The Descent

I just found a blog draft that I wrote in 2012! While 2012 me thought Amaretto Sours were an acceptable cocktail, had to call Mom every time she wrote a check just to make sure she was doing it right and couldn't even fathom the concept of staying in on a Friday night, she did know way more about art than I do now. So this week, in honor of my precious 22-year-old self, I'm going to do nails inspired by Kazimir Malevich.

First, let's start with an explanation of Malevich's art from college me.

Malevich was a Russian painter in the early 1900s, founder of the Suprematist movement and overall badass. He painted a white square on a white canvas, named it White on White and was like 'HEY everyone come look at this art I just made.'

Ok not quite as badass as when Marcel Duchamp drew a mustache on a postcard of Mona Lisa and called it art but we can't all be on Duchamp's level.

Malevich wrote an essay about Suprematism that basically said, 'Paintings of real life objects... OVER IT.' Art that shows real life should not be considered art because it is just a simple copy of real life. (Basically SUCK IT all artists who painted before the 1900s. Your work is garbage). Malevich believed that art had reached a desert and could only be reborn through the square.

Back to present day! This week I'm going to do a Suprematist manicure and watch The Descent. I used these two Malevich paintings as my inspiration.

My Colors

(from left to right) Fishnet Stockings by Essie, Pretty Edgy by Essie, Blanc by Essie, Jancyn by Zoya, Mira by Zoya, Black Sketch by Milani, Blue Print by Milani and Lilou by Julep.

First I painted my nails with Blanc.

Then I added details color by color. I started with black.

Next I added orange. I painted every nail with a different design and different colors combinations.

Time to add blue. At this point I started overlapping the shapes just like Malevich's paintings.

Next up, yellow.

A few of my nails also got some green and purple.

Suprematist manicure achieved!

The Descent (2005)

I'm most scared by horror films about getting lost in the woods. In The Descent, not only are we lost in the woods, but let's add some claustrophobia to this equation because we are two miles below ground in a cave. Oh yeah and there are human-eating monsters down there. Party!

The movie starts with three friends (Sarah, Beth and Juno) white water rafting through treacherous waterfalls. When they finish their trip Sarah's husband, Paul, and their daughter, Jessica, meet up with the group. On their drive home they get into a terrible car accident, killing Paul and Jessica.

Time passes and Sarah is trying to heal. Juno plans a caving trip with friends. Sarah and Beth agree to join. Initially, Juno wants to bring the group to Boreham Cave, a well-established cave with designated trails, but Juno decides that this isn't adventurous enough. Instead, she chooses to check out an undiscovered cave but conveniently leads everyone to believe that they are still going to Boreham Cave.

The group of women descend into the cave. They are army crawling through a narrow rock path, barely making it through without get stuck and suddenly the rock path collapses. Now they can no longer get out of the cave by simply turning around and must find a new path out. At this point Juno is like, 'PS I don't have a map of this cave because I tricked you and we aren't at Boreham Cave.' For the rest of the movie you watch these women impressively maneuver through this treacherous cave until they encounter the monsters.

Spoiler alert, lost in cave + murderous demons = everyone dies. But good news, the ladies in the movie are super badass! Juno is an especially interesting character. She is not likable. Here's how I would describe Juno. Imagine you're hanging out with a group of girlfriends. You're playing board games, laughing and enjoying a fun night in. Everyone is happy! But this one girl is super insistent on going to the stickiest, most crowded, generic bar you can think of that only serves vodka shots and is crawling with loud 20-year-olds. Let's call this bar T.G.I Friday's. Everyone in the group is strongly against this idea but this one girl is so pushy and annoying and she somehow tricks the entire group into going out. That girl is Juno.

Juno is kind of the villain. It's her horrible idea to go into this cave in the first place. At the end of the movie she accidentally kills Beth, thinking that Beth is a demon, and then does nothing to try and save her, just leaving her to die. You also learn that Juno had an affair with Paul. At the same time you've got to admire what a total badass she is. She spends most of the movie in a black tank top, holding weapons and red flares and murdering the shit out of demons. I've never seen someone break a demon's neck with such beauty and grace. It's truly fun to watch.

My main takeaway from The Descent, WOW I'm so lucky that I'm currently above ground.