Bluedeed's Great and Terrible Films

[bluedeed]

I'd like to start a thread for my musings on films instead of starting new threads or commenting on old ones for my thoughts. What inspires me to write about films is usually an extreme, something I think is great, or something I think is terrible, hence the name, but I'm also interested in films that have an interesting reaction from this community, the critical film industry or the market at large and so those films (most of which I usually find a bit mediocre) will also make their way into this thread. Without further elaboration, I'd like to go into my first piece about Apichatpong Weerasethakul's (to be further referred to as Joe, his ludicrously simplified nickname) magnificent 2004 film, Tropical Malady.

11274

Whenever I read something about Joe's films, I feel that the writers to quickly gravitate to the more obvious conventional tosses that he uses (the frequent second half shift, the deadpan supernatural events, the sometimes lingering black screen), all of which, while important, isn't what makes me love Joe. Joe is certainly one of the most interesting visual artists working today, but he's also perhaps even better at sound. Tropical Malady opens with some of his signature brand of offbeat humor with soldiers gathering to take a picture around a body that appears to have been mauled by a tiger (one of them says "make sure I look pretty for my girlfriend"). The soldiers then flirt with an operator over the radio who says she'll play a song for "all of you lonely guys." This is where Joe makes his first interesting and great move. As the soldiers disappear from the shot, the camera starts one of its brilliant slow pushes through some grass that had been mildly framing the shot, and some Thai pop begins to play, and unexpectedly non-diegetically, and there's a strange feeling of elevation, which is completed in the next wide-view shot. Like so many of the director's greatest moments, it's fairly indescribable why some Thai pop music I've never head before made this sublime impression. It's not exactly a clear match to the environment, which is a field within a jungle, nor is it great music, but from the slow building initial drum beat (something he'll importantly repeat later on) to the soothing singing it works unexpectedly, or perhaps because it's unexpected.

What follows begins part of the regular narrative that's obscurely related to this opening scene. It concerns the flirtations of a Thai army member, Keng, with a small town guy Tong (played by AW regular Sakda Kaewbuadee). Their scenes of flirtation are some of the most naturalistic portrayed in film. It addresses without explicitly addressing their feelings for each other, reservations, social climate, and familial issues all with poignancy. It's at once natural, simple, inconsequential, and heartbreaking to see Tong shy away from Keng repeatedly, held back by his fears. As many people know, Joe is a homosexual and often deals with homosexuality and thus this first half feels at least slightly autobiographical, which contributes to the film's graceful realism. And it's of course important, like I initially said, to note the sounds. Joe graces his film with beautiful sounds of forests, a mildly violent but relaxing rainy day, and the equally lulling sounds of motor vehicles. All of these sounds may not have a significance thematically but they work wonders for entering the film's rhythm.

I said that the film feels autobiographical, which is very true to a very specific point. At earlier points in the film, it may be hinting at what happens later. Tong's mother tells a folk tale about fishermen who become too greedy, less relevant in theme than in tone (it is, by the way, a wonderful story, one of the reasons I love Joe), the obvious breaking point in the film and the centerpiece of all critical analysis of the film occurs at nearly the midpoint. As the rhythm of the film is settled and you feel comfortable with the characters, Joe quickly pulls out the rug, at least for a brief time.

http://www.lookmymovies.com/images4/images/sud_pralad__tropical_malady_3.jpg

After a lovingly composed shot of Keng standing alone after Tong has rejected his flirtations again (which is always in a very shy or light manner), the screen goes black. Slowly and elegantly revealed is an old painting of a tiger that will serve as a backdrop for the ensuing narrative. The second half of the film grounds itself in both folklore and the first half of the film. Presumably Keng goes off into the woods in search of a cow and a man that went missing from his town. As he enters the forest, he is hunted by Tong, who transforms into a tiger at night. This may sound like supernatural thriller material, but Joe handles it with the same calmness as the rest of the film. It all feels grounded in the past in two different schemes. When the two do have their encounter, Joe anti-dramatizes it by eventually obscuring them from our view, refusing to cut towards the action.

This narrative bifurcation is what then makes the film be received at extreme ends. Many people citing the same nonsense that they had 3 years earlier at David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (Joe's film is actually an appropriate kissing cousin of Lynch's work) of the film being inscrutable at the film, Tropical Malady is inscrutable only to the closed minded. The film is (like Mulholland Dr.) a clear eyed and intimate vision of love wholly throughout. Knowing of Joe's frequent narrative bifurcations (he's explained his love for contrast), I wasn't taken as aback as some people may have been at the film's shift. But at that point in the film, I was so engrossed in the film and had such confidence in Joe's filmmaking that he could've kept the screen black with nothing but cricket sounds and I would've watched until the end, but it's to his credit that he so lightly intertwines these stories which seem at first in contrast, but very quickly the second story reaches a sublime climax that coincides (thematically, not physically) with the first half. It's masterful filmmaking. A half told love story told twice, Tropical Malady is a wonderful film.

11273

[Mr Minio]

Now I have to watch it. I even started some time ago, but all of sudden subtitles had ended and I couldn't finish it.

[mark f]

Interesting post. I should see more of his films. I've only watched Uncle Boonmee, and not having read anything about it, I may be wrong about some specific meanings, but I came up with some of my own. :) If you care to read and comment, my post is here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=764350). I'll comment on this after I see it.

[Daniel M]

I read your review, but I haven't seen the film, although your writing and clear love for the director certainly makes me want to do so.

I actually managed to record Uncle Boonmee on Film4 (a British film channel) a few weeks ago, and I plan to watch it very soon, maybe even tonight, so this article (coupled with Mark's review of the film) makes me even more eager to finally watch it, so I might try to tonight. Then I will keep an eye out for and try to watch Tropical Malady :)

[bluedeed]

Interesting post. I should see more of his films. I've only watched Uncle Boonmee, and not having read anything about it, I may be wrong about some specific meanings, but I came up with some of my own. :) If you care to read and comment, my post is here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=764350). I'll comment on this after I see it.

While it can be enlightening to read about Apichatpong Weerasethakul since Thai cinema is very uncommonly exported and their culture less known here, I think it's very interesting to not read anything like you have. Joe has a very distinctive and singular way of filmmaking that's unlike anyone else I can recall working today. Thus, it's open to a much greater amount of interpretation than say an American mainstream or independent film which have pretty clear origins and movements associated with them.

I think you'll find Tropical Malady more coherent and compelling that Uncle Boonmee, but I think both are great films. The great thing about the latter is the way it makes you become aware of life without being overly delicate. There's scenes of beauty in nature and the beauty of Boonmee's life, but also scenes of Auntie Jen calmly killing a bunch of insects with an electric racked. It doesn't make us feel horror, but keeps us aware of the cycle of death and rebirth in many ways.

