Currently reading...

Finished David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - thoughts to follow sometime this week.

Currently Reading W Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage

Why this classic at this point in time? Female trouble.

Film: Léolo - 1992

Leo is an imaginative 12-year old that writes with a lyricism well beyond his years. He writes to escape the stifling ennui of a working class Montreal family composed almost entirely of idiots and the mentally ill. He's a gifted outsider fighting the pressure to succumb to the muted brutality he was born into. His refutation: "Because I dream, that is not what I am."

Nearly every line of narration is a poignant portrayal of childhood's fear, discovery, joy, and ultimate sadness. Reality becomes the plaything of a boy coming to terms with the disconnect between the way he believes things ought to be and how they actually are. The lens often illustrates Leo's perspective with surreal flourishes of astounding creativity. The soundtrack is phenomenal and eclectic- ranging wildly from Tom Waits' melancholy blues, to medieval Tallis chorals and Tibetan throat singing. "Léolo" was French Canadian director Jean-Claude Lauzon's second and final feature-length film before his tragic death in a plane crash.


It's late at night. Consuming darkness abounds except for a small sliver of light illuminating the face of a boy intensely absorbed in the pages of a book. Leo is on the floor of the kitchen wearing mittens and a ski cap, reading by the light of the refrigerator.
Narration:
"I don't try to remember what happens in a book. All I ask of a book is to give me energy and courage to tell me there's more to life than I can take... to remind me of the need to act.

It was the only book in the house. I never wondered how it got there. It was thick. The words were pushed together and required enourmous effort and concentration to yield their secret.

At home, I never saw anybody read or write. Television and Billboards cluttered my brain. In the beginning I read the underlined passages without really understanding. I remember wanting to give up because there were no pictures.

I find my only real joy in solitude. Solitude is my castle. That's where I have my chair, my table, my bed, my breeze, and my sun. I sit in exile. I sit in a fake land.

Because I dream, I am not. "

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Film: Betty Blue - 1986

Playing catchup this morning again, this was seen on 8/23.



Essentially a tragic romance film for the art-house set, Betty Blue completely exceeded my expectations. This film is full of life, and more importantly it's real - without belief in the genuine connection between the lovers, a film in this genre fizzles into a dead exercise in meaninglessness. Zorg and Betty mean a great deal to each other; he keeps her wild light grounded in reality and she fuels his buried artistic impulse. To the film's immense credit the touching interdependence between the two develops in a completely believable way without relying on the cliches and gimmicks that the genre typically makes use of.

I have the feeling many people were drawn to this one because of it's uncompromising erotic content. Admittedly, there is quite a bit of nudity (male and female), but it's far from crossing the boundry into softcore tripe. On the topic of of nudity, Betty Blue emphatically shouts (in my best French accent) "It's only natural!" The love between Zorg and Betty is real, so sex needs to maintain this naturalism as well. In a particularly memorable scene, an older fat disheveled-looking man enters Zorg's beachfront bungalow one morning and finds Zorg and Betty in bed, both completely nude without any tactically placed sheets covering them. They've obviously had one hell of a night, and the old guy's silly smirk of admiration shows he knows it too. Betty wakes to see this stranger staring at them, asks who the hell he is but doesn't cover herself. Zorg gets out of bed and asks the man to pardonnez-moi because the old guy is sitting on his pants. Hillariously the fat man remarks "I like to sleep naked too." Zorg proceeds to make coffee and it's back to business as usual. In essence, the film's nudity doesn't have an erotic intent; rather it serves to convey the unabashed intimacy of two people in love.

Betty Blue is quintessentially French in all the best possible ways. Part of the pleasure of watching this film is in how it just nails the details of that culture. From its naturalistic handling of nudity to its love of romance, good food, wine and friendship; Betty Blue is a vibrant reminder of a culture that values the important things in life above all. Of all the wonderful little details of French life contained in this film one illustrates this slant perfectly. Zorg is running late delivering a piano to a client. He borrows the a huge truck from the small provincial grocer's brother-in-law. As he's speeding down the winding roads of the French countryside (with a full concert grand in tow) he's pulled over by a completely unsympathetic policeman. Of course Zorg doesn't have his license with him, doesn't own the truck, and was obviously well over the speed limit on a road not meant for such an enormous vehicle. His excuse to the cop: "I just found out today I'm going to be a father." Suddenly the officer changes his tune entirely, a huge smile of congratulations appears on his face and, as is only fitting, sings a song about fatherly responsibility. He waves Zorg off as he once again barrels down the road. Indeed, in France even the police officers have secret manuscripts that they're desperately trying to get published.

