I want to talk about 'Cinema'. I want to talk about it, because it is two minutes and six seconds long. And it's perfect.

With that first beat of the kick drum, the sun outside your window switches off like a lamp. It's the middle of a cold night, and you're walking downtown—a mind in motion, flowing in the space between the dim street lights and dark gravelly sidewalks. "There's no one around," Sarah Bonito narrates. She's right. (There's always a particular nocturnal memory I find myself revisiting when I listen to this song—it's passing by a brightly-lit gas station on the side of a wide road where silhouetted cars move back and forth and disappear under stars I strain to see. I look inside and see people vibrating between the shelves and check-out counters. "The credits are rolling as they walk out," I find myself repeating.)

What makes 'Cinema' so magical isn't just the delectably sparse instrumentation, where every hit of the drums and wash of chords and other assorted bursts of sound simultaneously knock you on your feet and ease you into its stuporous atmosphere—it isn't just Sarah's vocals, distant and wondrous and homely, all at once narrator, main character, and scenery—it isn't just that instrumental bridge, a montage of every film you can imagine her watching, popcorn at the ready—it's the fact that this song can make me feel so much, immediately take me to the darkened cinema world in which she inhabits and beyond... in two minutes and six seconds. How many pop songs have that sheer refined descriptive energy, and how many apply it with such a laconic, effortless air? (Honestly, I don't think it's possible for Kero Kero Bonito to make a song that doesn't feel effortless in its perfection. They're just that good.) Even the rapid fadeout, which many others point to as a drawback, feels perfect to me. It demonstrates the greatest strength of a fadeout: that a song can, of course, continue for as long as you want it to. Sarah la-la-las away into the distance, fading into the darkness beyond the streets; but the camera's still on. You continue the story from there.

— Kero Kero Bonito, 'TOTEP'

Dani Lee Pearce is a master of the off-kilter, the glitzy, the 5th chord synth, the cute rebellion, and the feeling of 'wow, this just works'. There is a fine line in music where you can be just 'off' enough that it sounds great (before falling into the atonal valley), and Pearce walks that tightrope like a pro. When you put on 'Tell Me I'm Cute Again Cause I Forgot', and listen to the first 10 seconds, you think 'oh jeez, this won't sound very good will it'—a day later you'll be blasting that song through your speakers on repeat while singing along to that incredible hook. Her music invites you to join the madness, to embrace the saccharine, to become one with the Gay 'N' Crafty Ones. This is music that feels uniquely wondrous, with its glistening electronic production, spindly songwriting, and Pearce's speak-singing vocals creating visions of some glacial paradise full of pink, white, and blue flowers—this is music that embraces the term 'queer' in all the best ways.

Like its creator, 'Dandilionheart' is an album wholly unashamed of itself and its identity, as it paints a vivid, multifaceted image of a trans woman taking on life with confidence, love, and a little bit of magic.

— Dani Lee Pearce, 'Dandilionheart'

I definitely understand the cynicism other people harbour towards this project. Seven hundred and twenty hours is a ludicrous amount of time, and it's almost certainly going to consist of a lot of really long takes and similar filmic noodling. Artsy pretension of the most potent, long-winded variety—I once thought this, too.

But every frame of this film I have seen so far has captivated me like nothing else, and that is something I cannot take away from Weberg's magnum-opus-to-be. Familiarising myself with his other videos over the last five years has further proven to me what a unique and magical light he is in abstract cinema. Shots are layered over each other, sometimes five at a time, until blurs of colour bleed through the video in patches of dream-like crimson and bluegreen. It is an amplifying of the senses, a love paid to every blade of grass overlaid on top of every other, a celebration of a new, ambient kind of beauty. And 'Ambiancé'' so far features Weberg's hallucinatory splendour at its peak, his mastery of colour and landscape showing through every (painfully drawn-out) second that passes. Time is not only extended; it becomes irrelevant, null and void.

— 'Ambiancé', dir. Anders Weberg

'Macbeth' is a spellbindingly visceral play, and its characters even more so—particularly the titular star of the show. But a character in a play is worth far more than the dialogue they conduct with others. To truly engage with a character, the audience has to know not only what they do, but what they think—and that is where a soliloquy comes in. A soliloquy is a speech delivered by a solitary character, as if they are thinking aloud. It is used by William Shakespeare to great effect, not only in 'Macbeth' but across all of his plays, to flesh out characters, to explain their actions and forecast future ones, and to create intrigue. Macbeth is perhaps his most fascinating character of all—a loyal soldier turned usurper turned coldblooded killer—but it is his soliloquies that make him truly interesting. They transform him from a simple villain to a complex tragic hero.

