HANS & GRETE, MONOLOGUES

Written for the film by Alissa Bennett
If you wish to re-print or quote from sections of the monologue, please credit author Alissa Bennett

MONOLOGUE 1
Title: Black September

KIP: People can leave, die, disappear, run away, you know, whatever, but you’re never really rid of anybody because there is always something left that proves them to you again. There are invisible connections that form between you and every person that you’ve ever met that keep pulling you back together somehow, forever, and you can’t escape that – watch her walk down the hallway away from me, she doesn’t turn or look back, but that thread, that connection is still there, and the further she walks away, the faster she runs, the more I become that space that separates us – I will absorb the void and save it inside myself.

Someday you’ll turn around and that kid will be gone and you’ll blame yourself because it’ll be your fault – find his absence in the negative space his body used to fill, calibrate scientific factors involving volume, air, energy. Look for signs that will bring him back closer to you, but you’ll never find any because he’s so far away now, just the way you always wanted it. School chair’s empty and you’re supposed to be free, but that chair’s gonna hold you hostage forever, flat gray stares you in the face some days, and his bed’s still unmade cause no one could go back in there to save their life, and it’s kind of over, but its kind of just started too. Hold your breath to remember, know that people leave all the time – just pick up and go. When people leave, it really makes you realize that they’re real, you know, that they used to be there, but now they’re not. This place is gonna be really different when I’m done here – so different that people cant help but think about the way it used to be. They’re gonna think about that shit for years.

I’m gonna close down the space between us all, lock us together in the janitor’s closet, under the stage in the auditorium, behind that bookcase in the library. I am pulling those threads back to myself, and I am changing the course of fate. No one will ever be able to escape the reality of me, because it will live here forever, and you can tear down the school, throw out all the books with my name in them, take my picture out of the yearbook, but I’ll always be around. Even when you forget me, you’ll still remember. I’m gonna make sure of that.

MONOLOGUE 2
Title: Ulrike

KATHLEEN: ...twins, but there were two of them anyway, and everybody knows that. You have to imagine what it would feel like to be totally abandoned, right? Like what would it be like to watch everything you ever believed in fall away from you so far that you're even, um, separate from yourself, and the part that used to be all of you just becomes so unreal that you can't even remember what it used to feel like to be inside of yourself anymore. I mean, you'd probably do it too, right? Unless you're one of those people who thinks that committing suicide means that you have to, like, roam the Earth for the rest of time dragging a bunch of chains on your ankles or some crap like that. Whatever.

It's the whole waiting part, and i mean, what if the only thing you had left to wait for was for the future to turn back in to the past? It would be like watching who you are and who you were collide right in front of your face, right? It's like when you see pictures of your mom from before you were born, and all you can think about is how weird it is to be both there and not there, like, alone and together all at the same time.

Some people can sense when the future is going to fail them, like, they know when to cut things off cause they can see that everything's gonna fall apart, and they can see how something that hasn't even happened yet is going to be the punishment for forever, and she's not any different, she's like that too- . Sometimes, if I concentrate, I think that it could have been from being left alone in that room though, cause it's like the weight of her own voice just got too heavy for her to carry around anymore, so she just kind of left it. i'm sure it was pretty, um, lonely, but I guess she knew that the only way that people were ever gonna remember her was if she found a way to try and make them forget, you know, "I'm gonna erase myself and you're gonna find me everywhere."

In one motion, you can change the course of the future- you can derail history by deleting yourself from it, and everybody knows that. I'm gonna do the opposite though, cause i want to watch that collision. Sometimes you can remember places you've never been or people who you've never met, and I know that better than anyone, but I don't need to look at that picture of my mom anymore because I already know that I'm real.

MONOLOGUE 3
Title: XXX

SETH: I mean, there are definitely guys who are cut out for that, you know, you’ve got uhhhh, um, Hendrix, Morrison, Robert Plant, Jagger, probably Scott Weiland to a lesser extent, you know, that guy from the Stone Temple Pilots? Anyway, when you see someone with that kind of star quality, you know it, and its not necessarily the talent so much as the fact that these guys just radiate some kind of magnetism that the world can’t resist. It’s rare, man, totally rare, but it’s like there are some people born in the world who stick in your mind forever, and that’s how the classics are born, right? Like, something comes along that makes itself part of your past and future and then, like culture is stuck with it forever or something.

I’m not gonna try to fool myself, you know, like, the talent, that’s definitely there, I’ve got the talent, but forget about all that name in lights shit… its not my style, and the thing is that you’re not gonna remember my face or my name, but you’re definitely gonna remember this (plays some kind of guitar riff that’s all like (deedledederoowroowdededede). Studio musicians are closer to the music, you know, ‘cause we forsake the fame for the craft, concentrate on making sure the heart of the music stays beating, hone our talents until we can play anything, and talent? Dude, talent is immortal – talent lives forever. Everything now, I mean, high school, Sean, all the lessons, the waiting, it’s just my way of getting ready. The day I get my diploma, I’m out of here, never gonna look back, and ten years from now some dude’s gonna be sitting exactly where I am right now in History Class humming one of my killer baselines and pounding the desk with a couple of pencils trying to keep up with my style. Watch.

I’ve always felt that I would be close to the power, you know, that I would live right on the edge of the spotlight, part of the art but not, like, unstable and broke and crazy like all those guys end up. I totally think that stability is super important, like my dad? He’s an insurance salesman, but on the weekend he plays the Sax in a Jazz band call the Jazz Attack on Saturday nights at this place called The Moody Blues. I’ve learned a lot from him about what it means to be both careful and reckless, and what I’ve learned is that I’m not, I don’t know, vain enough? I guess I’m not vain enough to need all that celebrity shit. But you know, whatever. I’ll probably have a Corvette by the time I’m 21.

MONOLOGUE 4
Title: Pop Life

SEAN: ...you know, because I totally thought that he'd get them somehow and realize that I've just been waiting here for him to save me, like, forever, or like, at least for seven months or however long it's been, and I don't know, I guess that I just figured out that shit doesn't really happen, I mean, I just figured that out pretty recently. That you can't sit around forever waiting to be rescued because its never gonna happen, and everyone knows that. People can ruin you, fuck your plans up and all that shit, but no person is ever going to save you. Not ever. And that's why I don't do it anymore. I just keep all of my secrets to myself now, and I donít expect to hear the things that I can’t say. I don't even know what I was thinking.

You know when someone is about to disappear, I mean, I know what's going on and it will be easy for him. I will close my eyes for a second, and he'll be gone, and he'll have taken important parts of me with him, I mean the parts you need to be a person, and for me it will just be like "Oh, just forget me. I never even existed." That's the power that people can have over you, and that's why you have to be careful about how much of yourself you're willing to sacrifice to someone else, because when they're gone you can forget about who you were. It's over. I mean, I'm not saying that I don't have any faith in the future, I totally believe in the future even though it makes me... um... nervous... I guess I'm just a pretty nervous kind of person, but the future, I mean, it's coming anyway, right? I guess if you couldn't really stand the idea of it, you could always kill yourself, I mean, that's always an option, but I think that probably when you die, it's just like, um, like you've still got to hang around, except that it's like you have to deal with everyone else's problems instead of your own, watch everyone forget that you were ever alive, never get to sleep, hang out at Christmas parties alone, all that shit, and if you think that sounds like a good idea, then you should probably go for it. Personally, I'm not into it, but that's just me, I mean, I guess I've always been pretty afraid of being alone.