[Daniel M]

This is for Bluedeead, Mark and whoever else has seen the Uncle Boonmee...

Sorry for this continued use of this thread as a discussion for Uncle Boonmee (I hope you don't mind, but this seems a fitting place for discussion), but I have just finished watching it, certainly a fascinating/mesmerising movie that I definitely enjoyed, but I won't pretend I understood it all. I have lots of questions and things to potentially discuss.

First of all I will ask about your perception of the ending, what was happening, what was the meaning? Even in a film filled with mysteries, this one seemed to stand out to me and I'm not quite sure what to make of it right now.

[Guaporense]

interesting, might try this sometime, though I haven't had much time these days

[bluedeed]

interesting, might try this sometime, though I haven't had much time these days

It's just like PMMM except it's not like PMMM at all (not that I would know, though you'd be happy to know I have looked for it to watch but haven't been able to find it).

[Tyler1]

First of all I will ask about your perception of the ending, what was happening, what was the meaning? Even in a film filled with mysteries, this one seemed to stand out to me and I'm not quite sure what to make of it right now.

Notice the sudden change from languid camerawork to hand-held camera during the cave scenes, which I believe is about process of rebirth. Rebirth from countryside to modernity, the underlying issue explored in many of Apichatpong's films.

[Daniel M]

Notice the sudden change from languid camerawork to hand-held camera during the cave scenes, which I believe is about process of rebirth. Rebirth from countryside to modernity, the underlying issue explored in many of Apichatpong's films.

Interesting, the end café scene seemed very surrealistic too me, and would definitely fit in with what you were saying, it looked modern and stylish, there were bright neon lights and other stuff, as well as the modern pop song playing in the air.

[mark f]

I don't think it matters what the whys are or even if there are any. The bewildering ending and several other scenes seem to be presented as mysteries of life which are beyond explanation. I don't think it's presented as a puzzle which you can "solve" like a Lynch film. I do think that the surrealism goes hand in hand with the environment and culture though, but since I would be a foreigner to both, I probably have little right to judge.

[bluedeed]

Interesting, the end café scene seemed very surrealistic too me, and would definitely fit in with what you were saying, it looked modern and stylish, there were bright neon lights and other stuff, as well as the modern pop song playing in the air.

Music definitely plays a great role in adding surrealism to film, especially Joe's aesthetically conflicting use of pop. It's important to note with his work that there are many contrasts, I mentioned earlier that he loves contrasts in his films. The color palette shifts greatly in the last bit of the film from some sort of divine naturalism to a clean modern aesthetic. The greens of the jungle are turned neon red in a cafe. I think the final scenes are more uniting than they are discordant from the rest of the film (and extremely goofy, he has such a strange sense of humor). The important thing about Joe's work is that he always portrays stark contrasts but never overstates the connection between them. I think that the last scenes build up towards rejecting the old ways and nature (via Tong's runaway monk) but the scene in the cafe give this another, more reasonable light. Modern life isn't wrong because it's still life as always. Tong is no more wrong in leaving his temple than a bull was in leaving his tree.

[bluedeed]

Mother

http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/scanners/viff-memories-of-murder-/mother2-thumb-500x333-11987.jpg

Bong Joon-ho is soon to release his international debut Snowpiercer in the United States. Rumor has it that the Weinsteins are once again trying to reel in a director that may be a little too much for American audiences a la Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster. What the Weinsteins don't know is that Bong Joon-ho has already made a film expressly designed for international audiences 4 years earlier. Mother is a great film to watch for those who've seen little Asian cinema (though this is certainly not all who will appreciate it) and is the perfect film for those who have seen only something like Oldboy.

Released internationally in one of the weakest years creatively for American cinema in a good while (2010), Mother provided a breath of fresh air for taut classical filmmaking. The film is focused on a mentally retarded boy who is accused of committing a murder after a night of drinking, the trick being that he doesn't remember anything from the night. The film appropriates its stream of plot in this way that gives the style some actual significance unlike so many other thrillers. The boy, Do-Joon, spends his time in prison trying to think through the events he's forgotten with some occasional breakthroughs, but with always something missing.

Watching Mother causes you to slowly unwind your preconceived notions about what most thrillers build themselves off of. The brilliant part of Mother is how its final flashback (told stately through Bong's observant camera) shatters expectations in every sense, but also reveals the simplest solution to be the right one in a situation where other thrillers begin to get convoluted. This final revelation has more gravitas than that of any “mind-blowing” twist ending of such fanboy thrillers as Fight Club and Memento, shifting the attention away from singular revelation towards a much greater and more universal significance. Mother is an exercise in consistently sidestepping convention in a subtle way that makes it one of the most clear and concise thrillers in recent history.

http://anotherplotdevice.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mother_korean_movie-7.jpg

I've seen Lynch, Jodoworsky and Bunuel. Not much really shocks me anymore onscreen, in the west that is. The only real horror I've experienced in film recently (outside of Ben Wheatly's solid horror, Kill List) comes from Korean and Japanese cinema. Bong Joon-ho seems to know this and plays off of his own cinema's world famous characteristics to add tension to every scene in the latter half of the film that involves Do-Joon's mother trying to free him of his unjust punishment. It comes to a peak in an extremely tense encounter with the mother and an eye-witness, only to further subvert our expectations of Korean cinema with an equally terrifying but more logically sound explosion of force. Bong is not interested in torture cinema, but moral cinema which invades every aspect of his film that remains remarkably entertaining throughout.

From its delightfully mysterious and lyrical opening shot, to the reprise of said shot, to the well timed at thought out ending, Mother is logical and intriguing cinema. Its revolutionary characteristics come not from innovative technique or plot structure, but from thoroughly analyzing its genre to find the most appropriate path to its haunting conclusion.

http://themoviebros.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mother_korean_movie-1.jpg

[Guaporense]

My god you liked it so much you reviewed it 4 times. :)

[Guaporense]

(not that I would know, though you'd be happy to know I have looked for it to watch but haven't been able to find it).

The tv version is on youtube (which is easier to understand because it is slower paced than the movie) but I don't think you might like it (it's quite like NGE but without the teenager angst). Also, it is similar with Tropical Malady in that both movies have a half about love between characters of the same sex but the execution may be slightly different.

[bluedeed]

My god you liked it so much you reviewed it 4 times. :)

Notice the subtle differences between posts. I think the second one was my best written

The tv version is on youtube (which is easier to understand because it is slower paced than the movie) but I don't think you might like it (it's quite like NGE but less about teenager angst).

Nonetheless I will give it a fair shake and approach it earnestly like any other film and try to understand it fundamentally.

