scandals to asylum

I have spent the past few days trying to get some work done….i have been greatly aided by the absence of many key people: Justin is in Berlin, Max is in Tbilisi and Igor has gone to Belgrade. Even Paul has supposedly gone, but more about that in a minute. So I have no excuse for not being productive. I have been trying to get my thoughts cleared sufficiently to start writing this monstrous paper…I will get there, but it is a slow process.
I have been making pauses in my work to clear my head from time to time. I have been going through the various films at the public library, and the other things I normally don’t have time to do. I saw Last Days, the last Gus Van Sant film supposedly based on the final moments of Kurt Cobain’s life. I realise it is a well-done portrait of a soul leaving this world, but I had problems getting into it. I was never a Cobain fan. It is shot in the same style as Elephant (slow moving, replays from different angles and perspectives etc) but I found Elephant more compelling. I then saw Closer, which I didn’t like at the beginning, but I warmed up to a bit in the last part. I liked the ending. I re-watched Tito I Ja…. Hardly an artistic masterpiece, but I never get tired of seeing it, I love the school teacher…. And the little kid is great.
But the film that struck me the most I fear to say was Asylum. The film wasn’t that good (actually the first half was painfully trite) but its theme was close to home. A woman has a relationship with a institutionalised man who killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. So, you get the idea, the pattern replays itself. The woman ruins her life and destroys her family for a man she knows is no good for her, and of course there is a suitably tragic ending. I saw the film and immediately asked Iain if he had seen it. He had, and grimly agreed with my train of thought.
Needless to say, the paul- beast situation has got more complicated. When we sent him away, Iain told him he was not to return for AT LEAST three weeks. But here is the problem: he has decided he misses the beast. He called Iain and told him that he cant live alone, he is miserable, no one will ever want him, she is the only one… and so on. We tried to remind him that 1.) she is abusive. 2.) she is possessive and jealous and says he cant have any friends or socialise with any one except her. 3.) she is utterly insane. 4.) he says he is unhappy with her.
But he claims he is unhappy without her.So I came back home today to find her hanging out near my door, armed with flowers and all kinds of little gifts for him, despite the fact that she has been issued and official warning not to come back on site. She claims he is coming back tonight, which I guess she can only know from him, since neither Iain not I know anything about this plan. She was behaving all sweet and complacent; obviously convinced she had won the battle. If he comes back I am certain the whole sick cycle will start all over from the beginning- she will be nice and kind and caring for a few days, and then the screams and flying objects will be set into motion…. As usual. The whole thing is so depressing. We have done everything imaginable to try to help Paul get out of this situation, but how do you help someone who is his own worst enemy. He is rational about the whole thing (“yes, I know she makes me unhappy, yes she is bad for me”) but his behaviour is totally irrational. Irrationality is, of course, perfectly understandable is cases of love or lust…. But how can anyone love being beaten all the time? I don’t see a good end to this one.