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Our Daily Bread
The food chain has some curious links
More than one man went to mow
Most of the food that passes our lips is prepared using a mixture of daunting technology and repetitive acts. This film documents some of those 'hidden' processes. Simple as that.
You are what you reap
This is documentary in a very 'pure' form - the director has specifically set out to observe, not to judge. There's no emotive soundtrack, intrusive editorialising or driving narrative. What you get instead is the hypnotic banality of field & factory work, combined with the hypnotic peculiarity of the 'robots' churning away behind the scenes. And it's frequently fascinating.
The reliance on ambient-sound alone proves particularly effective - even familiar scenes such as patiently-advancing combine harvesters gain some gravitas when their sheer size reverberates noisily towards the screen. But beyond the rush and swoop of even the more surprising machinery, lies the strange juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial. From the genteel greenhouse that is clearly alongside a (muffled) urban station, to the reams of robotic arms mimicking the timely sweeps of trance-limbed farmhands, an intriguing blend of dissonance and symmetry is brought to the table.
Despite the director's unblinking gaze the camera does still shy from some of the less palatable facts. You'll see few lives being ended, but a great abundance of strangely-distant acts. Chickens starting and ending their lives in drawers, cows puzzlingly blasted with straw, and pig carcasses circling a carbolic-sprinkled vision of hell. Thankfully humour and humanity still regularly swim to the fore, from convivial communal meals to the strangest window view you'll ever see. (Which I don't want to give away. Just like I'll stay quiet about the strange conjunction of a stick and a giant metal hand). One thing I will say though is something I never thought I would: salt mining has to be seen to be believed. There's always a bit of wonder around the corner in this film.
Without a Baraka-style soundtrack to forge you forcefully down a wild-urban stream you're left with the cumulative steady pulse of industrial dominion over animals, workforces & plants.
But whether settled on a cart inching between dewy vines, or swooping on a 'Bond-villain' monorail through uber-sized barns, the camera catches it all very well indeed.
Doesn't always overturn as much earth as you'd like, and intermittently like watching radishes ripen, it still blows some plastic cobwebs off our easily-satiated view of food's role in our lives.
The food chain has some curious links
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More than one man went to mow
Most of the food that passes our lips is prepared using a mixture of daunting technology and repetitive acts. This film documents some of those 'hidden' processes. Simple as that.
You are what you reap
This is documentary in a very 'pure' form - the director has specifically set out to observe, not to judge. There's no emotive soundtrack, intrusive editorialising or driving narrative. What you get instead is the hypnotic banality of field & factory work, combined with the hypnotic peculiarity of the 'robots' churning away behind the scenes. And it's frequently fascinating.
The reliance on ambient-sound alone proves particularly effective - even familiar scenes such as patiently-advancing combine harvesters gain some gravitas when their sheer size reverberates noisily towards the screen. But beyond the rush and swoop of even the more surprising machinery, lies the strange juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial. From the genteel greenhouse that is clearly alongside a (muffled) urban station, to the reams of robotic arms mimicking the timely sweeps of trance-limbed farmhands, an intriguing blend of dissonance and symmetry is brought to the table.
|
Without a Baraka-style soundtrack to forge you forcefully down a wild-urban stream you're left with the cumulative steady pulse of industrial dominion over animals, workforces & plants.
But whether settled on a cart inching between dewy vines, or swooping on a 'Bond-villain' monorail through uber-sized barns, the camera catches it all very well indeed.
Doesn't always overturn as much earth as you'd like, and intermittently like watching radishes ripen, it still blows some plastic cobwebs off our easily-satiated view of food's role in our lives.
|
Last edited by Golgot; 07-11-08 at 11:27 AM.
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Buncha things i've seen recently...
The Spy in Black
Another Powell & Pressburger WWII propaganda flick that is charmingly composed and pleasingly off-kilter. It's biggest selling point is the daring humanisation of a German U-boat captain, who comports himself with both pride and honour during the ensuing espionage games. Despite almost silent-era visual characterisation later on, and some general melodrama, the pursuit of glorified-realism over stereotypical-perfidy stays at the fore, and meshes with the sleek-but-‘homely’ production style very well indeed.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff role & performance sits in the centre of his nuanced, ‘location loving’ direction like some weathered stone of truth. Which is great. And I’m particularly grateful to him for the naturalistic, blended picture he paints of the Texan/Mexican region and cultures. That’s the good, and it’s all good.
The bad is that the periphery characters suffer – with the women seemingly dispensable, and the wanton, racist border-guard he pitches himself against seeming too stereotypical to ever be fleshed out by the lacerating ‘journey of discovery’ they put themselves through.
