The memory itself does not feel real. We see images of ruins so often in movies: burned-out houses, castles, cities, Dresden, New York, Pompeii, vivid with fire and artistry, with music and smelltracks to add pathos. What we saw on the screen now was artless, a tumbled, jagged something, dim and badly framed, hard to differentiate from a construction site or unsuccessful art. On either side stood houses, gardens, children’s swings, but the shapelessness between had nothing to prove it used to be a home.
