1.
The film does not open with dark, which is how a film is supposed to start. It does not open with light which is how one knows that a film has finished starting no it opens with a pulsing that has almost nothing to do with light or dark to be clear it also is not thick or thin but something moves within it something moves no the film does not open with a close-up or a long shot it opens with many things that pass amongst or through themselves but just like there is not light or dark there are also not even shapes moving it just pulses & not a one thing more
In this scene, many animals will die. The pulsing was a mass of animal it is not a herd or a school and definitely not a flock but it is also not one giant animal they are many of them they do not seem to have room to breathe as they do not even have room to be either different shapes or one big shape but still they breathe the breathing is not the same as the pulsing however they both become more difficult at roughly the same time so it might be reasonable to have thought that breath & pulse were or are the same thing
They seemed so full of life, those animals. However the film makes clear that they do not emanate that life it does not come from somewhere inside them no it blows from somewhere else they happen to be in the way of that blowing they have already been swollen as a result of this yet they start to be less so due to their being so swollen it seemed they may have been one big thing yet as the wind is dying down the situation changes there are no cuts but lines of separation start to show lines that have been there all along they are not in good shape they start to fall apart but because they are so close to each other so close in fact that they should not have room to even breathe they do not go anywhere no they collapse in place they rest their heads & paws against each other in crooks & angles of support
The wind quiets, although the camera does not cut. What changes does so very slowly what changes is very simple before it was a shuddering superimposition it sang it does not sing it calcifies it must be very painful to stop moving a few bray like asses do in pain wild they let off hisses they become thick as the dry silent tongues of asses that have been cut out they can be seen for what they are because they are piled all on top of each other the screen calcifies with all these dead things who first go white as salt then the film goes as black as stone does when it tries to think that it is light & salt instead of stone
2.
The black snow falls soft over the factory floor. The camera is a snowflake or it falls as one it faces downward it falls toward the saws that spray out black snow it falls between the lathes that rasp out black snow it is not snow no they are cutting huge pieces of black stone the camera comes to a rest face down on a machine it is hard to tell what kind the screen is black because the camera is filming a machine it is like that machine was something far away but it course it isn’t we have much doubt as to whether the film is already over because it is black as snow however there is still sound it could have been the sound of the camera running after all is said that sounds like machines but it is not listen it is the sound of saws & lathes listen now it is the sound of engines & gears & friction
Because there is wind in the factory, the camera blows over. The screen is now on its side but it is not black anymore at least not as a general condition no the black snow or the black dust is rising it sprays out from where the blade of the saw cuts into the stone the dust or snow lifts up in collapsing curls it is lifted on wind currents the windows are closed but there are winds you see the factory is huge one can hardly imagine that such a thing is a building it was built during the time when factories demanded to be that size it was after a large war of course because they were so hungry for the processing of material so huge that it can have its own wind that was decades ago it has no need to be so huge anymore but it can't exactly change that can it a factory cannot edit itself it can only persist or collapse these are the basic conditions in which the wind carries the black & the wind in all directions
The saws are not alone, there are bodies using them. They are pushing the slabs of black ahead guiding how they are cut by the saws they might be human they are roughly that shape limbs are involved they could also be bears or carefully upright horses no they are pigs they are just suits all the way down with nothing unsuitable inside that is a small joke that is not appropriate for this moment in the film given that it is so marked by a awful confusion it is hard to tell what they are because they are in suits yet the suits look like insects perhaps they are insects they are covered in insect honestly they are probably just human and nothing more because it is both a movie & a factory
They are good at what they do, so good that it is interesting just to watch them work away at it for a while. This scene lasts for a long time because the film gives us a lot of time to watch what they do how they tune the machines how they hold the black how they say hello to each other without words but by bending heads down for a moment the shapes that they cut with the saws the shapes that the dust or snow makes in the air where the small wind of the saw kicks it out then it is picked up by the wind of the factory for a long while the camera looks at all of this & does not say a damn thing
There is a different sound, that of very loud bell. It is almost a siren the insects or people turn off the machines the saws slow down this makes a sound like snoring the insects or people walk toward an exit the camera follows them gliding behind them at a distance it is slightly above and angling down on them they enter through a door the camera has to drop lower to make it through as if it were both camera & wind
The room is full of steam, so much that the lens is steamed up. It’s hard to see anything the room must be very hot or the factory must have been very cold it is relative as they say it is a room between the factory and whatever is outside of it in this room where it is hot in comparison to where the saws were the black snow or dust starts to melt it has not been stone all along stone doesn’t melt but it is also not black anymore no when it melts it becomes red it spills all over the floor it has not been snow all along it is frozen blood now it unfreezes they have not been cutting pieces of snow or stone no they have been cutting pieces of a city so it has been all day long every day before & all days after