[bluedeed]

Ah, the thread is fixed with my plethora of reviews of Mother down (I can only hope that the excess of it caused more people to see it). I've been watching less movies recently because of school, but the ones I have been were very interesting. Notably, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's A City of Sadness, which I saw earlier this week was quite possibly the best film experience I've had this year (this doesn't imply that I saw it at a theater). I would love to write something about that film, but I don't feel confident enough to write about it yet (I plan on seeing it several times over). The film I'd like to talk about today is much less ambitious, though has a technical assurance to match.

Before Sunset
11729
11730

The sheer prevalence of the term "Spoiler" in our film culture suggests that this film ought not to have had the effect on me that it did. Before I watched any of Linklater's three Before films, I knew there were three, already a disadvantage. As a young film explorer with a burgeoning sense of elitism, I was burning through films in my boundless amounts of free time without taking much time to let them sink in or leave any lasting impact. When it came to Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, I felt no different. Though being of supposedly the ripe age for this film, my cynicism kept grinding roughly against the two protagonist's dog eyed hopefulness. The film was, and is a throwaway film for me in Linklater's oeuvre. Being a completionist (I refuse to watch Life and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees until I can find Where is the Friend's Home) and, again, a cynic, I decided I needed to watch the second film.

The brilliance of the opening became apparent to me immediately. It begins with shots of all of the later locations of the film (something I'd catch on to early on), and quickly ushers us to an interview in a Paris bookshop with Jesse. I used to tell people that Before Sunset is a great film, but you need to see the film before it first for context, but I don't think this is true. As Jesse's interview becomes more of a surreal monologue in the last moments of timelessness before we're permanently grounded by the film's innate sense of time, we see everything we need to know for the film. Leave it to Linklater to be such an efficient storyteller (as I've said before, also on display in the third film). Not only are we seeing images from the first film that contextualize everything for us, most importantly about it, their youth. The final image of the previous film then forms a near spatial match of Celine in the bookshop, with her hair tied back in a similar but more unkempt fashion. It's the first great moment of Linklater's film, utilizing a very simplistic technique in an incredibly appropriate and naturalistic way that brings both films into the same space. It's prime Linklater.

The next few cuts tease the relationship between the two, not in a way to delay their meeting, but to add to the anxiety that comes from Jesse's obligation to the interview and seeing the woman he just wrote a book about. Once the two of them make first contact, we're now in the film, the clock has started. The characters know this, and we're given this explicitly by seeing Jesse sort out his plans before leaving.

What follows after this scene is what we've come to expect from Linklater since his also wonderful debut film, Slacker, an extended two person conversation. This portion of the film takes up the vast majority of the run time, and there's a few things I don't like about it. While most of the walking scenes are done, of course, with a tracking camera in front, or behind the two (in a better way, I think, than the method popularized by Aaron Sorkin via The West Wing, also it's far more interesting than Sorkin's dialogue, which is basically punchline dialogue), the stationary scenes are broken up to much into closer, single shots than I think is necessary, and I think it would've added to the film's sense of time and space if these scenes were done in more in extended two-shots. This would also allow the actors, who clearly seem capable of this, to feel out their performances more holistically, this could be a great film about body language if they gave them the opportunity. Forgive me for not talking about the content of their conversation, I think it's a highly subjective undertaking, and while it's extraordinarily interesting, I'd like to talk about structure more (Linklater has expressed concerns that nobody talks about the structure of Slacker, only the content of the conversations).

Once Celine and Jesse sit down at the coffee shop, all we get are over-the-shoulder shot-reverse shot patterning...
11732
11731
besides an interruption from the waitress
11733
Granted, these shots aren't tight close-ups, but I still think they're a little at odds with the rest of the film's extended two-shots. The similar patterning in the last scene of the film could be considered a flaw, but the framing is much more relaxed and open, and therefore feels more natural to me.

How long have I been writing? Anyways, the last thing I'd like to talk about in the film is the exquisite ending. This scene clearly begins with the ascent of the staircase towards Celine's apartment. Until that moment, the film's trajectory could have shot in any direction, but once the silence falls while the two walk cautiously up the staircase, the final location is determined. This plays along intimately (as most of the film does) with the meta-context that we get from having he ability to see what point in the film we are at. Being a very time conscious person, I cannot watch a film without knowing how much of it is left because I know I'll be very busy (or plan for another movie to watch immediately) once the film is over. Before Sunset is the one film that I feel was aided by this ability, and made the ending that much more shocking and definite.

The film expertly juggles the final scene. I remember thinking the first time through that Celine getting the guitar was going to ruin it, and maybe it should have for its explicitness (and more forced awkwardness), but I was too enraptured by the film's prior mastery to be taken down by that, and what follows is as sublime an ending as can exist to a film like this. I cannot stress how perfect this slow, premature fade out is. I was struck immediately by how much longing and beauty Linklater could pack into a simple reverse shot. As the film before it crafted an ending and played it out at peak emotional intensity, this sequel lets the ending just kind of float over that final image, causing the film to both end much at odds to our expectations, and also far before we know it. This fade is by all counts definite. It reflects an almost immediate slowing down of the film to nearly a halt, and clearly indicates through a formal technique that hadn't been used prior that what we're seeing is different from everything before. It is the end of the film, but Linklater stresses that it is only that. Our time bearing witness to these lives is over, as much as we yell at the screen and demand more. Again, simplistic formalism in the most appropriate and naturalistic setting is Linklater's brilliance.

http://www.reverseshot.com/files/images/pre-issue22/b4_sunset_4.preview.jpg

Thus, the sequel to a film I found entirely forgettable became one of my favorite American films of the last decade. Linklater is no where near as ambitious as my other favorite working American filmmakers (Lynch and Malick), but he reflects an innate knowledge and exact utilization of the basic tools of cinema and creates films that reflect the possibilities of Hollywood cinema with only slight reevaluation. I'm not saying his films are perfect (I still find the emotional climax of Before Sunset to be slightly off due to Celine's initial outbursts and yelling at the driver in English, not French), but, like I suggested about Bong Joon-ho Linklater represents a wholesale alternative but not rejection of Hollywood romance and the sequel, and the possibilities are a marvel to behold.

[seanc]

Sunset and Midnight were amazing. Sunrise left something to be desired for me however.

