There is a character named William who appears in The Hanging Garden at three different ages: as an 8-year-old who is terrified of his father, as a fat 15-year-old and as a 25-year-old, now thin, who has returned for his sister s wedding. The peculiar thing is that the characters sometimes appear on the screen at the same time, and the dead body of the 15-year-old hangs from a tree during many of the scenes.
Well, why not? It may be magic realism, but isn t it also the simple truth? Don t the ghosts of our former selves attend family events right along with our current manifestations? Don t parents still sometimes relate to us as if we were children, don t siblings still carry old resentments, aren t old friends still stuck on who we used to be? And don t we sometimes resurrect old personas and dust them off for a return engagement? Aren t all of those selves stored away inside somewhere? The movie opens on a wedding day. Rosemary (Kerry Fox, from An Angel at My Table ), who has