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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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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)

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”.

So, here’s my next part of comments on the short stories. First of all, this is going to be a series of comments with quite a lot of parts, I suppose, because I have now also procured the Cinema 16 European Shortfilms (US version). 7 of the 16 films on the US version actually are the same as on the european, but that still leaves me – quick calculation XD – 9 films I can look forward to! It seems the US version is a mix of the “British Shortfilms” and the “European Shortfilms” with quite an emphasis on the british part. As for myself, I seriously doubt that this is a representative collection – I highly doubt that the british film scene is so much better than the french, or italian, or german, or the scandinavian.

Fridge by Peter Mullan
This english is so lovely, awww! Even besides that I really liked this film somehow, the characters are so likeable in their own way and I really am a sucker of portraits of the ‘outsiders’ of the society and this one is extraordinarily good in my opinion. So… beautiful. I love how the title gets blended in at the very end of the film (I just have a preference for that, there’s no specific reason), I love the subtle sociocriticism and the natural way the actors play their roles.

Il Giorno della Prima di Close-up by Nanni Moretti
Italian films! Really, they talk all the time, isn’t it? XXXD Somehow this exactly is what I have expected… that’s prejudices for you. But the constant talking of the protagonist simply is beautiful. And this guy even is such a… Woody Allen character somehow, hahaha. I felt so sorry for him, and this film definitely was a great look into the film industry, my my.

Gisèle Kérozène by Jan Kounen
I should listen to the commentary track of this film. I suspect that “Gisèle Kérozène” is the name of the director’s ex-girlfriend (or -boyfriend for that matter) who dumped him and this is his revenge for him/her. Sure, I acknowledge that there is a certain originality to this, but it makes no sense to me and I find it truly ugly. What an affront to my beautiful Grande Ar(s)ch(e) de la Défense. XD

Härlig är jorden by Roy Andersson
At first, I thought I have no idea what this film is about, really no idea at all. But slowly I am getting an idea and it seems this is nothing but the director’s way of portraying mankind (or the way we ignore the cruelty of mankind, I suppose). This is another one of those examples of why I think that short films are the best – they are able to convey so much and so many powerful and interesting things into such a small frame, so poignant.
Apparently this short story is very highly acclaimed and I suppose I also understand why, but I am actually rather neutral about this. I do think that this film is extraordinarily good somehow, but top 10 best short films ever? That’s a bit too much.

Koncert zyczen by Krzysztof Kieslowski
I’m cheating on the order a little bit, I know. But this is the last one I’m going to see today and I really wanted to see the Kieslowski – although I put the Decalogue on hold, I’m still quite a fan of what I have seen by him so far. This story is – as expected – rather calm and simple, with the great direction of a Kieslowski. There isn’t much to say about it, except that it’s very much his style and as such very pleasant for my eyes. I do admit that I kind of expected a little bit more though.

L’Homme sans Tête by Juan Solanas
This film was just plain beautiful. The dancing, the atmosphere, this whole world (that made me think of a mix of Katsuhiro Otomo and Miyazaki XD) and of course the end of the story were just so sweet. Of course it’s somewhat cheesy, but who cares? It’s nice to see something like this for a change. Finally, I love how the head that fit the protagonist the most was the black head – that was so beautiful and brilliant.

Nocturne by Lars von Trier
I admit that this film did not make sense to me at all, really not at all. When I don’t understand something, I obviously also can’t really rate it, so “Nocturne” is ranked between the films that I found actually good – and the ones I found rather bad. At least atmosphere and acting are absolutely great in this short film after all. I am definitely a slightly blind fan of the likes of Kieslowski, Godard of Emo-Lars. In consequence, I suppose I am a little bit biased towards their creations.

I think finally it’s going to be 5 parts of reviews for these short films (one more for the european edition and 2 for the US version).
Sadly, I realized that I forgot about most of the films in Ten Minutes Older. Two years ago, I wasn’t as ready for artsiness as today, it seems. I also love how I thought Godard would be the kind of person who makes meaningful films – how wrong I was! Hahaha.