Echoes of Cassavettes' "A woman under the influence" are evident in the concluding tragic turn of this film as a gut-wrenching reminder that some flames just burn too brightly for this world.

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Film: Shanghai Express - 1932

I'm almost ashamed to admit this is the first Marlene Dietrich film I've seen. Why did I wait so long? She's absolutely G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. She easily dominates every frame with her disruptive beauty and laconic elegance.

Oh yeah.. and the film ain't bad either. Actually, Shanghai Express is really very good. The story is interesting, the romantic dilemmas intelligent, dialog witty, Von Sternberg's directing flawless, and cinematography that should serve as a textbook for mastery of light and darkness.


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Film: Calvaire - 2004

In the mood for survival horror in the vein of 2005's superb Wolf Creek, Belgium's yarn on demented country folk failed to deliver.

"Calvaire" (The Ordeal) slowly builds the right atmosphere, but when things begin to get out of hand Bartel just does not exhibit the pure malevolence expected from the primary antagonist of this type of film. He's more like a jolly mad uncle than the personification of evil. The loony villagers have a certain deliverance-like charm, but barely add to the waning tension. It doesn't help that the protagonist is a wimp. Pardon the pun if you've seen it, but in this case the dress fits.

In sum, find your shocks elsewhere.

IMDB

Film: The Silver Globe - Andrzej Zulawski - 1977/1987

I viewed Zulawski's "Na srebrnym globie" (The Silver Globe) a week ago and its haunting images are still reverberating through me.

Zulawski is like no other director I've ever come across. His films are masterworks of unrivaled intensity, often laying bare the deepest irrational spaces of the psyche. Purposeful absurdity and extreme emotional breakdown characterize nearly every frame. If I were to relate an image to this master, it would be like a peyote-crazed Shaman cursing the great void with all his being.

The Silver Globe is sadly an incomplete film. The Polish Ministry of Culture stopped the filming in the late 70s under the pretence of financial burden. Large sections of the film are missing, but have been filled in with Zulawski's own narration set to (quite bizarrely) footage of a bustling modern city. Fortunately, the bulk of the film has been pieced together from footage shot before filming was abandoned.

A short synopsis of the plot. A crew of 4 cosmonauts crashland on an earth-like planet in hopes of creating a new way of life that avoids mistakes made on earth. One dies early on, the other 3 set about procreating and eventually give birth to legion of primitive pseudo-tribal offspring. Time functions differently on this planet as birth to adulthood takes place with incredible rapidity. The original cosmonauts are worshipped by their children as gods from a legendary heaven called "Earth." Many years later, after the original explorers have died another "god" steps from a rocket. He is commissioned to lead the battle against evil bird creatures that live across the great ocean.

Religious allegory? Yes.
Political treatise? Perhaps.
Nearly 3 hours of insanity, panic, philosophical ranting, emotionally exhaustive beauty and horror? Most definitely.

How can one describe the experience of this film? Maddening, frustrating, hallucinatory, trance-inducing, enlightening, frightening, gorgeous... these are just a few adjectives that come to mind.

I can safely say there is really nothing else like it. Well, besides perhaps other Zulawski. Most of his films are notoriously hard to come by. The only other of his works I have seen (both of which I treasure dearly) are Possession and Diabel.

IMDB

Film: The Fountainhead - 1949

Playing a little catch-up today. This was viewed on 8/16.

An adaptation of the novel, the screenplay itself was written by Ayn Rand. A novel, incidentally, that had a great influence on me several years ago.

Can a sprawling, 700+ page experience be faithfully condensed into 2 hours? No.

Predictably, this one falls victim to the "I-read-it-first" syndrome. The actors are nothing like the characters pictured while reading, large swathes of non-trivial plot points are left on the cutting room floor, precious details are glossed over, insightful monologues become stagy, overacted embarrassments. It's like a hasty puppet-play of the novel with none of its depth and richness.

The film has 2 hours to effectively convey Rand's theory of objectivist individualism to the masses, and in my opinion fails due to heavy-handed pedagogical spoon-feedings and cold, cardboard cut-out characterization.

Oh, and Gary Cooper as Howard Roark? What on earth were they thinking.

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Film: Hausu - 1977

Few films deserve a genuine "wtf" - this is one of them. In a good way.

Japanese Pee-wee's playhouse on visual overload set to a horror theme starring nubile schoolgirls. Or something closely resembling that.

Mind boggling, completely random, and wonderfully unique... to quote the crazed watermelon vendor- "they don't make em like they used to."

