in the dream

i'm watching television at night. the film stars frank sinatra, old blue eyes, in a lost film only now just available from the criterion channel. mouldering in some vault because of legal issues, the film is a 1983 reprise of mr. s's supposedly final role as captain edward x. delaney in the film 'the first deadly sin' which had been slated originally to be directed by roman polanski, but was not because of the statutory rape charges which were brought against him. in this film called 'still some sunlight remains' polanski does direct. its setting is a remote beachfront property in northern japan where captain delaney has come to retire as his wife has died from a second kidney failure, and to paint landscapes, and read poetry. over the first part of the film old blue eyes discovers a kind of haunted grove where he begins to receive beautiful visions of the wife he loved in a younger form, only in this film, polanski has bizarrely yet poignantly replaced faye dunaway with a very convincing version of the young ava gardner, old blue eye's actual 'lost love' from real life. the role is played by an unknown actress whose name is mary echo. strangely he discovers his wife planting flowers in the grove and he begins to speak with her which leads to the realization that she is some version of the wife he loved. over the first part of the film, he becomes intensely inspired by the place and paints some wonderful seascapes and visits this intelligent and ghostly autonomous memory of his wife until one day he meets an old hermit on the way to the mystical grove who asks him if he has met a lost beloved there, to which old blue eyes responds 'i have'. the old man smiles and tells him he is very lucky, but tells him to be careful of the mysterious 'nageki no ai no ikimono' or wailing love creature which inhabits the area. for awhile delaney continues to visit the apparition, but eventually comes to his senses and decides to investigate the phenomenon. he contracts a local guide to help him to penetrate several adjacent areas to the grove which exist on higher ground to see if he can spy or learn what the true nature of the visions are. eventually through perserverance and after several raucous sake' drinking sessions with his rough mountain guide, an ex-yakuza, he makes the discovery that there is indeed a sort of alien creature living in a cave near the grove, and also a trans-dimensional portal which the creature uses to 'replentish' itself. finally he confronts the creature and after a strange interlude of miscommunication becomes friends with the animal cemented by the creature's love of captain delaney's singing. in the last part of the film, delaney is painting even more and living in his beach house with the creature and ava gardner who has returned to being his lover. his paintings have become visionary abstractions and he signs them only with his middle initial x. in one scene he reads a section of a midieval renga by sogi to ava gardner: okiwaburu / tsuyu koso hana ni / aware nare, etc.. old blue eyes is speaking japanese. at the end and even older, delaney joins the creature in a journey to its world travelling to the portal and then through while the old hermit looks on from behind a rock. in the last and bizarre scene, captain delaney is seen to be transfigured into a kind of energy being in a large stadium where he is 'painting with his voice' to a huge audience of the alien 'wailing love creatures' who appear be luminous hairy fish creatures each with a constellation of smaller brain-like or fungal butterfly things which flit around their heads. the film ends with delaney or "x" singing (in japanese) irving berlin's 'when i lost you' to a packed extraterrestrial audience.