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Horrible women are only great in films

drrt

Annie Hall

How should I put it – I have been watching Annie Hall with nothing but the thought of Manhattan in my head. Surely I have been comparing both films the whole time, and their relation to New York.

First, New York. “Manhattan” showed the beauty of New York through Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and a certain poetry of the life in New York (yes, going to art exhibitions surely is one of the greatest and important things you can do in New York) while “Annie Hall” shows a clear attachment of the protagonist to the city by making fun of the horrid life in Los Angeles. Woody Allen’s neurotic characters reflects on New York as much as New York reflects on him, and that is shown in a much stronger and nicer way in “Annie Hall”. Unlike “Manhattan” however, this makes me feel a little a bit scared of New York though, haha.
I still want to live there one day, but before I turn 35 and not for longer than 2 years please :3

Next, Annie herself is the most outstanding and interesting character in this film. The whole film stands and falls with her eccentric character who, in my eyes, was horrible and brilliant at the same time. La-dee-dah. With her and Alvy’s relationships being the main topic of the film, a lot is spent on characterizing her – and that is brilliantly done in my opinion. Why Annie is horrible actually does not necessite any explanation: She’s similarily neurotic as him, she is extremely weird and full of complexes of not being good enough for him. She puts on horrible voices and is quite egoistic in the way she only really cares about herself and mostly doesn’t want to be lonely. On the other hand, she also is shown as an interesting, multi-faceted woman whose personality is inherently hilarious. You immediately understand why a man would be attracted to her, because she seems to be somebody special that you can have lots of fun with. Reality shows that being happy with such a woman probably is an impossible thing to do.

The character of Woody Allen himself is not all too novel now that I have watched Manhattan. The only thing that is added were the jokes about jews which were utterly hilarious of course. Allen is still a beautifully sarcastic, funnily neurotic person who makes me think of Schnitzler‘s Anatol. That guy, unfortunately, is much more of an asshole and totally not funny but some character traits in their inability of having a proper relationship is somewhat similar.
Also, “Manhattan” shines through the character of the 17-year-old girlfriend as the antipole to the somewhat childish and incapable characters of the rest of the supposedly more mature cast. Basically, I have enjoyed Manhattan more because it shows the dynamics of relationships between several people. I guess I just enjoy stories about interpersonal relationships more when more factors (i.e. people *hrr*) are involved. It touches me more and adds lots of (melo-)drama.

Similar to Schnitzler’s plays, Woody Allen’s films make me think about relationships (on top of making me laugh a lot ;) ). Basically I feel so reminded of the realities of relationships and how I definitely don’t want them to be. In films and in books, these relationships are greatest enjoyment and hilarity, of course.

Well, I love character-driven films like this that make me laugh many times. But really, Woody Allen is a genius for having produced films such as “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall”, although I admit that I preferred the former, mainly because the main characters made me facepalm a few times while “Manhattan” was just funny from the start to the end.

PS. I’m listening to “Kiss Me” on repeat now. How silly. I wish Truffaut’s grave would look as beautiful as in the music video. Unfortunately it’s full of metro tickets in reality.

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An failed attempt at defining “cinéaste”

Ah ah. I want this posting re-written but as long as I haven’t, feel free to read this draft.

This is a meta post, which means that I won’t be talking about a specific film, but films and my perception about it in general. For starters, as you all can imagine, I am quite opposed to seeing films from a purely academic perspective, and studying film would be the last thing I would be willing to do in my life, although it’s probably one of my most important interests outside of university. The german Wikipedia gives a quite interesting definition on cineast and the english one only says “movie enthusiast”. Now this is probably a little bit too broad, because you can watch movies excessively without digging deeper at all. Most anime viewers who watch more series than me don’t seem to care about what anime is, the financial state of the studios and their artistic development, names of people besides Anno, Miyazaki and Shinkai, or cross-references and trivia. Still, these people are quite some anime enthusiast like a lot of others are movie enthusiasts without knowing one single author or director’s name. There are other movie enthusiasts like me who haven’t watched all that many films, but know about more titles and names than they ever could watch.
On the other hand, it would not surprise me if there are students of film who are less of a movie lover than the people you find at the AwardsDaily forums, have watched less and are less knowledgeable (same for music, by the way). Studying just teaches you much less and in a very different way than when you actually enjoy it in your free time. (I see that with electrical engineers too, my my.)

