The cinema thread

[Fuuma]

I just looked at the list and both, Wings of Desire and Dark Eyes are better films. But it looked like it was a slow year and we all know how Cannes jury likes to surprise.

Dark eyes was great (by Mikhalkov, right?), also saw this one in the theater. Of course I didn't understand most of what went on at the time...

[MASUGNEN]

sex+priest+france in late 80s... you get the point

In Sweden, the word 'sexpräst' [sex priest] was dubbed Best Word of Tabloid Headline 2006.

[Visconti]

I've only seen the one about the two brothers or cousins and, aside from a few excellent touches, was bored to death and its not like I dislike unconventional narratives or mood pieces. This was yrs ago when it was doing the international film circuit so I might give his newer works a go.

I'd say Climates is worth a spin. There are some interesting long takes and the concept (a collapsing relationship) offers more than the brothers/cousins. Since it's not entirely set in Istanbul, he does more to break up the scenes. It's still the same sort of pacing, so save it until you're in the mood.


MASUGNEN- Zabriskie is tough for me. A friend sent me a copy of a laserdisc or something a few years back. I saw it again in 07 theatrically. I remember being really annoyed by the leads and focusing primarily on the centerpiece scenes. Seeing it in better quality helped. It was a lot funnier seeing it with a crowd. Humor's not something I usually associate with Antonioni, so maybe it'll continue to grow on me. I'm surprised Bergman was a fan of La Notte. Aside from Moreau, maybe its because the story is rooted in marriage. A topic he was certainly well acquainted. I happen to like Vitti and found it the least memorable of that segment of his career. Perhaps too close to an ennui-ridden La Dolce Vita.

Did anyone see Revanche? I just got a chance to see the new disc. The performances felt very natural and it managed to surprise me a couple of times. Some of the coincidental turns could be a stretch, but the central characters feel like real people (all flawed, none particularly "bad") and the film's environments are carefully constructed, so it worked for me. There's a lot of doubling throughout. It's also rare to find a film that is equally at home in urban and rural settings. This shifts partway through, but I found both segments convincing. The concepts are classic noir, but the execution closer to Kieslowski. This is apparently Spielmann's 5th film. One other is on Netflix, so I'll see it soon.

In the accompanying essay, the director says "“Loneliness is probably an inextricable part of our modern lives, and yet I consider it an illusion. We always think of ourselves as being separate from the world, and in this way we deceive ourselves. This separation is just an invention of our imagination; in many ways, we are constantly and directly interwoven in a larger whole. Loneliness is an attribute of our limited awareness, not of life itself.” Interesting.

[klangspiel]

I've only seen the one about the two brothers or cousins and, aside from a few excellent touches, .

i believe that's uzak. marvelous film, one of ceylan's better offerings, but suffers from an ambition to capture the meaning of "uzak" (distant) on all levels - metaphysical, literal, poetic, concrete, cultural, personal, and existential.

for those taken by ceylan's world of cinema, the two films prior to uzak are must sees. kasaba and clouds of may (mayis sikintisi), which i believe are presented together in a double dvd release on articifial eye, simply titled, the early works. these films are not only formative but shows off ceylan's already matured cinematic language despite being his fledgling features. of the more recent films, uzak is quite possibly the closest in aesthetic and lyricism to kasaba and clouds of may.

further. From my understanding, Akin and Ceylan are the only widely recognized Turkish directors.

yesim ustaoglu is another who is widely well-known. she's absolutely amazing and certainly along with ceylan, one of the major focal points of the current wave of turkish cinema. if there's an influence on her works which is fairly evident, it would have to be bresson. my favourites from her include waiting for the clouds, journey to the sun, and more recently pandora's box.

the other current turkish auteurs that people ought to be on the look out for are: ozcan alper, reha erdem, semih kaplanoglu, zeki demirkubuz (might be the most sokurov / tarr-esque of the bunch), and a handful more that i can't remember.

[polishmike]

I just watched Dersu Uzala for probably 10th time. I like so many Kurosawa's films and it would be very hard to pick one, but I think that's my favorite. I just need to see it every few months.

[Faust]

Going to see Micmacs today. Could be interesting.

[MASUGNEN]

In the accompanying essay, the director says "“Loneliness is probably an inextricable part of our modern lives, and yet I consider it an illusion. We always think of ourselves as being separate from the world, and in this way we deceive ourselves. This separation is just an invention of our imagination; in many ways, we are constantly and directly interwoven in a larger whole. Loneliness is an attribute of our limited awareness, not of life itself.” Interesting.

We're doomed to this existential loneliness, ever since Kant in modernity's philosophy codified the relationship between subject and object but of course even earlier on with Decartes's division of res cogitans and res extensa and Christianity's stipulated discrepance between spirit and matter, Plato's between light and shadow. Heidegger stated that the notional dichotomy of the two ipso facto means the fragmentation of Being. Thus also the idea of the object's incorporation in the subject and vice versa is reproducing this separation (Spinozian pantheism). I can recommend Ken Wilber's writings.

[swami]

One of my best movies of this year, Brilliant!


& a Beautifully shot character study

[Visconti]

klangspiel- Thanks for the further recommendations. Of those directors, I've only seen Reha Erdem's Times & Winds. I'll keep an eye open for the rest. The same goes for the early Ceylan. It may be available to rent from Facets.

