Nate D's Reviews > The Theory of the Grain of Sand

The only other of Peeters and Schuiten's Obscure Cities I've read is the reissued Walls of Samaris, their first sustained narrative back in 1983. This, the most recently completed, originally in 2006, maintains the special sense of oblique mysterious narrative and architectural invention of the early work (as well, their short pieces for Heavy Metal in the earlier 80s) while operating with vastly greater subtlety -- the interceding years offered much space for refinement. The artwork here is exacting and graceful, even as it captures the unexplainable, the characters as precisely drawn in line as in dialogue (and based on real people for an even greater fidelity -- filmmaker and Akerman-collaborator Eric de Kuyper is cast here charmingly alongside a returning lead from another of the cities) and the story gives and withholds in a nice balance. Much is left open, but enough it given to work with even as it is pointed out as unimportant (themes around over-focusing on symptoms over roots) and the whole manages to be gripping in a "weird stories" mode without succumbing to genre. It's more conceptual concerned with the terrors of the numerical realm (exponential growth) and legacies of colonialism in the Western art world.