The Man Without Qualities

In this movie I arrive anonymously at a small town

hoping to be unnoticed

this is unlikely because I am the main character in the movie

my love interest is the waitress at the diner

her smile when our eyes meet telegraphs that to the audience

her sidekick is another woman, slightly older and heavier

with a brighter shade of lipstick, as though to compensate

for not being as conventionally attractive

in real life I would prefer her

but those are not the rules of this film

the music tells you how to feel at every turn

tense, wistful, buoyant, triumphant

not us, the characters in the film, but you, the audience

for we can not hear it inside the movie

I'm sure you've seen my movie, or one very like it

the plot is much what you'd expect

I am quietly confident, haunted by a murky past

but without distinguishing features

the camera follows me around

so the viewer identifies with me, because I am no one in particular

or with the waitress, as the case might be

the comfort here, for the audience, is in the tension and release

the familiarity of the form

the way this film, that I have dreamed of today on my walk downtown,

is similar to many others, not in the ways it is distinctive