[bluedeed]

The State of My Favorite Films

In looking at my list of favorite films I always feel disappointed. It's not as though I am disappointed in the films I have chosen or my lack of knowledge of the medium, but rather that all of that which I considered favorite is past tense, explored to a great degree and set aside until I finish some more exploration in film. My list has always looked back instead of forward. My other concern was how quickly my tastes and knowledge changes. Looking at my old list, it's essentially American and Japanese centric. I still think these are perhaps the two greatest world cinemas (though France might beat out the former), but I have since seen films that I have loved from many other countries than these. Putting only Japanese and American films on a list is just as uninteresting as putting only American. I clearly felt the need for revision, and thought I should comment on the changes as I think it will serve as a good landmark for me to look back at and analyze.

My old list was as follows:
Sherlock Jr.
Late Spring
Barry Lyndon
Crimes and Misdemeanors
The Magnificent Ambersons
Sansho the Bailiff
Days of Heaven
Werckmeister Harmonies
Chinatown
Kwaidan

Most of these films have not decreased in stature for me, some of them are still on the revised list, but a lot of them I feel aren't representative of my interests. The new list is as follows:
Sherlock Jr. by Buster Keaton
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2A1kgg4LMlU/UCLz-sETq6I/AAAAAAAAAIk/ko0x112rHKY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-08-08+at+6.48.56+PM.png
Late Spring by Yasujiro Ozu
http://thefilmgrapevine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/the-noh-play-late-spring.jpg
Sansho the Bailiff by Kenji Mizoguchi
http://www.reverseshot.com/files/images/pre-issue22/Sansho3.preview.jpg
The first three Films are films from my previous list. Sherlock Jr. is no less fun, exhilarating and wonderful now as it was the first time I watched it. It, for me, represents so much of what makes me love the cinema and is probably the most solidified film on my list. Late Spring I find more powerful upon each viewing and is one of the most perfect films ever made. It is also a stand in for the director that I feel the strongest connection with, Yasujiro Ozu. Sansho the Bailiff is the greatest and most powerful film from a director who reflects the more academic side of cinema for me. Mizoguchi represents the study of cinema as one would study an art or science.

Satantango by Bela Tarr
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/sevenarts/cinema/satantango1.jpg
Playtime by Jacques Tati
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nDmwSDJNbj0/ScIC0YURb1I/AAAAAAAADCQ/C0inUV4W3j4/s400/Tati_Playtime_02.jpg
Days of Heaven by Terrence Malick
http://moviemezzanine.com/wp-content/uploads/days-of-heaven-4.jpg
Two new films to my top ten and one old one. In lieu of the fair degree of people who have now seen Werckmeister Harmonies, this is in part an attempt to get more people to watch more Bela Tarr, and Satantango may be his best film. It is a film of unbelieveable craft with every shot worth of intense study; one that connects with my cynicism and in its strange godless world, feel more spiritual and revelatory than any other film I've seen. Playtime is a film I'm constantly struggling with. While I find the films underlying currents to be shallow and counter to my beliefs (the difference between Tati and Keaton for me), the film is undoubtedly one of the most complex films shot for shot. Tati's masterpiece of comedy requires a great deal of viewing and re-viewing, each time is more wonderful. I'm by no means finished learning from Playtime and I don't think I will ever be. Days of Heaven, over forty years after its release still represents a way forward for cinema. Like all of Malick's films, it feels like an alternate evolution from silent to sound film, subtle and profound, it feels like a discovery every time.

Tropical Malady by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT7slVL4ZZXoKx8V3MzHtBtGNO1q4aYNtzi0oOTHXlHykNqkBnb-Q
Pierrot Le Fou by Jean-Luc Godard
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDzLE976jUpGHomsyqsdFBFKPfaZbwHxWjgGxfemYn7ms-rVSm
The most recent film on my list, Tropical Malady restores my faith in modern cinema. Weerasethakul's cinema is the best of the 21st century so far, incredibly mystifying, observant, eloquent and illogical. His films are the way forward for modern art cinema and reflect my interest and love for modern film. As much as I absolutely love Pierrot Le Fou, I admit it is a pretty volatile film on my list. This is not to reflect a momentary interest in the film as much as it is an underdeveloped knowledge of Godard. Godard's many wonderful films have stuck in my mind recently, from Breathless to 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, to Passion and King Lear, most of these deserving of greater inquisition. Pierrot Le Fou is a symbol of my love for and anticipated investment in Jean-Luc Godard.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by F.W. Murnau
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Y32nBaee2kw/TL33iR9F3sI/AAAAAAAABKo/LjnYoUGEQKM/s400/sunrise_double_exposure.jpg
Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSJHNOZjgtm9haaKaBj2GiodidspPMgzlgR6nGDPImFIMWWQF5Gcw
A stand in for my terribly low exploration of silent cinema, Sunrise is where my inspiration and interest in silent cinema is derived. Murnau's masterpiece perfectly represents what I find fascinating and interesting about the medium and it urges me to explore further. Like Pierrot Le Fou, Close-Up is perhaps my favorite film from a great director I am in the midst of studying. Hopefully I will soon be able to see the Koker films, which I haven't seen due to not being able to find the first film, but Kiarostami is already solidified as one of my favorite filmmakers. Close-Up also exemplifies one of the most interesting movements within modern cinema that started with Murnau actually, the fusion of documentary and fiction.

This list has some notable absences, no more Welles, no addition of Hou, but I feel it is the first optimistic list I've made, that I'm happy to represent and will drive me to further explore cinema with the same passion as when I first started.

[mark f]

I always think the best lists are very personal ones, so it appears you are on your way to developing one so I applaud it and you. My favorites would be Sherlock Jr., Days of Heaven and Sunrise. I haven't seen Satantango and Tropical Malady, though I will, but it's hard for me to believe they can be more poetic than Werckmeister Harmonies or Uncle Boonmee. I know you have certain muses (filmmakers and critics) you trust, but after you follow them, remember to try some you haven't thought much about and maybe even seem to be for hoi polloi because there's really no way for people to honestly know their personal tastes if they're only exposed to a limited spectrum of film, whether their brows are high or low. I'm not speaking of specific people here. ;)

[bluedeed]

I think this is the most personally significant list I've made. It better represents my exposures and each film has a specific meaning and context within my life and describes a relationship I have with cinema. I think that Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies are near equal masterpieces, whichever is on top depends on my point of view on any specific day. I think Tropical Malady is the film on my list that is most closely related to the point in my life that I'm at. While this possibly means that this is the most likely film on my list to leave later, between Blissfully Yours, Syndromes and a Century and Uncle Boonmee, Weerasethakul's cinema is surely among my favorites.

[Guaporense]

What about your top 10 worst movies?

[bluedeed]

What about your top 10 worst movies?

Who invited you to my thread? I don't have a full list of 10 worst movies yet, I haven't seen much absolutely awful stuff because I know my tastes

[Guaporense]

My favorites would be Sherlock Jr., Days of Heaven and Sunrise.