Linda Linda Linda

First of all, my very first impression of this film was “Oh my, the school in this film look exactly like in anime!” Silly, isn’t it? But this is shows how many anime I have seen in my life while it’s my first time watching a japanese film in the high school setting, and I feel like i recognize everything: The windows from the classroom opening to the hallways, the blue school swimsuits, the tables arranged in teacher’s room with books separating the different desks etc. etc. It made me think of Gus van Sant’s “Elephant” that I have watched in a movie theater with a friend who went to high school in the US – and she told me that those long hallways that were almost a leitmotiv of the film were actually very common in american schools.

Actually I have been contemplating about writing this blog post, because I actually have watched “Le Mépris” first – and of course it’s a film that cannot be left without some comments for too long, it’s one of Godard’s highlights after all.
However, when I watched this video on youtube, I felt a strong urge to write about it. In fact, the video shows very clearly what I have been thinking immediately when the girls got on stage: “This scene looks like episode 12 from Haruhi!” The parallels are very clear – cinematography, atmosphere and especially the storyline are similar: In both cases, two band members have dropped out shortly before the gig, the main characters and new singers of the band (Son and Haruhi) were ‘outsiders’ and became now accepted etc. etc. The most important similarity in my opinion however are the songs: Sure, it’s cheesy j-pop. But in these scenes, both songs come off as much better and more powerful than they normally are and of course, in these kinds of scenes a good song is pivotal. I wonder if this actually is a coincidence or if the animation of Haruhi is actually an hommage to the movie. Hmm.
I wish the anime of of Beck would had at least one scene with animation and a song that has such as impact. I blame both the director and the lack of money.

Another noteable thing about this movie is that lots of people call it “slice of life”, which is absolutely exact. But, is this name really popular or well-known out of the anime/mangasphere? Although this is an english term, I seriously doubt it, although the Wikipedia article defines it correctly and without specifications to the japanese variant. Fact is, “slice of life” in manga/anime has nothing to do with naturalism and is not just cut-out of life as the Wikipedia article suggests – it’s often with somewhat fantastic elements and not realistic characters at all. More than that, naturalistic stories depicts the horrors of life and society to a degree that it can feel somewhat disgusting. Slice of life à la japanese however, nearly always depicts a somewhat beautiful, much more harmonic world and always leaves out some elements that are important to ‘life’ such as sex (Honey & Clover) or families (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou) or work. “Linda Linda Linda” is quite realistic of course, and the setting is believable, but the story of a korean girl finding friends over 3 days is quite far from realistic after all.
That’s why I suspect that everyone who defends the boredom that a lot of people have reproached to this film are actually fans of the slice of life genre in manga and anime already. I am part of those people too, and I believe this is one of the reasons why I did not feel bored while watching the film at all. It’s true that “nothing happens”, but it doesn’t matter, actually that is the whole purpose of the film: It’s depicting the life of four girls in their usual school environment and nothing more.

Personally I have yet to read or watch a slice of life that I have found boring (unless it’s also a sports or yaoi series) – while I tend to find slow-paced manga, anime and movies boring when they are not slice of life. As I mentioned, “Linda Linda Linda” is not exception. With quite a highlight at the end, this film even has a climax and suitable end (which a slice of life not necessarily has). What struck me the most however is… the school girl uniforms. Aaaaah! I want exactly the same! These uniforms are just so perfect. They make you look fatter, it’s true, but it’s just the kind of style I like. I love these beige sleeveless pullovers with dark blue skirts, and the elegant black bow just tops it. I have a skirt, so maybe I should buy a beige pullover and try to find a bow like that? XD

The official website of the american DVD release quotes a review that compares “Linda Linda Linda” with Jarmusch and Kaurismäki. What idiocy – I do see where they come from, but there is no way this could be comparable after all. “Linda Linda Linda” is a sweet slice of life devoid of all possible pretentiousness and artsiness – and as such, I love it.