The Ineffable

5. Minuet

Minuet remarks on the terrible injuries suffered by those who fought in the trenches. Especially polemic was the case of the gueules cassées, French soldiers maimed with facial disfigurement. These victims were forced to argue for the right to be considered war cripples. The film shows the work of Anne Coleman, a sculptress who applied her ability towards the manufacture of prosthesis to help these soldiers.

A peculiar haiku by the Costa Rican poet José Basileo Acuña joins the Minuet. Acuña entered the English army while studying in Britain and served as a nurse on the French front. While in France, he wrote the epic poem comprised of haikus Un episodio de instantáneas japonesas (1916-1919), that would later be published in his 1953 volume Proyecciones. Acuña explains that he wrote the poem following the general Japanese haiku style; wherein each line is significant by itself, but acquires a larger meaning when the poem is read in its entirety.