About

They say fire is hypnotic. Maybe that is why the fawn stares at the flames as they envelop
everything, at how they are reflected in the swamp, at how they swallow up each and every corner
of the forest. Hours have gone by. All that is left are burned trunks, remains inedible even for the
voracious fire. The fawn remains there, alone, paralyzed in the limbo. The fact that it is a toy in no
way mitigates how devastating the image is—an image familiar to Cormac McCarthy’s ravaged
highways and to Tarkovsky’s parched tree in The Sacrifice, as well as to all the scenes taking place
right now in the …