The Thoughts That Once We Had emerged from Thom Andersen's teaching activities: a course in which he introduced his students to the cinematic works of Gilles Deleuze. But this description raises completely false expectations of this monument to essayism. Andersen's film is many things, but certainly not a mere illustration of philosophical-theoretical reflections on cinema.
Unlike in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), Andersen's probably best-known work, which essentially works with film clips, there is no narrative voice here, but rather intertitles consisting of Deleuze quotations, which often read more like fragments of a romantic novel (in the British tradition) with pleasantly ironic to satirical traits. The Thoughts That Once We Had is perhaps at its most beautiful and dazzling if you imagine it to be the dream of someone who read Deleuze before going to sleep. It tells a story: of the 20th century, its fears, hopes, longings, what of these still lives and rages in us, and how we can find visions and forces for a better future in them.