Among the people who like movies, there seem to be large differences to me when it comes to their motivation of watching films. Basically what I can observe is this:
a) Social reasons: For example, when I was younger, I have seen quite a lot of horror flicks because I was dragged into those girl’s evenings that always comprised a silly comedy and then a horror movie. Comparably mainstream and social movies would be “American Pie”, “A Beautiful Mind”, “Pirates of the Carribean” and “Lord of the Rings”.
b) Pure entertainment: Some people like to watch a lot and actively research what could be interesting. However, they don’t read secondary literature all that much or research about the background of the films. They just enjoy talking about films and the film itself, not the background or the history of film, is what matters. This kind of movie enthusiast would never watch “Citizen Kane” because it’s horribly boring. Or “Casablanca” just because it’s a classic. They have a little bit of a l’art pour l’art approach to films (although it’s not exactly a good comparison as these people don’t necessarily seek “art”). They most probably watch screwball comedies like “Some like it hot”, suspenseful thrillers like “Infernal Affairs” and witty films like “Harold and Maude”. Also, these are the people who would come to watch extremely obscure things that I could never possibly name.
c) Small talk: People who only care about big names to be able to small talk. They obviously also have a bit of a background information for those small talk purposes. Entertainment is less important. Now I have never encountered such a person, but I suppose they exist. After all, I am like that with books – honestly my interest in books is much less of an entertaining nature, but it is a mix of the wish to brag about being well-read and genuine interest in culture, society and history. Most of the books I have read were a drag to read, but they were insightful. (“Citizen Kane” is particularily insightful to film history, by the way, but a drag to watch, imho.) These people only watch the necessary classics or influential films to brag with names like Godard (“Le Mépris”) and Monty Python (“The Meaning of Life”).
d) Academia: People who mainly are interested in films from an academic standpoint which actually stems from a genuine interest from what films are, and how they came to be. I suppose there isn’t all that much to explain about this.
e) “Lessons” for life: Similar to the discussion to whether a piece of literature should necessarily have a message, I am sure a major motivation for people to watch films is its closeness to real life. They transport us to situations that we will never encounter ourselves in a closer way than books or photographs would, or they reflect our own life, relationships and the likes. Or they show something about our society or political situation. Not only enjoyment, but a certain ‘depth’ is sought by people who prefer socio-critical films such as “Tropa de Elite” or “Dancer in the Dark”.

The kind of movie person I think I am, and always want to be, would a mix of all four with a proportion of 1:3:2:2:3. I can only describe it with the term cineast, even though the word is associated with the abominable elitism *cough cough* and I’d actually prefer to call it something else. Basically, I want to know a lot about the background of films (and therefore watch “Citizen Kane”, “2001” and films of the Nouvelle Vague mainly for understanding the history of film), and at the same time, the main purpose is still to enjoy and watch them. Also, I would feel horrible if there was nobody I could talk about them and surely I hope to be able to bring these things up in a business conversation. *harr harr*
Which means that these 4 types of motivation definitely are not mutually exclusive: I am the kind of person who finds parodies and cross-references particularily enjoyable, like in Je t’aime John Wayne and the music video for Kiss Me which accumulates all those great scenes of the film. The background therefore contributes to the enjoyment of film itself. (Hm, I wonder if it’s a bad thing that “Je t’aime John Wayne” isn’t really a good film when it stands for itself taken out of context, but only when related to its references.)
However, I don’t really want to define myself by having watched a lot of movies, so maybe there is a certain elitist aspect to it.

Another aspect I want to bring in is “The Dreamers”, a film that I have been thinking back of a lot while writing this post. Now I know that “The Dreamers” wasn’t exactly well-received among critics (maybe they just hate Bertolucci’s steoretypically freudian father complex personality too much), but personally, I just found it extremely well-reflecting on myself. Just like with “Before Sunrise” (a silly other example) that makes me dream of experiencing such an unusual romantic encounter, I admit that I would have loved to live in a time in which being a film enthusiast actually also has a political meaning and reflects a lifestyle which is intriguingly unconventional and rebellian. Besides my particular attachment to closely intertwined triangle relationships (recommendations are very welcomed although I seriously doubt that something could impress as much as “Jules et Jim” did), I loved the way the three have incorporated films into their life. On top of that, when I watched the film, I was at the museum of the “Cinémathèque francaise” shortly before and learnt a bit about the affair around Henri Langlois which is mentioned in “The Dreamers”. Of course that contributed to my high esteem of this film.
I feel like I am 40 years too late for that crap though (see “The Edukators/Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”) and having a ménage à trois just doesn’t mean all that much anymore.

