There is a moment in conversation.
One person speaks.
The other answers before the sentence is finished.
One is still forming what they mean.
The other has already shaped it.
One is being seen.
The other takes the position of knowing.
I take that position.
I call it listening.
I keep going anyway.
As an immigrant here, I am often the one who names what I see.
That feels like attention.
It passes for it.
The exchange is set before it settles.
Projection moves faster than attention.
In Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman, he sits in the car.
He is the one being seen.
The soldiers move in and out of frame.
They are the ones who can act.
The checkpoint holds the space.
Power does not escalate.
It just holds.
The camera does not follow the soldiers.
It does not move toward them.
It stays with Suleiman.
The shot goes on longer than it should. Or longer than I expect it to.
He does not respond.
He does not act.
The soldiers pass.
They enter and leave the frame.
No one is centered.
I expect it to declare itself.
To make it clear enough for me to take something from it.
It doesn’t.
The image does not assign position.
In Capernaum by Nadine Labaki, Zain stands in front of the judge.
He is the one being seen.
The judge sits above him.
The adults speak around him.
They hold authority in the room.
The camera stays with Zain.
At his height.
He speaks.
He does not plead.
He does not perform for them.
No one interrupts him.
The room holds its order.
His words do not organize the room.
They do not shift anything.
He remains where he is.
They remain where they are.
Nothing shifts.
It does not ask me to feel for him.
Or it does. Just not in a way I can use.
In Reassemblage by Trinh T. Minh-ha, the women work.
They are the ones being seen.
Hands move through fabric.
Water.
Baskets.
The camera breaks them into parts.
I can’t hold them as a whole.
I keep trying to anyway.
Faces appear.
Disappear.
The voice does not explain them.
It does not line up with what I’m seeing.
The images don’t connect into a single space.
I try to make them settle.
They don’t.
Nothing resolves.
I keep trying to settle it.
It doesn’t hold.
They are not made available to me.
Maryam, an American tourist, stands at the gate of a Palestinian home.
She is the one looking.
Lima is inside.
She is the one being seen.
The gate separates them.
It holds the relation.
Maryam returns the wallet.
Lima thanks her.
She stays on the phone.
She does not turn.
She asks her to leave.
The exchange ends there.
The gate closes.
Maryam remains outside.
Adan stops the scene.
She is the one who questions the image.
I take it as a problem.
I fix it.
I call that responsibility.
The owner speaks with her.
They decide what can be shown.
The refusal holds.
The camera is held.
The set waits.
The light drops.
The frame is not decided from behind the camera.
It is decided somewhere else.
The image does not require me.
I am not outside this.
We continue.
The image holds.
The positions do not return to where they were.
I am still deciding what it means.
The camera records.
It does not organize what it sees.
Or it does. Just not for me.
I don’t stop.