I just leave him there and enter the shell of Ingo’s apartment. The masterwork is gone. My future is gone. I fall to my knees amidst the wet ashes and weep, for humanity as much as for myself. Perhaps this would have been the work of art that would do what no other work of art has ever been able to achieve: unite us, show us the best in ourselves, lead us on a collective journey toward compassion. I know it led me toward compassion, at least one-seventh of the way. Then I spot it, amidst the rubble: a frame. A single frame of film. I reach for it, hold it to the sunlight pouring in through where the window once was. Miracle of miracles, it is one of my favorite frames of a film filled with favorite frames. Out of context, it doesn’t seem like much—perhaps a crumb: a medium close-up of a young woman in a red cloche, facing away from the camera. In the distance and slightly soft, screen left, a little boy watches her. It is only through his rapturous expression that we are able to guess at her unbearable beauty. Indeed, her face remains unseen for the entirety of the film. We see her from this angle many times, always in her red cloche, always observed by a character in the distance. We long to see her face, to turn her around, either by force or seduction, but of course we cannot. Just as we can never see the face of God, we can never see this woman of presumably otherworldly beauty.