I believe that the best summary of Swallow, of the complexity of Hunter's torment, of his swallowing pieces of the world, of his holding back, of his real fake smile, was written at the end of the eighteenth century. I'm talking about that wonderful poem by William Blake, The Chimney Sweep. And in particular these lines, which attacked me at the exact moment in which Hunter began to chew the ice, after his story was mortified by the intervention of his father-in-law, lines which then accompanied me throughout the film.

"And since I'm happy and I dance and sing,
they believe they haven't hurt me that much."

Hunter and the fragments of his life, his crowded solitude, which screams and creeps everywhere.
Hunter and his descent into the abyss of his heart, at the same time desert and jungle, puddle and ocean, his awareness of the fact that life is something different from a show that only involves others.
Hunter and his colors, his pains, his demons who are also his best friends. Her need to be (re)recognized, finally, for real, by someone, even just for a moment, even under a bed, immersed in dust.
Hunter and her immense need to start living, to choose, to be herself.
Hunter and her fiction-shaped existence, and the others see her happy, smiling, complete, and for this reason they believe that there is no darkness in the light of her eyes. Because no one has ever really looked at her, not even her mother, not even herself.

A splendid film, an unforgettable character. It took very little to deviate and create a film, I don't want to say mediocre, but which would have been one among many. Instead Swallow works, and well. The meeting with the father, his confession, the look he exchanges with the doctor, his smile after swallowing the marble: small moments of great cinema.

And that "you have the eyes of your daughter" (a phrase which echoes that wonder of Too Late) perhaps represents the first time in which Hunter begins to (re)take back his life - in fact, then, from that moment, she will be the one to have control, to decide, to choose, of herself and for herself.
In every sense.
Until the end.
Until the beginning.