Give Me Your Love
Continuing Persona’s eclectic selection of stories is Collector, the second episode in this anthology and a tale all about love and obsession. This story is essentially split across two timelines, or so it appears to begin with. Late on there’s a good little surrealistic twist to this one, making it the strongest tale of the four in terms of thematic relevance. After a brief flash, we begin with a bright white background and surrealistic imagery showing a man breaking a chair and staring off into the distance. From here, we cut back to the present day timeline to see a man and woman meeting and subsequently sharing a date together. He tries hard to impress her but she seems indifferent to his advances, visibly yawning during some of his conversations. We cut to see a few brief flashes of this girl off with other guys before returning to where we see the man spill his heart out to this girl. As she sits listening to him, he tells her he’s spent so long trying to get with her and she yawns again. This tips him over the edge, sending him into a fit of rage as he shouts at her while she stares back. As they silently challenge each other, the girl sits back confidently and tells him if he really wants to be with her he should show her an act of true love. In a bizarre twist to the tale, the man reaches inside his chest and literally pulls his heart out, giving it to her. This metaphorical symbol of “giving your heart” to someone comes into full realization as she takes it, stuffs it in a glass jar and subsequently walks off, leaving him teary-eyed and shocked. As the man ponders over what he’s just witnessed, he reaches over and opens up a small box to reveal a tiny version of himself inside. As the white room turns blood red, we leave the episode with one final ominous message from the girl. In terms of metaphors and themes, Collector is certainly the strongest and most concise episode of the four. It’s very well written for the most part too and certainly brings up some very thought provoking ideas around obsession, passion and love. Personally, it’s my favourite of the four because of this and the surrealistic tones give it a real On Children vibe for much of its run-time. This oddity ultimately makes it the most memorable too and one episode that’s certainly worth dissecting out of the four.