Just like in literature or music, there also are different kinds of “mainstream” in film. The ones would call all the Hollywood crap mainstream, then again, among film enthusiasts, Jarmusch is pretty mainstream because everybody knows him. There seems always be another layer of obscurity, especially when you consider regional differences. I would love to talk about this more, but first that is slightly off-topic, and second, I feel that I don’t know enough about the “film scene” in the world to be able to say much about this.

Finally, this brings me to the question: What kind of movie enthusiast are you (if you consider yourself one)? What do you guys think, how would you define your own approach to films?

PS. This commercial is somewhat good XD
PPS. I really should stop writing these kinds of meta postings, because they always leave me with this horrible feeling of being a bad writer and ranting too much. However, I already prepared another meta post which hopefully is going to be better than this one, haha.
PPPS. I could immediately write 2000 words on triangle relationships, how society soils them and how fiction makes them more interesting than real life ever could. (The model of man, wife and “amant” is an affront to the woman in society while the model of a woman with two men is suicidal.)

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Short films are the best (part 5)

Cinema 16 European Shortfilms (US version)

So, after finishing the original version of the shortfilms, here’s my comments on the new films featuring on the US version. I also ended up liking the screenshots that I took – that’s a first!

title Okay, actually it doesn't t h a t photoshopped.

Doodlebug by Christopher Nolan
I wrote the comment on this film a while ago but lost it, so here’s nothing but what I still remember from it: What a nice idea. I like his style (of course!) and somehow this film even made me think of Memento. The end looked a little bit photoshopped though, haha. All in all, I think this is quite a brilliant student work though.

Is this Matthieu Kassovitz himself? Hm. title

Fierrot le Pou by Matthieu Kassovitz
I have no idea what this is supposed to be, honestly. It took me until the end to understand that this film is nothing but “Guy and girl go to play basketball alone and at some point, smile at each other. Go figure now.” So… it’s nothing special to me.

title Brr, this hairstyle is just as horrid as that guy is cute. Somewhat cute, I'd say.

Wasp by Andrea Arnold
The way the main character speaks annoys the hell out of me. She is exactly like the mother from “Nobody Knows”, wow! Oh, and I am totally unable to understand her english, I am so bad O.o Maybe it’ll get better after I have listened to the british accent a bit more, haha.
What surprised the heck out of me, however, was the scene in which she meets this guy in his car, and you hear one single line (“You’ll never get it back”) from “Nothing” by A. I mean, gosh, I used to love this song to pieces.
This short film is brilliant and horrid at the same time. It even mentions all kinds of british pop idols (David Beckham, Robbie Williams, hahaha) Amazing XD On a more serious, it’s brilliantly executed and features all these horrible characters. I think it’s impossible to rank this.

Belmondo is the best. title

Je t’aime John Wayne by Toby MacDonald
Hahaha, the beginning of this film is so hilarious. It’s an amazingly hommage to the Nouvelle Vague, the greatest ‘genre’ of cinema ever XD Also, the bad french makes me laugh, ah, just beautiful. It’s true, in black and white, London looks like Paris.
And now, I think I want to look like Jean Seberg and a casual affair who is like Belmondo XD

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I watch way too many french films recently…

title

The Witnesses

This is the screenshot that started it all. I’ve seen it in the signature of somebody in the AwardsDaily forums and was somewhat intrigued. It made me think of the dancing scene in Bande à part somehow. Thank you, Prog, for pointing this film out to me! In the end, “Les Témoins” turned out completely different than what I expected. For example I didn’t expect it to be so very similar to “Closer” – if I had to describe this film in one sentence, it’d be a “relationship-quartett à la francaise”. I also didn’t expect this film to be put such an emphasis on homosexual relationships, and your typical cliché that these catch aids-like viruses first O.o How idiotic of me. Just because I thought of Bande à part, there was nothing that guaranteed that the characters would be in the same kind of relationship triangle.

It’s true that Emmanuelle Beárt looks (and sounds!) outstandingly nice in this film, but this is probably the last film of hers that I would recommend. It has some interesting characters, a few very nice, stylish scenes in a very french way, but I was totally unable to relate to the characters, let alone their feelings. It’s not like I necessarily disliked them or they were too weird to identify myself to them, it’s rather the exact opposite: maybe they were just too normal for a change, so normal that I feel unable to relate to them now.

