Wax, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991)

David Blair > Morgan Freeman

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, for so long, in a single sitting. Every time Blair ends a sentence with "the bees" in that perfectly flat monotone voice, my god. I've always touted Klimov's Come and See as the pinnacle of anti-war film, but now it's clear to me I couldn't have been more wrong. Some quotes from the narration:

> "My favorite stopping place was the launch site monument where the Army had tested Nazi rockets. On the Bee Television, I could see that this was where the Moon and the Earth were joined. All around this place, semi-intelligent weapons were trying to escape the Earth, hoping for a new life elsewhere. When I was away from the ground, the Bee Television became even clearer. I could lose myself in the images and become a weapon myself, rising through the air. My destination was the Moon. That's where the dead lived. I always enjoyed visiting the moon. The dead were always quiet until I started to leave. That's when they spoke. They spoke to me... as bees.

> "I started taking morning walks in the desert. All this time, the Bee Television was active inside me. I received pictures from the bees. They showed me how weapons died every day. Every night in the trailer park, the bees told me about the new world where they had settled and formed a new nation. It was the land of the dead. The Bee Television showed me that place where the radiant souls of living spirits split into innumerable pieces, forming beautiful patterns that were their new bodies, and at the same time, a language. It was the language of Cain, brought with him when he fled the Garden of Eden."

> "The bees were waiting for me. They weren't directly visible to light, but I knew they were there. I dissected the queen. She was blind. They danced backwards. These bees must have come from underground. Then I saw the bees directly. Thee were 30 feet tall. They sang for me."

>"Those who murdered Zoltan Abbassid would be my victims. Then I would be reborn. I had seen God in the planet of Television and had faith that this was true. I became a shape of light, the poem that I was. I hid in a flower crystal on the bee television. The "X" shape followed the path that my enemies were fleeing along. They were heading forwards through time, back to Mesopotamia which now had a different name. I followed my enemies through the Bee Television to emerge in the air above Basra, southern Iraq, in the year 1991. Now, I was going to kill. That was my job."

Someone said that if Gravity's Rainbow is the missile, then this is the bomb. It's more like, if Gravity's Rainbow is the cry for help, at the missile incoming, then Wax is the devastated geography left after the blast. In your mind. Made from honeycomb. Rising through the air. Towards the hidden planet within the Moon. The land of vengeance. Where spirits speak through photography, in the language of Cain. As bees.