The Consequences of Love
Poised but rarely posturing, this sedate and somewhat sedated Italian crime drama slides ever so gently through the normally nerve-jangling ripostes of power clashing with greed. And love. There is definitely some love bundled up in this silk handkerchief of film, delivered with crisp pragmatism, but lingering over the contours of its scenes.
What should you expect? A quiet man, in a quiet hotel. Being quiet, observing, being observed. For quite some time. But it does grow into a crime drama, so there are some moments of nerve-shredding duplicity and flashbacks of gunplay along the way.
The flashes and the bangs are a distraction from our protagonists seemingly crystallised preoccupations though. Is the nature of love to risk, to step out of the stereotype you may have made for yourself, to keep your honour while all about you are losing theirs? That and other introverted concerns, that might otherwise stay locked behind closed doors, get aired in and around the impersonal hotel. The overall effect is darkly comic, ironic, suavely turned out, fairly disheartened and jaded, but carrying some lingering clout.
Little Otik
Much to my chagrin, I only caught this half way in (!) but feel I can say something about it, having read reviews (& complaints) of some of the repetitious conceits with which it brims… (sorry, I’ll stop rhyming now
)
I joined it as a troubled couple struggled to nurture their newborn – a child hewn from a tree root (in tune with an old Czech myth). My impressions of what I saw were pretty favourable – with only one reservation - the voluble distaste seemingly shown for pregnancy, kids, & maybe even the concept of ‘rejuvenation/rebirth’.
Only knowing Svankmajer from Youtube’d shorts, I loved how his idiosyncratic close-ups, dystopic adverts, food fetishism and trademark stop-motion all fared well when fused into a feature-length film. The actors bore up well too in the face of his camera’s fixated gaze, and the general fecundity of the world he generated was a freaky delight – despite the stop-motion ‘horror’ not delivering traditional frights.
The feeling I was left to ponder, especially thanks to the thoroughly apt ending, was that oral stories have been replaced by visual myths – and maybe there’s a new daily bread being baked from that grist.
(PS, I lied about the rhyming)
Three Days of the Condor
Snarky 70s espionage shenanigans that see Redford in classically sky-blue-eyed form, counterbalancing the brashness of his bookish-spook-on-the-run, while Faye Dunaway is very hip to the demands of her kidnapee role. Crafted and crafty, with more than ample support from the likes of Max von Sydow as an ice-cold killer, its decade-defining paranoia and plucky defeatism still manages to feel somehow naïve to current eyes. Can’t fault the adroit direction, skittering script and crisp-yet-seductive cinematography though, as they conspiratorially refuse to assuage your doubts about ‘The Man’ and his spies.
Casino
Great production, great performances (well, not sure how big a stretch it is for Sharon Stone to play a beautiful-but-deranged woman, having heard some of her press conference contributions for Catwoman). But…
Somehow, it didn’t make that big a mark. Maybe it’s just well-trodden ground. The only memories it really conjures up now relate to the gruesome retribution scenes – and an overall feel of grit soiling Nevada skies. The period was well evoked, everything was paced and balanced beautifully, but it just felt like Goodfellas-revisited. Not a bad thing. Just not a new thing either – despite the Vegas setting.
Master & Commander
David-vs-Goliath in marvellously recreated boats. I don’t know if that’s how they sold it to the studios, but that’s its core pull for me. Crowe is effective as the self-important Captain (again tho, not sure if he’s pulling a ‘Sharon’ on that score). Bettany is suitably ‘passive aggressive’ as the Darwinist-surgeon taken along for the ride. But the sub-plot of their friendship inexplicably becomes a side-plot that takes up half the film. If the makers wanted the duo’s divide to have greater resonance they needed to do more than just take various meandering pit-stops through the Galapagos and invoke more of the historical conflict – or create a greater one between the two people involved. As it is, it’s hard to care about this period-feature, or Bettany’s character all-told.
Overall the direction handles the panoramic far better than the claustrophobic, leaving much of the personal drama perfunctory, which isn’t helped by the dialogue being fairly wooden (with the exception of one neat little pun). More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one.
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The Spy in Black
Another Powell & Pressburger WWII propaganda flick that is charmingly composed and pleasingly off-kilter. It's biggest selling point is the daring humanisation of a German U-boat captain, who comports himself with both pride and honour during the ensuing espionage games. Despite almost silent-era visual characterisation later on, and some general melodrama, the pursuit of glorified-realism over stereotypical-perfidy stays at the fore, and meshes with the sleek-but-‘homely’ production style very well indeed.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
|
Tommy Lee Jones’s gruff role & performance sits in the centre of his nuanced, ‘location loving’ direction like some weathered stone of truth. Which is great. And I’m particularly grateful to him for the naturalistic, blended picture he paints of the Texan/Mexican region and cultures. That’s the good, and it’s all good.