I’m sorry for not having a script for displaying spoilers (maybe I should implement this), but to illustrate the clichéd relationships, this is the rundown. Just don’t read paragraph and move to the next if you are interested in this film:
No.1 and Woman 1 are married with a child. No. 2 is the best friend of the Woman 1 and randomly hooks up with No.3. No.3 also has a sister, Woman 2. All four are having a vacation together, and No.1 and No.3 fall in love with each other. Later, No.3 has a terminal disease, and breaks up with No.1 again. No.1 goes back to his wife, No.2 has a new relationship and the Woman and No.3 kiss. Oh, also No.1 now has an affair with Woman 2. It doesn’t sound half as complicated in the film, but to me, that’s just… wow.

Finally, my favourite scene among all of them are actually the one that involved Sarah talking to her mother about her own birth. That little part took this film out of its somewhat superficial stylishness into something ‘better’, at least for me.

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The most important is to be able to discuss films with others…

drrt

Chungking Express

Or so I feel. When Shii or Prog or anybody else I care for has seen a film, the motivation for me to watch it as well multiplies by about OVER 9000. While watching this film, I was actually talking to Shii on IM, so this post is going to be a collection of comments I had on this while watching it:
– The very beginning was quite annoying. Flashy colours, horrible looking characters and especially these quick movements with the camera that supposedly makes everything ‘realistic’ and dynamic. Brrrr. (Upon saying that, I was called a heretic by the catholic rural austrian.)
– The colours (no matter how real they actually were during the shot) look unrealistic to me and destroy the atmosphere for me. I just don’t like that. I even find an art installation with shit more aesthetically pleasing than this (because that doesn’t give me headaches and eye cancer).
– Compared to that, the dialogue as totally un-pretentious and thus give me a feeling of simpleness and honesty somehow. It’s true that his stories are not breathtakingly original, but it doesn’t matter, the characters feel believable and sometimes very cute. (Especially when they talk to themselves, hehe.)
– I love the tagline of this film. Overcoming a broken heart, talking to yourself into your sorrow in your tiny, chaotic apartment, these pseudo-philosophical about expiration dates and the bittersweet way all of these emotions are acted out – these are the aspects that made this film special and actually quite great for me.
– California Dreaming! Seriously, this poor song appeared so often in that damn film that I feel like I can never stand to hear it again. Leitmotifs are great, but not in such an excessive way. I was so shocked when the song was played the first time though – and after the tenth time hearing it, I don’t feel all that much anymore. Actually, the song is related to a guy (no.1) I had a crush on. Perfectly fitting the spirit of the film, this guy is relevant because of my, say, ‘memory’ (or the lack of it). In fact, when I think back at people I fell in love with as a young girl, I tend to forget some of them completely. And then, when that song played, a short rush of emotions came back and I was like “Oh, there also was this guy!” Even more, if my memory is correct, there was about a month between the time I met him and the time I realized I was in love with another guy (no.2). Moreover, I actually nearly completely forgot what happened at that time, but I remember that I read The Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare’s comedies at that time, the first because of no.1 and the latter because of no.2. And one of the main reasons why I tend to forget no.1 is that I was sure I was in love with a certain no.3 at that time. After all, around the same time, I started talking and getting close to no.2 because of no.3. it’s all horribly confusing to think back at it. What a refreshingly simple I have right now!
– Now, I also have to say something about this Faye girl from the second part of the film. I’m too lazy to elaborate, but I have found her to be a thoroughly bad person, who is extremely selfish, meddles with other people’s lives and blatantly lies. I especially disliked how she deleted the message on his answering machine. I mean… violation of personal rights and stuff? Perhaps I should try not to judge her too much, but honestly this behaviour have kept me up from liking her and rooting for her and this guy’s relationship, although she was an interesting and original character.
– Tony Leung has a smile like Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s not the same style of course, but both of them have the same feeling. It’s a juvenile, extremely charming, sweet and honest smile that makes me feel like melting when I see it. The only “real life” person I have met whose smile was similar to that is the aforementioned no.2, but I can’t even recall his face anymore, hahaha. My memories are really bad ^^;;;
Anyways, Andy Lau > Tony Leung. However, if I really had to choose between them – today, I would prefer the third solution *hrrrrrr*

The main reason why I dislike the flashy style is that I grew up with films that tried to show China in some chaotic, dirty, flashy style. I don’t remember any of them except for this stupid “I love Beijing” film that I watched years ago. I think that one is a good example – flashiness just feels so unrealistic and out of place for me, and I admit that it’s most likely a personal thing that this very exact way of portraying chinese cities pushes me off a lot.