Oh yeah, the american movies. :)

My favorites on his list are Late Spring, Sancho the Bailiff and Barry Lyndon.

I haven't seen Satantango and Tropical Malady, though I will, but it's hard for me to believe they can be more poetic than Werckmeister Harmonies or Uncle Boonmee.

Satantango is even better than Werckmeister Harmonies because it's almost 4 times bigger. Though I think that Werckmeister Harmonies has even longer shoots on average (4 minutes long versus 3 minutes on Satantango).

I know you have certain muses (filmmakers and critics) you trust, but after you follow them, remember to try some you haven't thought much about and maybe even seem to be for hoi polloi because there's really no way for people to honestly know their personal tastes if they're only exposed to a limited spectrum of film, whether their brows are high or low. I'm not speaking of specific people here. ;)

Indeed. You only know if you will love something after you watch it. Before it's almost a black box. Though there are a few cases where you can know if you will like it or not if the director is very consistent, like Miyazaki or Kurosawa, but these directors are very rare.

[bluedeed]

My favorites on his list are Late Spring, Sancho the Bailiff and Barry Lyndon.

You certainly are playing attention :D

Satantango is even better than Werckmeister Harmonies because it's almost 4 times bigger. Though I think that Werckmeister Harmonies has even longer shoots on average (4 minutes long versus 3 minutes on Satantango).

Modern Time Forever is the greatest film ever made.

Indeed. You only know if you will love something after you watch it. Before it's almost a black box. Though there are a few cases where you can know if you will like it or not if the director is very consistent, like Miyazaki or Kurosawa, but these directors are very rare.

I'm more inclined to drop names like Ozu and Keaton, and I wouldn't say it's close to being a black box. It only is if you know nothing about the film beforehand.

[mark f]

Black boxes reveal. Black holes conceal. That's poetry, sorta. :)

[Guaporense]

I don't know from where I came up with the black box slang term.

[Guaporense]

and I wouldn't say it's close to being a black box. It only is if you know nothing about the film beforehand.

The expectation and the result of a movie may vary greatly.

Well, I knew that Spirited Away was supposed to be a good movie the first time I watched it. It was the first Miyazaki movie I watched. However, I was seriously blown away by it in a way I never expected. I knew it was supposed to be good, like The Usual Suspects, but when I watched the Usual Suspects I finished it and though that the twist in the end was sorta of cool but kinda of lame at that same time and I though it was a decent flick. So when I watched Spirited Away I never expected to experience such a masterpiece, it was easily top 5 material and easily the best animation I ever had experienced.

Same thing happened with 2001: I was expecting a nice movie but I was blown away by it, completely unexpected. I think it was my first genuine masterpiece experience and it took a few years after that for me to have any comparable experience.

I was slightly disappointed with The Godfather since I was expecting to be blown away by it harder than anything I ever watched before but I still considered it to be quite a great movie. Just not the type that blew me away like 2001 and Spirited Away.

While I was expecting a great movie with The Tree of Life and got a turd. Now I know that these movies that are favorites of critics tend to suffer from heavy selection biases. Usually, when a genre that critics don't admire very much in general is selected as a favorite (either in a list or in a prize) it's usually vastly superior relative to the favorite genre.

And when I was watching PMMM for the first time I also expected something interesting but not great. I knew it had won the animation prize in the Japanese media arts festival so it was supposed to be good, but there were several titles that won that prize that were "only" very good such as Summer Days With Coo and La Maison en petits cubes. It blew me away harder than anything I ever watched by far, partly thanks to my relatively low expectations, as I wasn't able to sleep for two days after I watched it due to the emotional impact. In fact, given it was one of the very few TV series that won that prize that is usually given to artsy shorts (i.e. La Maison en petits cubes) or feature length movies that are similar to a live action drama film (i.e. Summer Days with Coo and The Girl Who Leap Through Time), already implies it's above the quality of the usual winner. Combined with the fact that it contains many elements that are not admired by critics such as color coded characters with extremely cute "industrialized" designs and RPG elements incorporated into the plot, implies that given that it won the prize over all those stuff usually favored by the critics, that it is a work of far greater merit than the usual winner. Same applies when Spirited Away won the Oscar over the English speaking stuff.

[bluedeed]

In appreciation of Louie: Dad and Looking for Liz
Part 1: Dad
12223

Looking for some cynical humor to coincide with my current state, I decided to watch a couple episodes of Louie, which I’ve felt for a while to be among the best crafted shows on television. It compelled me to write about what more specifically makes the show unique among television comedies. It almost feels like an insult to call Louie a television comedy, certainly to call it a sitcom. The degree of experimentation and emphasis on a personal aesthetic is unparalleled among American comedies. It’s a testament to the show’s craft that I found these two random episodes so readily both hilarious and dissectible, as well as being in fairly close conversation with each other due to their distinct authorship.

12224

These episodes are back to back (or back to back to back if we consider the two part structure of the second episode’s narrative, a common structure) and from season three which featured a de-emphasis on the literalization of Louis C.K.’s craft through the interjected pieces of stand up, as well as being the most daring, partially due to a seeming increase in budget. The first episode is a complex (or, more likely, convoluted) narrative centered on Louie seeing his father whom he hasn’t talked to in two years. Louis playfully complicates racial history as well as continuity again with the introduction of Louie’s uncle Ex. This Lynchian character and scene nicely anticipates Lynch’s appearance two episodes later. Louie’s kids are white, though his ex-wife has been played serially by a black woman, and we know his father is from Mexico from the episode Miami (also true of C.K.). So why is Uncle Ex played by F. Murray Abraham, who has Middle Eastern heritage, in a performance that simulates what I took as Eastern European royalty? Since Louie has never really committed to being a serial show, the connection is completely up to the viewer to decide what relationships matter, and what might be the purpose of his use of Murray as an actor. It came to me as an analysis and comedy of manners of racial portrayals on television. Ex’s eccentricity is taken to a grotesque and uncomfortable extreme and demystifies any exoticism he might possess as a rich foreigner. It’s uproarious and complex comedy:

Louie becomes inexplicably sick following his meeting with his uncle at the very fancy Russian Tea Room and sees a doctor. The episode keeps both narrative and thematic continuity in this conversation that sets up a very sitcom-esque plot soon to be deconstructed. The sleight of hand in C.K.’s humor I this scene may make it feel unremarkable. C.K. hints at a bit of absurdism in our traditional narrative expectations. When Louie mentions that he had lunch with his uncle at the Tea Room and ate a Cornish Hen, it initially piques the doctor’s interest, but his follow up question is discontinuous as he asks what he talked with his uncle about. This seems natural because we’re pretty sure how the plot will develop at this point since his uncle told him to see his father who he hasn’t talked to in two years, but the downplaying of the situation as well as the addition of a possible medical cause touches upon the absurdness of our expectations before it indulges them in order to set up the major joke of the episode.