The bad is that the periphery characters suffer – with the women seemingly dispensable, and the wanton, racist border-guard he pitches himself against seeming too stereotypical to ever be fleshed out by the lacerating ‘journey of discovery’ they put themselves through.
The Consequences of Love
|
Poised but rarely posturing, this sedate and somewhat sedated Italian crime drama slides ever so gently through the normally nerve-jangling ripostes of power clashing with greed. And love. There is definitely some love bundled up in this silk handkerchief of film, delivered with crisp pragmatism, but lingering over the contours of its scenes.
What should you expect? A quiet man, in a quiet hotel. Being quiet, observing, being observed. For quite some time. But it does grow into a crime drama, so there are some moments of nerve-shredding duplicity and flashbacks of gunplay along the way.
The flashes and the bangs are a distraction from our protagonists seemingly crystallised preoccupations though. Is the nature of love to risk, to step out of the stereotype you may have made for yourself, to keep your honour while all about you are losing theirs? That and other introverted concerns, that might otherwise stay locked behind closed doors, get aired in and around the impersonal hotel. The overall effect is darkly comic, ironic, suavely turned out, fairly disheartened and jaded, but carrying some lingering clout.
Little Otik
|
Much to my chagrin, I only caught this half way in (!) but feel I can say something about it, having read reviews (& complaints) of some of the repetitious conceits with which it brims… (sorry, I’ll stop rhyming now
)I joined it as a troubled couple struggled to nurture their newborn – a child hewn from a tree root (in tune with an old Czech myth). My impressions of what I saw were pretty favourable – with only one reservation - the voluble distaste seemingly shown for pregnancy, kids, & maybe even the concept of ‘rejuvenation/rebirth’.
Only knowing Svankmajer from Youtube’d shorts, I loved how his idiosyncratic close-ups, dystopic adverts, food fetishism and trademark stop-motion all fared well when fused into a feature-length film. The actors bore up well too in the face of his camera’s fixated gaze, and the general fecundity of the world he generated was a freaky delight – despite the stop-motion ‘horror’ not delivering traditional frights.
The feeling I was left to ponder, especially thanks to the thoroughly apt ending, was that oral stories have been replaced by visual myths – and maybe there’s a new daily bread being baked from that grist.
(PS, I lied about the rhyming
)
|
Three Days of the Condor
Snarky 70s espionage shenanigans that see Redford in classically sky-blue-eyed form, counterbalancing the brashness of his bookish-spook-on-the-run, while Faye Dunaway is very hip to the demands of her kidnapee role. Crafted and crafty, with more than ample support from the likes of Max von Sydow as an ice-cold killer, its decade-defining paranoia and plucky defeatism still manages to feel somehow naïve to current eyes. Can’t fault the adroit direction, skittering script and crisp-yet-seductive cinematography though, as they conspiratorially refuse to assuage your doubts about ‘The Man’ and his spies.
|
Great production, great performances (well, not sure how big a stretch it is for Sharon Stone to play a beautiful-but-deranged woman, having heard some of her press conference contributions for Catwoman
). But…Somehow, it didn’t make that big a mark. Maybe it’s just well-trodden ground. The only memories it really conjures up now relate to the gruesome retribution scenes – and an overall feel of grit soiling Nevada skies. The period was well evoked, everything was paced and balanced beautifully, but it just felt like Goodfellas-revisited. Not a bad thing. Just not a new thing either – despite the Vegas setting.
WARNING: "spoilers" spoilers below
(Wasn’t entirely convinced by the turn Bobby’s character took into confrontational TV either – didn’t seem to square with his cautious persona. Part of the ‘based on real people/events’ thing I guess – in which case fair play. Just seemed to jar).
Master & Commander
David-vs-Goliath in marvellously recreated boats. I don’t know if that’s how they sold it to the studios, but that’s its core pull for me. Crowe is effective as the self-important Captain (again tho, not sure if he’s pulling a ‘Sharon’ on that score
). Bettany is suitably ‘passive aggressive’ as the Darwinist-surgeon taken along for the ride. But the sub-plot of their friendship inexplicably becomes a side-plot that takes up half the film. If the makers wanted the duo’s divide to have greater resonance they needed to do more than just take various meandering pit-stops through the Galapagos and invoke more of the historical conflict – or create a greater one between the two people involved. As it is, it’s hard to care about this period-feature, or Bettany’s character all-told. Overall the direction handles the panoramic far better than the claustrophobic, leaving much of the personal drama perfunctory, which isn’t helped by the dialogue being fairly wooden (with the exception of one neat little pun). More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one.