Finally, I enjoyed this film enough to become genuinely interested in Wong Kar-Wai now. However, I doubt that I will ever really like his way of making films, and I especially dislike his visual, aesthetic style. He’s an author like Jim Jarmusch, only that I adore Jim Jarmusch’s style to bits and Wong Kar-Wai’s makes my head hurt.

PS. I saw the California Dreamin’ is no. 89 in this list. What is mentionable with the top 30 is that I actually only know 6 of them, which are
– Imagine (because way too many commercials use this song)
– Smells like teen spirit
– Yesterday (because we had to sing this in music class at school)
– Blowin’ in the wind (because of Forrest Gump)
– I want to hold your hand (because of an anime), and
– Layla (because of the Nana manga)
And now, ladies and gentlemen, please start to laugh.

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Next year, I want to go to the Berlinale too

title

Tropa de Elite

How was I able to live in Berlin for my whole life and never go to the Berlinale? Well, it’s true that I haven’t been a film addict for such a long time, and I also know the reason perfectly well: Finally, the exams that I had were always more important to me than the films, but this year, I’m going to try to do both. It should be feasible, after all, the experience of certain films in the environment of a movie theater are absolutely priceless, especially when a film is dramatic and atmospheric.

Now, Tropa de Elite isn’t all too atmospheric, but there definitely is enough drama that kept me interested – actually it was quite a trip. I have heard about the criticism against the film which I find mostly oversensitive and overly political correct, brrr. This film gave off a very thoughtful, realistic and down-to-earth feeling to me in the way the story was told and the characters described – basically absolutely brilliant. Sure, it was not as mind-blowing as Dongmakgol (which is a complete different sort of film after all), but I was deeply impressed by this film. I also think that the depiction of cruelty and torture is absolutely necessary; it greatly contributes to the harsh reality that the film wants to show. This is a film that totally caters to my personal perception of “morality”: In my eyes, the film itself was free from any judgement or ideology, it just depicted reality without compromises, without saying anything about whether the characters are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In fact, I think that both the beginning (that I find questionable) and the end (with Matias’ change towards a “real BOPE member”) shows this in a stunning way.

Speaking of the beginning, I fully comprehend what it means – and it means way too much. If society is the roots of all evil, people could get the idea to draw the conclusion that nobody is to blame when somebody commits a crime, because hey, society is to blame and how can you punish society? I make it sound very easy while it’s such a debatable issue, and I think the film does a brilliant job at showing this.

In sum, I can only say: What a great experience! It makes me wonder if I should give films rankings as well and finally revamp my index site.

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The dilemmas of being a film fan

After reading the comments to my last posting, I realized yet again that lists are an evil thing. Basically, I am pretty positive that the anime I want to watch in my plan to watch list are everything that exists in the anime world that I want to watch. I have been browsing quite a few anime websites and other people’s MyAnimeList pages (yes, yours too, Martin! XD) to get recommendations and although 58 series looks like a lot, I get the feeling that it is a feasible to watch all of these in my life. Especially when most of them are just inspirations and you don’t feel like you absolutely have to watch them. The same goes for manga where I have the impression that I am still somewhat up-to-date despite the awful lot that gets released every day. Such a thing would never be possible with movies. Although I have no idea how many of them actually get produced and I feel that 100 years of movies sounds better than over 2000 years of books, I know that I am never going to watch all these films I wanted to watch before I die. I suppose I am a little bit in the kind of phase where I wonder what I want to do with my life, and by that I mean what I want to have accomplished. The experience of all these films that I find interesting are part of what I want to accomplish.

Another problem I have with the sheer endlessness of films is the fact that it’s somewhat difficult to talk to people about the films you watched. People’s tastes are different and especially when you don’t watch mainstream movies, there is only a slight possibility to find people to regularily talk to about your movies – there are too many films that people watch at different periods of times (except for the really recent ones). So unless you adapt to their watching schedules, films are much less, hm, social than anime perhaps? On the one hand, I love its individuality; on the other hand, it’s a little bit sad to watch a great film, but there is nothing interesting about it on the internet. It’s possible that I am searching at the wrong place, but compared to most anime, it’s less likely to find extensive discussion, fan sites or information on a film, except for Donnie Darko or Memento.

