the
observer and the (invisible) observed at the same time. Not
only in film does this short circuit of gazes, a fatal feedback
system of autofiction and reality, belong to the essence of
the act. The man with the gun watches himself as if he were
standing on a stage. It is in the sight of the fleeing and dying
victims that the effect of his pose completely unfolds. In his
attack against hated reality, he enters a theater with no exit.
He does not appear to himself as real in the act. It is only
for fleeting moments that he stands on the other side of fear,
feeling the power of his final role. Maybe it is the perpetrator’s
innermost impulse to experience just this transformation, for
once and for all to step out before the world with darkened
eyes. Cynically and calculatingly he stages his deadly drama,
becoming fully his gaze, the eye and weapon of emptiness.
