Disappearers is a anglo/czech script about a future/past city called 'A-land' that is home to clan of forgotten people called 'disappearers'.

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Third draft. 12.2.2002

THE DISAPPEARERS

A mystery concerning Nerval, a resident of the un-locatable city of A-Land, and his quest for infamy. In Czech and English, comprised of treated 35mm black and white still and moving images.

BIF 109

TITLE SEQUENCE: 'The Disappearers'.

BLACK SCREEN

EXT. ALLEYWAY - Night

[DISSOLVE into image of an alleyway with some prone legs barely visible at the edge of the frame.]

NERVAL [v/o]
[Voice: quietly intense, whispered]

Arms like a knotted shoe lace. Legs like a trickle of gravy. He appeared in my line of vision.

[TITLE: 'The First Day']

EXT. RUSSIAN FARM - DAY

[Old footage of a working man appears.]

NERVAL [v/o]
[Voice: quietly intense]

This is my dad. This is my father who left school at 14, enjoyed one weekend of leisure before signing up to work like a pit pony for the rest of his entire, fruitless life whilst privately educated boys club benjamins and a generation of middle class amoeba scooped their pathetic little lives from the plates that were offered before them.
Even though I am an atheist, I believe this man to be a saint.
Which makes the profligacy of my resulting years ever more mysterious.

EXT. ALLEYWAY - Night

[Image of an alleyway with some prone legs barely visible at the edge of the frame.]

NERVAL [v/o]
[Voice: quietly intense, whispered]

Brown hair, green coat, huge pink nose. He doesn't know. He will not understand.

EXT. A-LAND HOUSE - DAY

NERVAL [v/o]
[Voice: quietly intense]

This is my mum. This is my mother who left school at 14, had a fortnight's break before commencing a life of factotum, factory and day care just so that she could experience the pleasures of linoleum, chipboard furniture, salvation army clothing and 4 ungrateful but largely well-behaved children.
Even though I remain an anti-celestial. I believe this woman to be an angel.
Which makes the trivial endeavor of my adult years utterly unforgivable.

INT. C.U. PAN
[Image of J.C., PAN OUT + image of Nape of shaven neck.]

NERVAL [v/o, CONT'D]

I am not Jesus Christ. Even though we share the same barber.

[Images of crucifixions, crosses, simon christmas photos, etc]

[TITLE: 'The Second Day']

Crucifixion began to fascinate me as a child. Devoid of any spiritual dimension to my life I think it may have merely been the emblematic boldness of this image. The 'X marks the spot' factor
[Crucifix dissolves into threshold shot, and ultimately into a white cross on a black background].
Three crosses make a winning line. [
the white cross revolves by 90 degrees, cross turns orange, background:royal blue.]
A-land, my beautiful A-land.
[Czech] Fuck off.

[Images of graveyards, puppets, Blihard]

NERVAL [v/o, CONT'D]

My crucifixion fix mutated into a general fascination with the architecture of death. Cemeteries, pyres, gravestones. My friend, Blihard, sold martinets on Gleetland Bridge. The toys resembled dried and shrunken pygmy corpses. This was not the maker's intention. He was merely old and useless at puppet making. He bore one arm, three fingers on his remaining hand, terribly restricted vision…and a diminished mind. Blihard…eventually…disappeared. Or should I say…more correctly…that he became a Disappearer.

Through my pioneering work in the field of cuisine preparation in the filthy kitchens of the Central Refrectory, and a brief stint as the most servile of valises to an obese minter from the East Sector, I had developed a burgeoning awareness of a band of unknown souls who had taken their anonymity to its extreme. The sons of the dead and the fostered; orphaned, shackled and unloved, the Disappearers used their lack of place to develop new methods of survival - outside of recorded, observable society. A life by night. [czech] They called themselves 'the Dissappearers'.
The subterranean networks of Hotel kitchens, Brewerys, soup stops and market delivery lines supplied their sustenance. Returning taxis - still seat-warm from the posteriors of Surburban-bound Merchants and Senior Clerks - provided their modes of transport, along with twilight runs through the Catacombs and the perennial shunt of the 2am Cargo train.

And it was this group of vagabonds, wretched yet at liberty, that inspired my plan and the course of action that would irrevocably alter my future.

[TITLE: 'The Third Day']
I received a letter from an old acquaintance I had garnered whilst in employ at the Municipal Bureau of Purpose and Affairs. The poor chap wrote in imbecilic terms that defeated meaning and served only to highlight his obviously heightened mental state.
'Nerval', he babbled, 'you, of all the people I know…are most in need of acupuncture'.

[TITLE: 'The Fourth Day']

[Czech] I am not delusional. I am not a hypocrite.
'The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity'.
[Eng] I had always lied with utter deception and now I have balanced my life on its vagaries.

Bereft of dogma and entwined within their own anonymity the men and women of the Disappearers slowly began to draw my disturbed attentions. They, like myself, conducted their menial business in the shadows of the city. They, like me, presently, now, had been the unknown and uncelebrated forces that had propelled the blood of [x-ray of veins] this city's infrastructure through its concrete veins, the undulating waves in the light [Lens flares] that crashed against my retinas [eye photos], the visions that crested my imagination.

Like they, I would take to the night. Submerge my identity in the penumbras and recesses of the twilight metropolis. I resolved to make contact.