To talk about the final moments of the episode seem nearly beside the point. It’s certainly the most important and hilarious one in the episode, but it comes as not entirely an afterthought so much as an inevitable conclusion. The narrative takes so many conversational sidesteps that are just as nuanced and complex that he leaves a distinct amount of time for. Like a lot of episodes, it’s both self-contained and meta-contextual, and questions the conventions of television comedy.

12225

As clear of an ending that was to my glance at Dad, there’s one more scene that’s crucial to looking at the following episode. With more of a light comedic tone, Louie shops for a blu-ray player in some Best Buy type store. The staff at the store turn out to be completely unhelpful, as the reluctant helper, who flips him off when Louie’s back is turned, has no knowledge of the player Louie has a question about, simply reading the package for a minute, inconclusively. It sets up a common thread of the terrible service Louie consistently receives from low wage workers. C.K. refuses to oversimplify his joke when one of the workers causes him to fall over, which is conveniently caught directly on camera. Louie tells the manager he’s been assaulted, and he initially him seriously, but once he sees the hilarity of Louie’s fall, he and the security guard cannot contain their laughter. Rather than being a simple emphasis on nobody caring or taking their job seriously, it turns the tables on Louie’s lawsuit of principles, making fun of how direly he viewed the situation due to petty (and generational) anger.

[bluedeed]

One of the only two lists I'll care about this year is out from Reverse Shot. It's great to see that Malick still has his champions as he transcends and moves towards a more challenging and engaging cinema with quite possibly his most complex film in the second age of his career.

http://www.reverseshot.com/article/reverse_shots_best_2013

[bluedeed]

Flowers of Shanghai by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-03-24-09h43m14s112_zpsfbe7f38e.png

Is Flowers of Shanghai an experimental film? The film is rigidly structured on a specific formal device as with many of the later films by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Each scene begins and ends with a slow fade and consists entirely of a stationary shot with fluid, languid panning and camera movement through the rooms of the Shanghai flower houses. The flower girls are demarcated by the colors associated with their name, but most of the male characters receive little introduction or distinction from one another. Familiar faces such as Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Jack Kao help keep track of characters to an extent, but for the most part, relationships and identities remain oblique during the first viewing. The film’s plot both begins and ends in medias res while naturalistically but jarringly sending our central character to Guangdong a half hour before the film is over. The whole concept of conventional plot structure seems subverted in favor of an elliptical and ensemble style narrative where each character’s trajectory receives momentary glances rather than larger arcs.

These distinctive qualities seem to suggest the experimental nature of Hou’s film, often cited as his most difficult work. Why then, does the film not feel remotely experimental to me while I’m watching it? Certainly the exotic nature of the film positions it more alongside the typical Asian imports. It’s a Qing Dynasty Shanghai costume drama that heavily emphasizes the exotic beauty of the time period buildings and clothing. The presence of mainstream Hong Kong and Chinese actors such as Leung, Michelle Reis and Carina Lau also position the film at least partially in a more mainstream lens even if it is certainly not a mainstream movie. The film does contain an exquisite beauty, with the sets lit by oil lamps that exquisitely bring out the intricate and beautiful colors of the locations and the people. An incredible amount of effort went into the creation of these images, leading Peter Sellars to call Hou Hsiao-Hsien one of the few remaining great craftsmen of cinema. The intensely delicate way that Hou handles his both the film’s discursive content and the visual (and audio) aesthetics of the film make it more than an experimental film.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-03-24-09h38m33s113_zps4073dc09.png

Flowers of Shanghai exists in a fully formed world of its own, where the narrative and formal experiments result from the world of the film rather than the director’s head. Not only do the characters exist well beyond their narrative means, but the spaces and the camera also seem to transcend the film’s very specific time, place and actions as well. While it is certainly experimental, it is also the work of a master at the peak of his craft. Like the great master, Yasujiro Ozu, in the hands of Hou, a cinematic experiment becomes a wholesale alternative to approaching the medium. Hou’s radical formal and narrative strategies are intensely thought out systems that are used to convey a deeper and more specific meaning than could be told through more conventional means.

The camera in Flowers of Shanghai strikes a direct connection with one of the film’s key aspects. The way the camera will lazily glide across the screen parallels the constant intoxication of the characters onscreen, via both alcohol and opium. It constantly reminds us of the characters’ melancholic state of inebriation as well as the British imperialism that manipulatively brought about this centerpiece of the men’s’ lives. The lack of physical presence of outside powers in the film is noticeable in one scene where an outside commotion is heard outside of one of the houses. Rather than “cut” to a shot of what’s happening we remain within the strict aesthetic parameters of the film and focus on the brooding Master Wang (Leung) while others go and look. We never find out what’s outside because the film isn’t interested in the outside world, or the present world for that matter. In accordance with the concerns of Hou’s cinema, what concerns the film is the past, both personal and national. The use of opium in the film (and camera) is used less as an indication of the present as it is a harkening to the way that the past has profound influence on the present. The country’s past indoctrination to opium affects the characters more than any of their individual actions just as Master Wang’s freedom is restricted by his past with the flower girl, Crimson (Michiko Hada).

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-03-24-09h38m57s102_zps917c861d.png

The film needn’t be so concerned with the outside influences because, like in all of Hou’s films, there’s a wealth of cultural and lingual diversity in the confines of the flower houses. It’s no small significance that Crimson’s most loyal patron speaks her native Cantonese. Is Master Wang as much a foreigner here as the Europeans? His loneliness and inability to connect with the others is emphasized in the drinking scenes, where he rarely speaks since he knows very little Shanghainese. This is the second time that a Hou film has featured an astounding performance from Tony Leung, and also the second one where Leung’s inability to speak the main language of the film carries thematic intent.