On a positive side note, of course I still think it is a great thing that so many good films exist in the world. If I compare the list of films that I have found mindblowing and influential with the list of anime, I would definitely say that the films have had a greater impact on me. And I think more than anything, it is this impact that I am pursuing.

PS. A propos series, I think I should consider watching some real life series. Like Six Feet Under. Or this one chinese series that my parents love so much. (It’s actually a harem series, albeit one that must be so sophisticated that my parents recommend it to me. XD)

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Films that Shii should watch – and should not watch

This is a posting celebrating Shii’s move to our sweet domain, yay yay! Hopefully the move and the new design will inspire him to blog more about the films he watched. :3

Besides that, I have recently gotten a list of his backlog – it’s even longer than mine! Not surprisingly, I haven’t watched many of those films, thus there aren’t many that I can recommend. The file also includes a list of films that he liked a lot, and again, I have not watched many of them either! So, here we are. I’ll try to be as short as possible, but I’ll most likely fail.

Films that I wholeheartedly recommend
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Should be watched in a dark, quiet cinema. Incredibly dense atmosphere, brrr.

2001: Odyssee: A classic, and featuring brilliant music. In retrospect, it made me think of Ed Wood though, somehow.

Mystery Train: If “Night on Earth” didn’t exist, this one would be Jarmusch’s most brilliant film, on par with “Coffee & Cigarettes”. Funnier, dirtier and more original than C&C though.

Stranger than Paradise: It took me quite awhile until I finally watched this, and it’s cinematography is stunning. Also, funny plottwists ahoi.

I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK: I’m a Park Chan-wook fangirl – although this one is totally different from his other films, it’s still very original and cute.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: A simple story and the most stunning execution. A must when you have liked Old Boy.

Citizen Kane: What a classic. I suppose you just have to see it when you want to call yourself cineast.

Linda Linda Linda: I wrote an incredibly long post on this, and we all are slice of life fans. So what should I say? ;)

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Maybe my opinion is biased because I am a huge Wallace & Gromit fan and loved Chicken Run. Also, we had the opportunity to watch this in a movie theater. But hilarity ensues.

Brick: My very first “noir”, and at least part of my top 10 on Facebook. So atmospheric, sexy and intense. Arr.

Manhattan: Possibly the best Woody Allen ever – after all, Match Point only wins by nostalgy factor.

Go: It’s been ages since I watched this, and anti-korean sentiments make me facepalm all the time, but that is what made this film brilliant.

Films I would recommend with reservation
Two Days in Paris: This is so Julie Delpy! How can one not like this film even though it’s so incredibly, incredibly flawed. I even want to watch this film again for some reason (after all, I didn’t even blog about it. O.o)

Zodiac: I enjoyed it although I somewhat felt bored all the time. Let’s say that this film was very weird without being weird at all.

Metropolis: It’s a Fritz Lang, and the concept of the city are plain brilliant, but the story was disappointing after the gripping psychological depth of “M”.

Films I don’t recommend
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance: When I watched this back then, I found the story pointless and needlessly gory. What the heck?

Sophie’s World: I watched this film because I loved the book as a little child (like everyone), but this adaptation is plain stupid. The only good scene was when Sophie kissed that guy, that looked cute.

Nackt: Brrr, stupid germans talking about relationships, brrr.

Films that I suppose I should watch
I love how this film mainly consists of meaning- and thoughtful films. I approve.

400 Blows (“Sie küssten und sie schlugen ihn” is a beautiful german title, by the way)
Funny Games
Nightmare Before Christmas
Sunset Boulevard
Das Dorf meiner Träume
Die Siebtelbauern
The Constant Gardener
Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Three Colours: Blue
My Life Without Me
The Fearless Vampire Killers
Paris, Texas
Cookie’s Fortune
Au hasard Balthasar
Little Miss Sunshine
Les Amitiés particulières
Last Life in the Universe
Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter und… Frühling
Stalker
Die Rückkehr
Caché
Abril Despedaçado
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Babettes gæstebud
Badlands
In the Mood for Love
La Vida Secreta De Las Palabras
The Wizard of Oz

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Short films are the best (part 4)

I realized that I dislike blog postings without pictures. I will try to include some pictures for these short films if possible. And I suppose I will have to use screenshots. It’s going to be a rather strange experience for me, I think, as I have never taken screenshots for films before – and taking *the right* screenshot is an art.

title It was... somewhat funny.

