking, copying, editing or disseminating of it is permitted.

11.1 — Three photographs have been used within this blog: Figures 1 to 3; each of which is identified to a resource and is used within the editorial rights' context.

11.2 — Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia; 189 Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, Queensland, Australia, 4000; Ⓒ 2022, Craig Steven Joseph Lacey. 

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