I don't know if this could be considered a review, a piece of fan mail or an invitation to discuss a very profound and disturbing theme I found in the movie. But Friday my wife rented the video of Brigham City, and we stayed up late to watch it.

At first it was hard to get into. The setting was too familiar, the characters were too familiar and predictable -- some of the actors were people I knew. It's that "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" thing. Or if you prefer, "No prophet is without honor except in his hometown and among his friends." (Not exact quotes.) But after awhile I was drawn into the movie and suspended reality. I was charmed by the acting, the story and everything else that goes with a movie.

It wasn't until the last scene that it became personal to me, that it touched me, that I related so strongly with one of the charactor's reactions that I felt my deepest, darkest secrets were being exposed.

In that scene Bishop Dutcher is reluctant to go to sacrament meeting, and then he refuses to take the sacrament -- as if he feels unworthy. That's pretty close to Stokholm syndrome -- when the victom, in a moment of terror, comes to identify with his persecuters and make them his friends. I believe, in Bishop Dutcher's case, he came to identify with the filth and horror in his environment. And that's what made him unworthy. That is my secret, and I didn't appreciate Bishop Dutcher pulling down my pants in public.

I published an essay in Irreantum last summer that addressed that same theme. The theme wasn't developed and expressed very well, mainly because I hadn't thought much about it. It was under the surface. But since the WTC thing I've really had to confront the idea. I've come to realize it's just a quirk of the human mind -- the fact that I've internalized the filth and violence of my former environment and now feel dirty myself. I know it's nothing but a phantom -- not even a well defined idea -- but I can't shake it.

I guess it's just one of those things -- gonna have to keep doing my thing and hope it don't come to the surface much anymore. I know some things don't go away -- no matter how much you pray . . . no matter how much you drink. Some things are just going to ride you until you die.

Does anyone else have these kind of phantoms? or is it just me and Bishop Dutcher. If as how do you deal with them?

Paris Anderson