One of Flowers of Shanghai’s most peculiar characteristics is the lack of sex or for the most part any sexual tension or implication. The film plays out as rather a series of economic and politically charged discussions. More important and certainly more interesting than the flower girls’ sexual affairs are their power struggles between other girls, other houses, and more obliquely, their “Aunties.” The fact that these “Aunties” are only ever referred to as such rather than as explicit owners of the girls indicates the obscure nature of these relationships. The authority that they have over the girls is unclear, and there are a few hints at their treatment of the girls that involves frequent beatings. In one of its many facets, Flowers of Shanghai is about the social cultures and norms that rigidly structure and control their daily lives. Thus the invariable shot structure not only mirrors the heavy opium and alcohol usage, but the strict confines of the film’s social structure.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-03-24-09h41m48s13_zps47ab448d.png

For all those who dismiss Hou as a pure formalist, Flowers of Shanghai has one of the purest examples of how formalism and narrative can work in perfect harmony. Later in the film, but, importantly, not late in the film, there is a formal bend. Rather than a holistic breakdown of the aesthetic, the film momentarily inverts what we’ve come to understand as the aesthetic rules. Master Wang shows up in the flower house containing Crimson (not Crimson’s flower house) drunk after one of the many crowded dinners. As Wang searches for Crimson, he lies down on his belly to peek underneath a screen. Hou then fades from the shot, which anticipates an ellipse over the subsequent events. Instead, Hou fades back in on a POV shot (the only one I know of in Hou) through Wang’s eyes. There’s still some element of obscurity here as the only action we see is a hand pick up clothing from the ground. The following shot is another typical long shot that follows Master Wang destroying the room filled with item that he had purchased for Crimson. In this scene, everything about the cultural norms is eradicated by the purest emotion we’ll see in the film, briefly. The following scene involves Wang being convinced to make amends with Crimson. Similarly, Crimson was acting completely within her usual boundaries when Wang destroyed the room. This scene is an attempt to escape and it’s a bend in the rules of their society, as the POV shot is a bend in the self-imposed rules that Hou has set up for his cinema. This scene also makes the most explicit reference to sex in the film. The idea that a single act of sex has such a strong impact on a film that is about prostitution is certainly peculiar. This emphasizes what the people in the film are actually searching for, companionship. Its implications are far reaching within the film as well. Wang is devastated that his loyal flower girl is seeing another caller although he has been seeing another flower girl himself. There is hypocrisy in his anger yet we also realize that there is hypocrisy enforced on him, as callers are expected to stay with one flower girl while the flower girls are expected to have many callers. It’s a cycle of structured self-perpetuating loneliness that feels very familiar in our capitalist world.

Flowers of Shanghai is the kind of film that should inspire several full length books. The depth of the film’s thematic concerns, historical implications and aesthetic value are far reaching and multi-faceted. I tried to express many of the things that I found to be interesting and powerful in the film, but of course I’ve missed so much in the process. As it stands, Flowers of Shanghai is the most audacious film by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, that pushes the limits of his craft and formal strategies. It ranks among his greatest films such as A City of Sadness and The Puppetmaster, and is among the densest and most fascinating films (along with The Wind Will Carry Us and The Quince Tree Sun) of the 1990s.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-03-24-09h42m22s103_zpsf4d22734.png

[donniedarko]

Nice review of Mother, I agree with you it certainly breaks the thriller cliche with its ending, The only other Joon-Ho Bong films I've seen are The Host & Barking Dogs Never Bite (have you seen that one?), and Madeo Is by far my favorite.

[Tyler1]

Great film, great review. Mark Lee Ping Bin was the cinematographer for this film, and deserves credit for giving it an unusually intoxicating look. If you ever wonder why Flowers of Shanghai (or Hou films of the 90s) turn out so dark, it was actually Hou's instructions to Mark Lee to make look as dark as possible.

[bluedeed]

Great film, great review. Mark Lee Ping Bin was the cinematographer for this film, and deserves credit for giving it an unusually intoxicating look. If you ever wonder why Flowers of Shanghai (or Hou films of the 90s) turn out so dark, it was actually Hou's instructions to Mark Lee to make look as dark as possible.

Major credit to Lee for the cinematography, one of my current favorites. He's worked frequently with Hou and also was co-DP on In the Mood for Love. I was very impressed with his ability to keep the image legible while Master Wang destroyed all of the lamps in Crimson's room. I'm glad that I was able to get a better version than the typical yellowed out version of the film, it adds so much complexity to Lee's color cinematography.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b28/ZenKoan/7ef11fc6.png
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/8415/vlcsnap2011053013h25m43.png

Also interesting about Hou's films, several of them, including two of his best, The Puppetmaster and A City of Sadness were co-written by Wu Nien-Jen, who played NJ in Yi Yi:
http://media.salon.com/2009/12/films_of_the_decade_yi_yi.jpg

The New Wave figures all seem to have many talents

[Tyler1]

^ Speaking of Wu Nien-Jen, I highly recommend his film 'A Borrowed Life'. It's quite rare though, but I'm sure you know where to find it. ;)

[bluedeed]

^ Speaking of Wu Nien-Jen, I highly recommend his film 'A Borrowed Life'. It's quite rare though, but I'm sure you know where to find it. ;)

Noted and located, thanks!

[bluedeed]

I was undecided on where to put this, so I decided to put it here.

Some highlights in picture with caption form from Out 1: noli me tangere so far (I'm a little over halfway done):


http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h13m38s224_zps004daeb2.png
http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h14m00s183_zpsb5c23244.png

The improv theater group's first session might be the weirdest, where they cover a statue in what appears to be poop while making baby noises and biting each other.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h15m41s174_zps6f954999.png

Meanwhile the other theater group is doing some actual rehearsal, which means spinning in circles and trying to get the right balance of singing and non-singing (in the same note/not note)

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h15m15s171_zps709d483c.png

Petty criminal Juliet Berto manages to get these guys to give her money by convincing them to take her to Africa, then saying she can't go because of her (made up) child. This plan makes no sense.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h16m15s5_zps9d3e9fb5.png
http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h16m20s51_zpsd5e6e3f0.png

Eric Rohmer appears with the most realistic fake beard in the history of cinema and is a d*ck to the deaf and mute Jean-Pierre Leaud.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h16m54s135_zpse38f478c.png

Juliet Berto visualizes and externalizes her solitude with a pair of poorly cleaned knives.

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h17m56s247_zps426aeede.png

The troupe who was concerned about the balance between singing and non-singing now tries the same thing with dancing!

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h17m31s246_zps97118468.png

Juliet Berto plays a game of cowboys vs. cowboys against herself until she gets tired of running up and down the stairs

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-18h19m04s154_zps8a61f325.png

Then she meets and attempts to steal from a myterious man playing chess against himself

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-30-18h44m45s203_zpsf0d5f12f.png

Leaud uses Balzac as a map through Paris...http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-30-21h30m00s26_zps6ebc9a68.png

And decides to go undercover as a reporter who can hear and talk at this Paris headshop...

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac139/bluedeed/vlcsnap-2014-07-31-17h59m29s180_zps26336c5c.png

And then proceeds to get stoned and eat a jar of jam in the corner while most of the other people are sleeping.

I hope this convinced everyone to watch the movie!!

[mark f]

Umm, not really.

[Mr Minio]

Yeah, I was convinced before!

[bluedeed]

mark f should see it, nimo

[Mr Minio]

He should see Satantango too

[bluedeed]

And Black Mass!

