ABSTRACT
O is a notation Bion uses for unknown, ultimate reality, in psychoanalysis emotional reality. One is tempted to play with "O" until it bites one: One, Oh, Omega, Open, Orgasm, Origins. Kumar Shahani, an Indian film director, planned to make a documentary of Bion's life, to be filmed in India, where Bion spent his first eight years. Shahani decided to make a film based on autobiographical parts of Bion's writings, especially A Memoir of the Future. In a wonderful Brazilian film directed by Marcel Camus, Black Orpheus, the love couple is followed by Death at carnival. The love couple succumbs to the inevitable, suffering loss of personality, self, life, and one feels a sad quiescence at the end of this extended, muted orgasmic flow, more a race with Death, suffused with arresting music. The film ends with the rising sun, dawn, new life, children, music, much as in a Shakespeare play or Walt Disney film.
