CURA.

One night we were hanging out at Raf’s apartment downtown. I had just read The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan, so we decided to watch the 1993 adaptation by Andrew Birkin. A sister and her brother’s parents suddenly die. To avoid foster care, the pair take on the charge of their younger siblings and isolate themselves from the world until the only thing left among the ruins of their home is their nascent love for each other.
We had vaguely discussed organizing a Movie Night prior, and this was informally our first iteration, attended by four people. So a ritual was born, an evening centered around movies that stage this universally instituted taboo and inveterate fantasy. Raf moved to the Upper West Side, and for the next one someone suggested The House of Yes (1997) by Mark Waters, based on the play by Wendy MacLeod. Then I reminded everyone of Murmur of the Heart (1971) by Louis Malle.
Those who found refuge in Incest Movie Night were prepared to be entertained, perplexed and nauseated all at once—to find, perhaps, a form of wisdom in the shame of giving one’s consideration to the obscene. Since then, the evening has become a personification of how the incestuous tangle of a friend-circle can become a family.
Why are there enough movies to perpetually uphold the tradition of IMN? What attracts directors to the topic, and us to them? These movies force us to watch, and sometimes to understand, what is meant to be turned away from in disgust.
We unknowingly reenact the books, media and movies we ingest. In this spread you will see four reenactments of some of our favored incest movies: The Cement Garden, Damage, The House of Yes, and Savage Grace.
There is an erotic backdrop to human experience, to the incessant lust that keeps the heart pulsing. Moments of disarming intimacy bear a visceral charge that has a sexual feeling to it, as fleeting, horrifying and unwelcome as it may be. The vulnerability of collapsing in someone’s arms, the sensuality of affection. The tension of an argument where devastating truths are revealed. A hug that is meant to be innocuously friendly and familial but awakens the shadow of arousal. An arousal that is vehemently ignored, but introduces a previously inconceivable uncertainty that calls our being into question and is therefore precious to ponder.
Just as Ancient Greeks and Romans saw their immoral deities’ perversions as anti-examples, we see these movies as terrifying reminders of the consequences of surrendering to the transient impulses of an amoral and anarchic unconscious.
After all, to do so is to become inhuman, a monster.