In the play, Macbeth begins soliloquising from the moment he appears and meets the witches—heretofore only spoken of by minor characters, he immediately assumes command of the play with his debut in Act 1 Scene 3. The witches' prophecies of eventual rule over Scotland, and their subsequent validation as he is crowned Thane of Cawdor, awaken a desire within him. The first soliloquy he performs here establishes the complexity of his character right away—his uncertainty towards this omen which "cannot be ill, cannot be good." This line makes it clear that there is another side to Macbeth's ambition, one which is fearful of the "horrid image" conjured by the prospect of becoming king. Yet, in the real world, Macbeth merely appears "rapt", and excuses himself as simply lost in thought, his fellow lords none the wiser. The importance of this soliloquy in establishing Macbeth's character is made clear here—as he keeps his ambitions a secret from others (for the moment), the only way the audience can know his true intentions is to delve deeper, entering his thoughts. From the onset, the audience is fascinated by Macbeth's complexity and secrecy, both of which only intensify from there.

As the play's events unfold, Shakespeare begins using the soliloquy for a second purpose— conveying character development. A soliloquy is said to contain only what its speaker believes to be the truth—but what happens when what they believe to be the truth changes? Then their soliloquies change to reflect it—and the audience can identify these shifts in personality by comparing and contrasting it with what the character has previously said. This is already used to gripping effect in Act 1 Scene 7, wherein Macbeth's resolve weakens and he begins to doubt if he will "catch with [Duncan's] surcease, success". This soliloquy represents a shift from Macbeth's previous determination and ambiton, and alerts the audience to a change in Macbeth's view, which creates suspense—will he go through with it? Another example can be found in Act 3 Scene 1 where Macbeth, now king, begins to turn on his once dear friend, Banquo. Using visceral language—"our fears in Banquo stick deep"— Macbeth's contempt for "the only one whose being I do fear" is made clear to us, and it is also clear that Macbeth has descended into his murderous ambition. Again, Macbeth does not reveal his intentions, and thus learning why he plans to do it is beneficial to the audience's understanding of his character—if the play were to simply skip to Macbeth meeting the group of murderers and ordering them to kill Banquo, the audience would be lost as to why, and would view this decision as merely a reckless impulse. Knowing his self-rationalisation through his soliloquy, and that Banquo's murder was premeditated and thought to be necessary under what Macbeth now believes to be true, makes all the difference—further fascinating the audience and continuing to build upon the complexity of Macbeth's character.

The audience's familiarity with Macbeth and how he thinks continues to the end of the play, where Macbeth has descended into his "slaughterous thoughts" to the point where he has seemingly lost all humanity—and knows it. With everyone he once knew now turned against him, he retreats into his mind, talking to himself now more than ever. This is an important decision made by Shakespeare, keeping the audience aware of how much Macbeth has changed now that he has "supped full with horrors". Upon learning that his wife is dead, Macbeth performs what is likely his darkest soliloquy of all—remarking on the brief, fragile nature of life with a tone of nihilism: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more." This would be an unsettling turn in Macbeth's personality for the audience, if there was no natural progression through his soliloquies to catalogue how his mind has changed, Macbeth dies a ruthless monster, but one that the audience understands to the very end. In a way, knowing how he has changed through his thoughts makes him even more fascinating—certainly moreso than a regular one-dimensional storybook villain.

The character of Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest creations, and it is all due to his sheer depth and the complexity of his morals—which would not exist without his many soliloquies to clarify it for the audience. In the process, Shakespeare creates a character that feels fully three-dimensional and real—one which the audience condemns, but also empathises with, and (most importantly) understands. What better way is there to understand a character than to venture into their mind and see first-hand how they understand themselves to be? Soliloquies, therefore, are the secret ingredient that makes this character, and this play by extension, so fascinating. Without soliloquies, 'Macbeth' is a story of simple heroes and depthless villains—with them, 'Macbeth' is a story of humans.