IMDB

Documentary: The Bridge - 2006

24 people died by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. A film crew captured the daily comings and goings of the place that holds so much mystique to earn its reputation as the single location in which the most suicides are committed.


Very tastefully made, there is no distracting voice over full of facts and statistics or a voice of supreme moral judgement. Shots of life as it happens on the bridge, wrapped in wistful music make up the bulk of the film. The occasional jumps often come unexpectedly and are quite jarring. Interviews with friends and relatives of jumpers attempt to provide insight into their character and motives.

Sad and morbidly absorbing, this is one proves to be interesting, insightful and highly conducive to self-reflection.

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FIlm: Bad Boy Bubby - 1993

This was viewed on 8/10/07.


Quite the undiscovered gem. It's like Herzog's Kasper Hauser set in early 1990s Australia. Touching, disturbing, and reproachful all in the same breath, it really starts to roll after the first 30mins.

An IMDB user took the time to type this out, it's an excellent quote from one of the many strange characters Bubby meets... worthy of copying here:
You see, no one's going to help you Bubby, because there isn't anybody out there to do it. No one. We're all just complicated arrangements of atoms and subatomic particles - we don't live. But our atoms do move about in such a way as to give us identity and consciousness. We don't die; our atoms just rearrange themselves. There is no God. There can be no God; it's ridiculous to think in terms of a superior being. An inferior being, maybe, because we, we who don't even exist, we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth. We measure; we plot; we create wonderful new things. We are the architects of our own existence. What a lunatic concept to bow down before a God who slaughters millions of innocent children, slowly and agonizingly starves them to death, beats them, tortures them, rejects them. What folly to even think that we should not insult such a God, damn him, think him out of existence. It is our duty to think God out of existence. It is our duty to insult him. Fcuk you, God! Strike me down if you dare, you tyrant, you non-existent fraud! It is the duty of all human beings to think God out of existence. Then we have a future. Because then - and only then - do we take full responsibility for who we are. And that's what you must do, Bubby: think God out of existence; take responsibility for who you are.

IMDB

Moog Rogue will be leaving soon.

A simple, fun synth full of warm analog goodness. We must part however, it's not being used much anymore. I've been having a great time with my guitar looping and softsynth setup, and honestly I'm tired of maintaining vintage synths.

I'm thinking earnings will go towards a digital SLR or the beginnings of a doepfer/planB/livewire modular.

Mieze will miss it most of all.

Film: Gemini - 1999 - Shinya Tsukamoto

Quite a departure from previous favorites Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist, this one doesn't have the trademark hyperkinetic editing, high-octane industrial soundtrack, nor the visceral emotional punch of his best work.

This is in essence a rather tame revenge story, beautifully shot, set to ghostly theme music and bit of banal medical ethics thrown in.

Minimal and, in my opinion, rather insignificant work of Tsukamoto's.

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Film: Manderlay - 2005 - Lars Von Trier

With much regret I have to say this one wasn't nearly as intense, insightful, and involving as his previous film, Dogville.

It seemed more of an intellectual exercise, a political treatise of sorts devoid of any of the emotional rawness that made the first so great.

Grace has become an saccharinely idealistic, gullible, spoiled child that wants to impose her clearly unexamined, 2nd-hand moral perspectives on the unjust "state" of Manderlay plantation. Democracy introduced among those that aren't ready for it eventually results in murder. A dictator is toppled and the people, yearning for the comfort of habit, seek a new one. The point became all to clear in the closing credits with a picture of Bush and a zoom shot of the world trade center.

Humanity is what is lacking from this film. Perhaps this was part of Von Trier's point? Implementing abstraction requires superficial players.

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Film: The Cremator - 1968

Considered a Czech New Wave masterpiece, "Spalovac mrtvol" (The Cremator) flows from one scene to the next as smoothly as Mr. Kopfrkingl's effortless downward spiral into the role of mass "liberator of souls."

Words simply won't do the stylish and extremely artful filming/editing much justice. Incredible transitions, symbolic framing, fish-eye perspectives, strange angles- all pulled off in such a beautifully subtle manner, coloring the action and the ever-present monotone drone of Kopfrkingl's speech.

I've read some consider this one a dark comedy, I failed to find any humor in it. A tale of how a man's morality can easily be shaped to serve a new agenda, no matter how essentially immoral that agenda might be. When self-justification to the point of insanity gets rid of the dissonance, even murder transmutes into "the relief of suffering." A chilling insight that there is essentially no real basis for the tales one tells oneself- reasoning from arbitrary axioms permits anything.

IMDB