[Mr Minio]

The last one is a must!

[honeykid]

The stills tell me I don't want to see this. :D

[bluedeed]

Posting something I put in the Rate the Last Movie You Saw thread because I want it here. I think this is probably Panahi's greatest film, one of the greatest Iranian films, and one of the greatest films of the 21st century.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Closed_Curtain_poster.jpg

Closed Curtain (2013) by Jafar Panahi

5

This film has thus far been neglected by the critical population at large. It's as though people have assumed that his 2011 masterpiece, This Is Not a Film, was his final, all encompassing statement. In fact, Panahi has only widened his gaze, and increased the complexity of his already formidable cinema. This Is Not a Film is reaction, outcry from someone who has just lost something. Closed Curtain is the deep, slow longing, and yearning of someone who is attempting but failing to come to terms with what his life is now.

But, we must not forget, Panahi is making a film, his second since his ban from filmmaking. His third is currently premiering in festivals in Europe. This means he's living with paranoia, which is heavily and poignantly expressed in the film (the only film I can think of that expresses it better is Out 1). But the fact of Panahi's continued success is also a statement of privilege. Here, he seems to realize this, that his filmmaking is now a privilege and thus a responsibility. And he struggles with this thought. His cinema is now the voice of many people, of those who cannot express like he who has been given the fragile privilege to express. His cinema is now the cinema of the oppressed. But what can his cinema do, confined to the space of a single (and notably large) home, a singular canvas?

Like his mentor, Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi attempts to express the realities of his world, of the Iranian world, of our world, via the off-screen space in the frame. The power (or a power) of cinema is not in its ability to express, but in its ability to withhold expression. If This Is Not a Film was depressing in its expression of personal anguish, Closed Curtain is depressing in its stark and emotional (but logical) conclusions. The final statement of the film is simply that film is not enough.

[bluedeed]

My initial thoughts on Horse Money, which I saw Friday at Film Society at Lincoln Center

http://www.longpauses.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/horse-money1.jpg

Horse Money 2014 by Pedro Costa
5

The newest film from Ventura and Pedro Costa (whose name appears after the central cast in the credits) reminds me of two comments made by Costa in interviews. The first is a comment about the way Costa and his actors make their films. Costa said that he wants to be like Val Lewton, the famous producer of "horror" films in the 1940s at RKO whose films, especially the Jacques Toureur directed I Walked with a Zombie, are a major influence on Costa. Though Lewton was a producer, who normally have cursory influence on the films they produce, always chose the lighting for the films he produced. One gets this feeling from Horse Money all throughout, as though Costa is setting the lighting and camera while his actors act out their past. Much of what occurs is so personal, Vitalina reading of all of the Notary information available of her and her recently deceased husband's lives, Ventura and his cousin singing a folk song and arguing about the lyrics, that it's impossible to know or experience anything but the depth of expression present on screen. If Colossal Youth inverted the Brechtian nothingness of In Vanda's Room, Horse Money represents a frightening middle ground, where we, the film watchers and the characters in the film, experience the tragedy of a Fordian hero but find ourselves unable to understand it.

The second comment I am reminded of is one of the most perceptive points on the great Japanese filmmaker, Yasujiro Ozu, that I've ever heard. Costa says that the images in Ozu appear to shake, ever so slightly, in their stillness. There is no better way to describe the images, presented more as a series of images than as scenes in a film, than Costa's own comment. There is physical shaking as well. Ventura is suffering from a nerve disease, which causes him to constantly shake. The few camera movements that do exist in the film, of which there are only two that I remember, hit like a brick in their unusual speed and both times threaten to tear the film apart at the seams. In a talk given in Tokyo, Costa brings up an comment that Kenji Mizoguchi made of Yasujiro Ozu, who said, "What that gentleman does with these doors is more difficult than what I'm doing." Mizoguchi was also a master of doors, as Costa recognized when he duplicated the ending of Street of Shame in Ossos. In Street of Shame, and in Ossos, the closing of the door represents an emotional blackout, the characters are telling us to stay away and we're cut off from them emotionally. In Horse Money, the doors are open, but we can't see through to the other side, just an abyss or, like Ozu, another door.

http://timable.com/res/pic/6bf9556c228048d2340cf4c0e9f7d4952.jpg

Beyond these cursory connections, it's hard to say something specific about Horse Money given that it is, in itself, about a specificity of experience. Mark Peranson has written of Horse Money, “the most true-to-form analysis of Horse Money should proceed in this painstaking way, shot after shot, because to examine the film as a whole, or as a connection of scenes that flow one into the other, is an impossibility.” This is because the scenes, or shots, more correctly, in Horse Money’s case, are often more like photographs collaged together, like the photographs from Jacob Riis that open the film. The idea of the still moving image is something almost entirely unique to Costa’s cinema. Even other practitioners of Costa’s framing and staging styles like to cram mise en scene and movement into a scene. The strands of photographs in Costa’s films cause for a confused weightlessness of experience. Some shots have no indication whatsoever of when they will end. Like the dancing scene in Bela Tarr’s Satantango we sometimes wonder if a shot will go on forever. When Costa does cut from these kinds of shots, the compositions are thrown completely off center, such as a cut from Vitalina in three-quarter profile to a plain shot behind a man that seemingly ironically follows the rule of thirds to a T.

Horse Money is in fact so specific and personal, and of many persons, Ventura, Vitalina, Costa, Joaquim, Cape Verdeans, that the only appropriate response seems to be one’s own personal experience with it rather than any sort of evaluation. Describing the film in terms of plot is about as silly as trying to capture the essence of a moving image in static text. To describe the hospitals, alleys, blood filled woods and the ghosts that walk through them is only to limit one’s experience with them. To describe a bloody fight between Ventura and Joaquim would not only be unimportant, but potentially wrong given the elusive and obscure nature of every shot in the film. I can only deal with Horse Money as an experience, and not an object, hardly a film, at this point and potentially at any point in my journey with it.

In that sense, I found myself experiencing colors that feel new even though they plausibly cannot be. I felt the physical presence and absence of light more than in any other film that I can recall. I felt a tactility in the images that strikes counter to the film’s ghost world, everything in the film pleads to be felt, touched. Like Ozu, I look at doorways differently after having seen the film, yet in a completely different way than I would from an Ozu film. I have a feeling of history, but only a feeling, nothing concrete. What can be said about Horse Money, and the team, or more accurately the community of people that made it, is that they are creating a new art, and one that gets more complicated at every turn.

[bluedeed]

I'll add more images to this later, which are essential to the film. But most of the best images from the film are not yet available online. I'll use my own images when a copy of the film is available elsewhere