I watched A l'aventure, my third attempt with Jean-Claude Brisseau. Does he do anything except make pseudo-intellectual sex pics time after time? He tries so hard to be subversive never leaves an impact. I get the sense he wants to make the movies Fernando Rey's most frustrated Buñuel characters would appreciate, but he can't manage it.

This one has to do with a woman who abandons her job and bourgeois husband to "live life". Upon meeting a psychiatry student in a cafe, she begins experimenting with hypnosis in an attempt to harness the unbridled ecstasy of some 14th century Flemish nuns. All this is intercut with park bench discussions with Étienne Chicot regarding the speed of light and the universe at large. It's flat, but unintentionally funny from time to time. It's odder than the previous two, so it has that going for it.

[todestrieb]

^I've seen the aforementioned Brisseau. Dreadfully hilarious is all I can say. The only good thing going for it is its beautiful-looking cast. Would tap and tap again.

Posted the following short review on Benoit Delepine & Gustave Kervern's Avida elsewhere. Thought I'd share it.

AVIDA: Benoit Delepine & Gustave Kervern

Who'd have thought that the French were capable of a hysterically absurdist film brimming with biscuit-dry comicality, witty and wry enough to leave one, such as myself - schooled and seasoned in the ways of British black humour, not least of all Monty Python and early Red Dwarf - in rabid stitches? Avida is my concession to the French. The white flag truly hoist well high.

The film is delivered generally in a series of b&w statically framed shots, formulated tableaux-like with a layered RussianDollesque universes-within-universe of ideas and imageries, not unlike Roy Andersson's brand of dead-pan framing of scenes last seen on You, The Living, and, Songs From the Second Floor. Partly, one'd think, as a strategy to evince the specificity of each framed shots' individual randomness and depravity, at the expense, or even a subversion, of the over-arching narrative. The fragmentation of vignettes is the film's coruscating schizophrenic charm, eschewing the tired presumption of unity that loosely coalesces under the guise of a binding narrative. Each suite of shots carries with it its own fundamental internalisation, in order to bring to bear the maddening lattitude of possibilities inherent to the incidental and unpredictable moments fecundly intrinsic to each shot, no matter the degree of formal contrivance placed into them.

The references for the film are implicitly and explicitly obvious: undoubtedly the Python for without which..., Jacques Tati's M.Hulot films, absurdist theatre/plays a la Beckett and Ionesco, the dadaists and the surrealists at their humorously biting, and may I say, Bela Tarr (?) in the rare occasions when the jocular rabbit is pulled out of the morose hat. Includes memorable cameos from Claude Chabrol and Fernando Arrabal, no less.

We're doomed to this existential loneliness, ever since Kant in modernity's philosophy codified the relationship between subject and object but of course even earlier on with Decartes's division of res cogitans and res extensa

I'm not quite sure how exactly these key moments in the history of philosophy succesfully translate to "existential loneliness". Seems rather tenuous to me. I get that the original splitting of the world (into say subject and object, or mind and body) thesis, or even, may I add, the "Fall of Man" myth, seem to suggest such a thing; but at the very core of it, the possibility of some form of unification, perhaps not the original unity, or resolution remains open. It's no coincidence that for philosophers like Kant and Descartes, the split only serves as a problem or a puzzle to be solved or transcended, and not in itself the condition tout court. With Kant, this unification finds itself in the form of "transcendental subjectity" (albeit a mere epistemological postulate), and with Descartes, "God"- both foundational manoeuvres to "control" and attenuate the split.

Nevertheless, what may serve as a better translation to "loneliness" is very much inherent to these respective, and other, philosophies: precisely in the various moments when skepticism threatens to leave the split condition as it is, without having to abate or systematise it. To use the two examples of Kant and Descartes: in Kant, the inherited skeptical problem from Hume - famously, the problem of causality; and with Descartes, his "radical skepticism" which suspends all judgement and the world, which is often viewed as some kind of forerunner to phenomenology's epoché. It's unsurprising then, that skepticism, in its myriad forms, once left to its own devices is often met with the charge of potentially leading to solipsism or/and nihilism. This to me sounds like a better argument to "loneliness".

[MASUGNEN]

Yesterday, Lund:

Alle Anderen (Maren Ade 2009). Excellent! I really feel for this, as I experience it, very true movie about relationship complexities, also individual problems acuted in the unextinguishable comparison with others. This film doesn't yield for adult puerilites or responsible naivity or other non-flattering aspects of the adult psyche. I wasn't taken by storm or struck with revolting insight, I was touched by truthfulness and respect for the human in all her being. That was great.

Lourdes (Jessica Hausner 2009). Not so excellent. Not so good at all. No, I didn't like it. I found it distansed, cold, overtly deconstrutive. The religious praxis was badly written. Yeah, several other script faults. And amateurish technique. The previous Hausner, Hotel (2005) was better, more tense and formally aware.

[Faust]

Food, Inc. Highly recommended.

[KM80]

Food Inc was great.

The Magic Christian, Fucking Hilarious!

[Faust]

Is it weird that I don't want to watch Antichrist? Am I getting softer with age or wiser?

[Dropt]

Luckely for Mr Lars von Trier, Charlotte Gainsbourg is in the movie.

That said, someone gotta tell him a good picture doesn't make a good movie too, and bringing up some historical clichés doesn't make a story.

Still, the sound is good and i enjoyed the movie, even if it's clearely messed up.