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mr_b_read 's review for:
Beautiful Darkness
by Fabien Vehlmann
Translated text is such a delight to behold, but translated graphic novels are another matter entirely. Visuals allow us to transcend the miscommunication that the written word risks mangling. Even so, the alien nature of translated dialogue can prove unsettling. Luckily, the stark images can either work in harmony or competition with this aspect, and Beautiful Darkness manages the former spectacularly.
I don’t know what the intended message of this text might be, but a considered reflection exposes the devilish inhumanity of innocence. When we lack civility and society, we are no greater than the beasts of the wild with whom we so staunchly deny kinship. However, even society can bring out the beasts within us, resulting in savagery hitherto unforeseen. That’s enough philosophical meandering, what’s with this text? Well, the decomposing body of a girl in the woods births new life in the form of fragmentary, infantile fairies. Varied in size and complexity, they rely on their meager sense of self until they gradually succumb to the poisons of the natural and human world. Jealousy, lust, ignorance, and a simple inability to provide for themselves, these are fractured reflections of our own visage. In presenting their descent into (beautiful?) darkness, the work manages to unlock a primal understanding of the lies and comforts we choose to believe as we stray further and further from the truth of our world: the world we have created for ourselves is just as chaotic and unruly as the void from which we were borne.
The following is my thought process when reviewing a text:
1 Star: Poor craftsmanship, unappealing subject material, lacking substance.
2: Unappealing subject material, lacking substance
3: Average craftsmanship, lacking substance, enjoyable subject material
4: Enjoyable subject material, possesses substance
5: Enjoyable despite subject material, excellent craftsmanship, deeply substantive
I don’t know what the intended message of this text might be, but a considered reflection exposes the devilish inhumanity of innocence. When we lack civility and society, we are no greater than the beasts of the wild with whom we so staunchly deny kinship. However, even society can bring out the beasts within us, resulting in savagery hitherto unforeseen. That’s enough philosophical meandering, what’s with this text? Well, the decomposing body of a girl in the woods births new life in the form of fragmentary, infantile fairies. Varied in size and complexity, they rely on their meager sense of self until they gradually succumb to the poisons of the natural and human world. Jealousy, lust, ignorance, and a simple inability to provide for themselves, these are fractured reflections of our own visage. In presenting their descent into (beautiful?) darkness, the work manages to unlock a primal understanding of the lies and comforts we choose to believe as we stray further and further from the truth of our world: the world we have created for ourselves is just as chaotic and unruly as the void from which we were borne.
The following is my thought process when reviewing a text:
1 Star: Poor craftsmanship, unappealing subject material, lacking substance.
2: Unappealing subject material, lacking substance
3: Average craftsmanship, lacking substance, enjoyable subject material
4: Enjoyable subject material, possesses substance
5: Enjoyable despite subject material, excellent craftsmanship, deeply substantive