Last edited by Yoda; 10-22-08 at 08:00 PM.
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Thanks for the reviews Gollygosh 
nice to see you are still watching movies and not just talking about football 
nice to see you are still watching movies and not just talking about football
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"More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one."
I'm gonna drop that line in during polite conversation to try and appear more intelligent.
I'm gonna drop that line in during polite conversation to try and appear more intelligent.
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
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"More boot-in-mouth than Das Boot this one."
I'm gonna drop that line in during polite conversation to try and appear more intelligent.
I'm gonna drop that line in during polite conversation to try and appear more intelligent.
Originally Posted by Nebs
Thanks for the reviews Gollygosh nice to see you are still watching movies and not just talking about football
My team is bottom of the league, and about to take on the top of the Italian league. That'd be why (Altho I'm expecting the Gods of Comedy, who have dogged my beloved Spurs most thoroughly, to taunt us by throwing us a win )
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Interesting thread, I like your reviews. I have a question for you whenever you get a minute good sir. Would it be possible for you to go back to the first 2 or 3 pages and edit in the titles to the flicks you're reviewing? I don't know what happened as I'm sure they were there at some point but they're not there now. I was able to suss out what several of the flicks were but not all of them. If you ever have the time that is. I'll shoot you some pozzi's for the effort.
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Interesting thread, I like your reviews. I have a question for you whenever you get a minute good sir. Would it be possible for you to go back to the first 2 or 3 pages and edit in the titles to the flicks you're reviewing? I don't know what happened as I'm sure they were there at some point but they're not there now. I was able to suss out what several of the flicks were but not all of them. If you ever have the time that is. I'll shoot you some pozzi's for the effort.
Damn yep, been meaning to do that for an age. Will get on it now...
-EDIT- I am a rep whore, it is done
Last edited by Golgot; 10-27-08 at 07:42 PM.
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The Happiness of the Katakuris
Forget your troubles, come on, get eaten by a harpy...
Happiness is hard work
A bereft shoesalesman plunges his hopes into a last-ditch rural hotel, semi-unifying his semi-functional family along the way. Luckily his chirpy wife is genuinely full of chirp. Grandfather likes to knock out crows in midflight with chunks of wood. And could do worse. Semi-honourable daughter falls in love at the drop of anyone's hat. Her bolshy 'criminal' brother has picked up too much already, and doesn't intend to do more than that. Occasionally the youngest child narrates. Whenever reality isn't piling their collective plate with an inconvenient mound of corpses, that is...
Is it hard work being happy?
Every guest that turns up dies. That's more than bad karma, it's downright inconsiderate. The only solution seems to be to resort to song. And that's what the Katukaris do - and it's frequently hilarious. How much more fitting to resort to high emotion in the face of death, than when confronted by the Greasy prepubescent preoccupations that so many musicals fixate upon? Not that love doesn't rear it's coiffeured head - but when it does the pastiche involves beautifully littered wastegrounds, genuine flights of fancy, and dreams that drape themselves unconsciously over coffehouse steps.
There's a thrifty static nature to Miike's camera in most of these scenes, but his gonzo nature in pushing through the concepts involved makes the whole thing breathe. (That and the infectious 'amateurish' abandon that some of the actors throw in).
You're looking at a mad mix of influences and causes here though, and I'm not sure they all work. This Korean-based, apparently-culturally-revisionist, zombied-unromcom-family-flick only truly grabs friction if you buy into Miike's jadedly-garish take on mortality & the social 'nuclear-unity' trick. I can't fathom all the references, i can't dot all the 'I's, but i did feel the soap-opera WWII soldiers circling karaoke disco-balls were doing some good. Mutating plasticine matinee cliffhangers started to have a feeling of dead wood though - or at least, some form of woodworm eating through whatever Ark carries Miike through his own personal storms.
I'm torn on a rating. I'll give it this:
Healthily robust & pretty thoroughly deranged
Forget your troubles, come on, get eaten by a harpy...
|
Happiness is hard work
A bereft shoesalesman plunges his hopes into a last-ditch rural hotel, semi-unifying his semi-functional family along the way. Luckily his chirpy wife is genuinely full of chirp. Grandfather likes to knock out crows in midflight with chunks of wood. And could do worse. Semi-honourable daughter falls in love at the drop of anyone's hat. Her bolshy 'criminal' brother has picked up too much already, and doesn't intend to do more than that. Occasionally the youngest child narrates. Whenever reality isn't piling their collective plate with an inconvenient mound of corpses, that is...