[TITLE: 'The Sixth Day']

Her name was Beligique DaFor. [picture of Beligique in a lamplit window]. She was an orphan from the West Sector, a disappeared seamstress, and now a woman who no longer existed. Her counsel was surprisingly difficult to come by. The graveyard of the Church of the Sacred Fool was, by day, a venue for pissing dogs, for the mad, for the forlorn, but by night the Disappearers used it as a portal to their anonymous venues.
Beligique left me amongst the weeds and monumental masonry, promising to remain in contact.

I felt kinship with this group but hoped that my own destiny would wish me on to more exalted plains.

It was about this time that Mr. Reficul began to frequent the luncheon establishment in whose kitchen I daily plied my trade: cleansing dishes and wiping grease from tables. Arriving in a vehicle which, of the like, we had never seen, [Country Car] his compliments swayed me,
'You should be more, dear boy, with such an exquisite figure'.
Each day he would question why I still stood before him, cloth in hand, sweat coursing down my nape, my spine, draped in anonymity.
'It is my job, Mr. Reficul, sir'.
'This is no job. This is non-existence'.
And then he propositioned me.
I was wary of his advances as my fellow table boys had pre-warned me that Reficul was a practising sodomite. 'Be damned' I said, and answered his call.

The deal was simple: my soul for a thousand notes and my name on the lips of all.
Being confirmed in disbelief and devoid of higher realms of thought I felt the bargain was one I could not refuse. Reficul promised me fame by the month's end and riches that, as a washer boy, I could not even steal.

[TITLE: 'The Seventh Day']

INT. LABORATORIO DE PROTESE DENTARIA - Day

In the backroom of a disused fang clinic, the taking of my soul was conducted with a surgical ease. A metallic syringe extracted a small essence from my spine. A culture was obtained. A potion was drunk that induced a period of unconsciousness and wild hallucination…whilst the spiritual removal was completed.
Reciful proclaimed the transfer a grand success and bade me farewell with the promise of notoriety within the 23 remaining days of the month. He would not rescind on his vow.

[TITLE: 'The Thirteenth Day']

[czech] Revenge is the instinct, retaliation is the action.

As the days passed I became increasingly frustrated by my continued anonymity. Reficul no longer visited the luncheon rooms. Any enquiry I attempted to make ended in futility. The taker of my soul was obviously adept at covering his traces. As to my spiritual well-being I barely noticed a difference. My thoughts continued along chartered waters, the only legacy from my experience being a dull ache at the very pit of my spine, like a fork boring flesh from within. As the latter days of that month passed my frustration gave way to anger, and then to revenge.

[TITLE: 'The Eighteenth Day']

During a day of little incident, I thought of my mother. Crunching across the beach's ancient rocks I remembered her…and wondered why she had been so. Belgique remained in contact. Through messages discovered at my work-post as I gathered to begin the dawn's dull duties. [still of paper scrap over silver surface] 'Come to us', she urged. But what of reciful? But what of reknown?

[TITLE: 'The Twenty Third Day']

Seven days before my grand inception into the halls of infamy, I ventured into a gallery exhibiting what were purported to be a collection of Reficul's prints. The pieces were no more than barely formed scribblings. The only discernible elements are of a rictus grin, a mottled complexion and palpable confusion. Reciful, it seemed, had sketched me well.

The Devil, they say, has the best tunes. But he is hellish to hire for wedding banquets, parties, or birthday celebrations.

[TITLE: 'The Twenty Ninth Day']

EXT. A-land - Night

On the penultimate day I left my lodgings at midnight armed with the most lethal of kitchen knives, and a deadly intent. I was determined to trace Reficul and demand a return on my curious investment. My investigations of A-land's liquor establishments threw up no clue, a few felt that Reficul might have been a person of distant acquaintance but none could reason where he might be. My friend Blihard felt that Reficul was sure to frequent the lower districts at such a late hour. I made my way quickly, blood surging with murderous calamity. The district was a dark stench of whores, cesspits and infamy. The knife pulsed in my coat pocket. The boy appeared.

EXT. ALLEYWAY - Night

Arms like knotted shoe lace. Legs like a trickle of gravy.

He appeared in my line of vision.

Brown hair, green coat, huge pink nose.

He doesn't know. He will not understand.

The 30th day. The young lord, son of the highest ranking officer in the District, was pronounced dead. Victim, according to the Gazette, of a 'frenzied and devilish brutality.' There were no witnesses to the crime. Which many felt strange in such a densely populated area. The fiend was pronounced 'Ghost killer', my notoriety was complete. Reficul had told the truth. Everybody knew my name. At least, the name which they had given me. But mutilation, Rape?

I did not want this. I was no more a murderer than a hero. I was tortured with thoughts of capture and imprisonment, and surely of execution. I had to disappear. Of course, …the Disappearers. I and the thousand Disappearers, nocturnal scavengers, like bats, twilight vagabonds. For us…no not you. For us…nothing.

Belgique implored me to meet her that midnight, at the depot yard of the South Sector train. As I boarded at Central I bade a miserable farewell to A-land. We met without hitch, her plan fell swiftly into place. Before dawn I had disappeared from the City, from its geography, its records. I joined a small troupe in one of the lower catacombs before proceeding to full immersion into a life without light.

[Bracketed numbers are whispered in a subliminal countdown]
[strange desperate tone to his voice: distorted, badly recorded].
(Twelve seconds to go) You can find me here…perhaps…(seven)…amongst the forgotten and the never known…(Four) Infamous at last (two)…one of the Disappearers.

[shocked eye photo].

[Chord Cresendo, BLACK OUT]

TITLE: (Czech) 'The End'

TITLE: 'BIF 109'

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