Jabberwocky by Jan Svankmajer
This film is so incredibly pointless, my gosh. These puppets are fairly disgusting indeed, and the knives even more so. The creator must be on some drugs, my god XD On the other hand, something about this atmosphere is intriguing, and I do see a certain creativity in this. I just don’t approve of it much it’s true. Also, the poor black cat!

title It was... somewhat funny.

My Wrongs #8245-8249 and 117 by Chris Morris
What the heck is this film. It’s supposed to be funny, I suppose, and to some extent it also was, but finally, I have to admit that I did not laugh even once. It’s very… british, I suppose? The only thing I liked was the fact that the dog spoke, hahaha.

El Secdleto de la Tlompeta by Javier Fesser
Now this might sound a little bit weird, but… I was unable to understand this film. What the heck XD I really didn’t find it funny at all and honestly I wish this narration guy would stop speaking so quickly. It makes it sound like italian and not sexy at all.

title Scenes in a taxi = love.

Election Night by Anders Thomas Jensen
I think this film is a comedy – I mean… what the heck, the stuff they are talking is just way over the top. That’s just so incredibly great, oh god. There is nothing more you can say about this film, it’s just absolutely brilliant, especially the end.

Finally, this is my ranking (in parenthesis, you have Shii’s rank). I honestly have not expected the Godard to be my no. 1 though – I kind of thought that there would be some more, better films there. But ultimately this little story simply was the most enjoyable.

1. Charlotte, Véronique ou Tous les garcons s’appelent Patrick (9)
2. Fridge (4)
3. Bara Prada Lite (5)
4. Härlig är jorden (12)
5. L’Homme sans tête (6)
6. Koncert zyczen (7)
7. Copy Shop (1)
8. Election Night (2)
9. Le Batteur du Bolero (13)
10. Il giorno della prima di close-up (8)
11. Nocturne (3)
12. Epilog (11)
13. My Wrongs#8245-8249 and 117 (10)
14. Jabberwocky (15)
15. El Secdleto de la Tlompeta (14)
16. Gisèle Kérozène (not ranked)

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I want Brigitte Bardot’s silhouette

Yadda yadda

Le Mépris

I have finally come around to write my blog post about the “greatest Godard” and I already know that this post will be not be able to do justice to the film at all, because I have already partially forgotten what I want to say (as always :( ).

So, of course this film is brilliant and I understand quite well why it is considered one of the best, if not the best film by Godard. It has the most intense atmosphere, probably the most exciting story of all his films so far and what struck me the most was the impressive music. Sure, this tune was repeating itself like a leitmotiv throughout the whole film, but this is what was so great about it – it left quite an impression on me with its dramatic melody.

And finally, I was a little bit disappointed to see that the majority of the film played in the main character’s old apartment and only the last 15 minutes were in (and on) the Casa Malaparte. I could never live in such a house, I’d fear to fall down from those stairs, but the interior and the concept of the house are quite brilliant indeed. It must actually be splendid to live in an avantgarde house.

The role fits Brigitte Bardot perfectly – after all these nude scenes, the idea of this role being played by Sophia Loren somehow scares me. La Bardot is quite a nice-body-ko indeed, and I understand the emphasis on her naked body so much. The dialogue at the very beginning is indeed so Godard-ish, heh, and I loved it. This makes me think of “The Dreamers” now – sometimes you just feel like imitating films, heh.

The strongest part of the film for me definitely was the scene in which she says this infamous line “Je te méprise”. It underlines the traditional scheme of unhappy marriages in which contempt is the most apparent problem. It seems the problems start with the couple looking down on each other instead of acknowledging the other person’s strong points. In that respect, I kind of understand why the story does not provide any actual reason why the marriage became unhappy – but it depicts how it shows, thus making it applicable to all unhappy relationships. The Anna Karenina principle says that unhappy marriages are unhappy because of different reasons – I agree with that, but I think that happiness shows itself in many different ways, unhappy relationships nearly always shows in… contempt.

Finally, I think that “À bout de souffle” and “Bande à part” are somehow better films to introduce yourself into Godard, while “Le Mépris” is the kind of film you would want to watch after having become a Godard fan. Next, I want to watch his “Pierrot le Fou”.