Is it hard work being happy?
Every guest that turns up dies. That's more than bad karma, it's downright inconsiderate. The only solution seems to be to resort to song. And that's what the Katukaris do - and it's frequently hilarious. How much more fitting to resort to high emotion in the face of death, than when confronted by the Greasy prepubescent preoccupations that so many musicals fixate upon? Not that love doesn't rear it's coiffeured head - but when it does the pastiche involves beautifully littered wastegrounds, genuine flights of fancy, and dreams that drape themselves unconsciously over coffehouse steps.
|
You're looking at a mad mix of influences and causes here though, and I'm not sure they all work. This Korean-based, apparently-culturally-revisionist, zombied-unromcom-family-flick only truly grabs friction if you buy into Miike's jadedly-garish take on mortality & the social 'nuclear-unity' trick. I can't fathom all the references, i can't dot all the 'I's, but i did feel the soap-opera WWII soldiers circling karaoke disco-balls were doing some good. Mutating plasticine matinee cliffhangers started to have a feeling of dead wood though - or at least, some form of woodworm eating through whatever Ark carries Miike through his own personal storms.
|
I'm torn on a rating. I'll give it this:
Healthily robust & pretty thoroughly deranged
Last edited by Golgot; 05-07-11 at 11:10 AM.
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My God... that just looks fantastic! I will definitely pick this bad boy up if I ever see it somewhere.
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I actually give it the same rating you do, but I'm guessing my is higher than yours. I watched it with my brother, who owns it and told me it was really crazy, and while I agree with him up to a point, it just didn't seem quite as crazy as I expected, even if it's still worth a look.
How many people think Golgot's first image above reminds them of The Sound of Music? Bingo.
How many people think Golgot's first image above reminds them of The Sound of Music? Bingo.
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Last edited by mark f; 11-19-08 at 11:55 PM.
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That's a roger there big daddy. And then I started reading and I was like... This sounds interesting. I want to see it.
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One of the most supremely bonkers films ever made. Nice one GG.
If Takashi Miike didn't exist we'd have to invent him...
If Takashi Miike didn't exist we'd have to invent him...
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Originally Posted by mark f
I actually give it the same rating you do, but I'm guessing my is higher than yours. I watched it with my brother, who owns it and told me it was really crazy, and while I agree with him up to a point, it just didn't seem quite as crazy as I expected, even if it's still worth a look.
. I've 'flip-flopped' into upping it to a 3_5 now, but i'm still undecided. I've nudged it up just for the exuberance & abandon on show - combined with signs of a tight grip actually being held at the helm (on some themes). I just think it then loses points because i don't fully agree with some of the misanthropy i perceived - and felt he was actually too heavy-handed/repetitious in the way he 'hit' on 'the family' (and a bit tiresome on the popular culture front). It wasn't as dark or twisted as i was expecting. It could have ratcheted things up more on that score, but i felt the balance between (fairly generic) disturbing themes & comic release was nicely pitched a lot of the time. I don't know if any more hilarity and/or social-commentary-clarity would have emerged if it had ploughed a darker trail. (Altho i hear Visitor Q swings that way). And it was rarely 'wacky', thank god
Can't comment on the Sound of Music similarities, as i've never seen it. But for all i know there might have been a dash of phlegmatic racial stereotyping thrown into the mix
Originally Posted by Powdy
My God... that just looks fantastic! I will definitely pick this bad boy up if I ever see it somewhere.
Originally Posted by Tac
If Takashi Miike didn't exist we'd have to invent him...
Last edited by Golgot; 11-20-08 at 02:54 PM.
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Nice review, apart from showing the opening claymation scene, don't think i've watched it since it was my very first review on here all those years ago lol. As a more objective rating i would probably wouldn't even push it to a but do admire the sheer inventiveness Miike throws and the utterly unique take on cinema he has, as the other caption says "cinema was never meant to be like"
Mark, does the R1 DVD also have caption on the front "The hills are alive with the sound of screaming" ? Thought that made the Sound of Music allusion pretty apparent.
Mark, does the R1 DVD also have caption on the front "The hills are alive with the sound of screaming" ? Thought that made the Sound of Music allusion pretty apparent.
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I think he may actually be a claymation creation that fell into a volcano
Have you seen Izo, GG? I think it makes HOTK seem positively sane...
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