#103 of 2011: Take Shelter

my motivation to see this movie came largely from my love of/current inability to witness thunderstorms, since i come from storms and now live in a weak, persistent drizzle. my anticipation was further strengthened by the other imagery included in the trailer (weightless livingrooms, birdclouds), the promises of which are gorgeously kept by the film's dream/hallucination sequences.

most of the film's other visuals are appropriately kept clean and naturalistic in the way that is comfortable enough to keep a viewer listening to the dialogue (which, in this case, is where most of the character development is stored) instead of continually ogling the scenery. after all, the film's emotional resonance is what makes it extraordinary, and that comes from the combination of personality-dense line delivery and the main character's thoughtful-though-sometimes-stunted process of trying to figure himself out. the aesthetics are simply the device by which the audience is reminded of the overwhelming bigness that our minds contain- successfully, if we're lucky.

#69 of 2011: Birth

Only extraordinarily focused storytelling can make a viewer feel so strongly about the emotions of characters who she knows almost nothing about and who she has no reason to particularly like. "Birth" never gets off topic, except for temporary indulgences in pure contemplation of the setting (that dining room, my god). Even then, the small, overpatterned, overlush rooms of Anna's apartment- rarely without a preponderance of visitors, supposedly still at their ten-years-long work of stabilizing Anna's emotions- are a physical reminder of the overwhelming density of the simple storyline.

It's important to note how huge a role omission plays in the film's poignancy. The decision to represent the original Sean minimally (with only an imageless voiceover at the opening of the film, followed by a faceless body running through the snow for 2.5 minutes before succumbing matter-of-factly to a heart attack) lays the foundation for the tense and unresolvable ambiguity about whether or not something paranormal is at work: we have to take most of our cues from Anna, because we can't compare the dead Sean to the boy Sean, played by Cameron Bright. The latter's performance is, itself, a kind of fillable blank- slow, deliberate, contemplative, cryptic. When he's on screen with Nicole Kidman's Anna (an irreparably affected woman whose apparent brokenness seems more and more to come from a well of deluded commitment to an ideal that probably never existed in the first place), it's almost as if we can see the clean slate of his nearly expressionless face and tone of voice being filled in by her desperation for the love she thought was hers when her husband was alive.

Another omission: answers. As always, I was perfectly happy to find no clean explanation for the mentally fatiguing ordeal that both main characters (and viewers, too) experience due to this plot. Hard facts are of negligible importance by the end of the film, if they were ever important at all.

Oh yea, and Lauren Bacall is the matriarch.

#92 of 2010: 10 Shorts by the Bros Quay

i couldn't stop writing while watching these. and "street of crocodiles" is perhaps the single most pressing motivation i can think of (ed's encouragement comes in at a close second) for me to make a film of my own (though it won't be animation). this short has been pivotal in my development of a more detailed and thought out theory of the ability of film to manipulate time like no other medium. and as much as i wish i had the focus and time to hash out everything i thought about even a single film in this collection (perhaps someday, after hundreds of viewings), i can't say anything other than find it and watch it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Quay

#86 of 2010: Forbidden Planet

Leslie Nielsen is totally being serious: there is some heavy shit going down on this planet. Oh but first we'd better make sure we decide who gets the sexy daughter. Ok, it's Leslie, NOW we can try to figure out what's up with people getting ripped apart by some huge, malicious, unconquerable force. This movie was made in 1956, and I'd be willing to bet that it inspired more than a few kitschy/futuristic mansions. Despite hindsight and shifts in decorating tastes, the film is a pretty incredible visual feat. Good source material, too. The action/suspense/thriller agenda moved out of the way to let a healthy portion (in 50's sci-fi terms) of epistemology and ethics come across at several points, and the solution to the "what's eating/disemboweling gilbert astronaut?" riddle is pretty smart and well explained, if not a total surprise by the time it's revealed. I feel like that kind of dramatic irony was more respected back then, the kind where you make the characters even more dumb than the viewer so as to appeal to a wider audience and make people feel special. Of course there are contemporary examples. Like in that fucking "Da Vinci Code" book when a professional cryptologist has to stare at a scrap of text for HOURS before he thinks to get out a mirror. Dude, it's the name of the book. Hint. Anyways, I recommend "The Forbidden Plant" for it's fully electronic musical score, it's well-developed hypothetical super-intelligent beings and explanation of human research of them, and images like this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet

#79 of 2010: Hunger

i'm tempted not to say a whole lot about this. one reason is that i still can't be absolutely sure that it streamed correctly. but i'm fairly certain it did, so what i do say will be based on what i saw/heard (and didn't hear). most of the movie i saw was silent. if not silent, it was muffled except for the choice mic-ing of wood being shattered and water being splashed, etc. this may be what one critic meant by complaining about the film coming off as "scrubbed of political dialogue" or something to that effect. but the visuals were so audible, and the near-absence of "civilized sounds" like talking or music makes the minute or so of violin (beginning at minute 28:49) the most expressive audio possible at that moment in the film. also, any kind of vague politics or selectively-contextualized fault gets quickly re-embodied in individuals when nothing about those individuals is conveniently explained.

another reason that i don't want to say a whole lot is that this guy- http://www.donalforeman.com/blog/?cat=2 - already has, and i think you should read it. you should also see "Hunger" for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_(2008_film)

#71 of 2010: Lola

as i mentioned before, "Lola" is the genetically identical graft of it's Marlene Dietrich-starring predecessor, "The Blue Angel". still, in R.W. Fassbinder's hands, it certainly became it's own plant as it progressed. obvious comparisons to be made: a seemingly non-sexual older man in a socially respectable position is at odds with the people at work while he falls in love with a singer in the adult entertainment industry and is subsequently "corrupted"; the woman is financially dependent on men but finds plenty of other ways to be in charge of her own life; idealism doesn't have much of an effect, if any. basic contrasts: more developed rivalries; more circularity and interconnectivity amongst characters; this film is not only in color, it is in hyper-color, with tinted lighbulbs on screen and richly-hued stage-lighting to create giant planes of color which envelope characters or intersect. the second contrast, the interconnectivity, is elemental in developing the complexity of the woman around whom all the other characters orbit. Lola's scenes show her in different costumes (standard vocal performance stage-clothes, lingerie, her conservative and high-class sunday best, 20-something around-the-house wear, etc.) as she interacts with different combinations of friends, coworkers, clients, and family. she's casual at home with her daughter, mother, and friend/coworker Esslin; she's in her room at the brothel being fought over by Shuckert and Esslin while wearing her prostitute uniform; she's singing at a church in a modest (though head-turning) hat and dress while von Bohm sings beside her; she's at her wedding with all the women from work, her mother, and her new husband. but even as she changes costumes- presumably playing different roles in order to be what people want her to be- she has a consistent resilience, a self-reliance, and a kind of ambition that drives her to gather up love and admiration (and to withstand the abuse that comes with them) for her own practical benefit. she isn't attention hungry, she's business-minded, and she knows enough about how to survive in her environment that she allows herself to mix business with pleasure. her predicament (along with her perspective) is summed up well in her response to Esslin when he asks, rhetorically, "you want to live in a world that has lost all morality, where there's only evil and depravity and corruption?" she answers, "gladly. my only problem is that they never let me really join in." though she's left out when it comes to the distribution of clear-cut power, Lola has smarts, is willing to use what she's got, and is adaptable in the extreme. whether or not these abilities can also count as detriments is ultimately left up to each viewer's own system of priorities and moral evaluation. i love when flimmakers allow viewers the privilege of judging for themselves, and i'm starting to really love Armin Mueller-Stahl, so i'm recommending "Lola" highly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_(1981_film)

#58 of 2010: The Lives of Others

netflix was right, i do give it that many stars. what a totally absorbing film brimming with narrative convolutions (which tighten up the suspense without feeling too contrived, except in the way that certain interactions between characters are contrived and based around a "subject/audience" relationship). besides being a studied observation and commentary on oppressive political systems (aren't they all), the movie also handles a very wide array of topics {art-making, patronage, patriotism, and ambition [good and bad kinds, for the sake of creative fulfillment and for its own sake]} in micro- they are dealt with to the extent that they fit into the specific story being told, which is one hell of an emotionally/historically dense slice of life. Ulrich Muhe is INCREDIBLE as the listener/interrogator, and his character's dual/opposing roles in the name of state security exemplify the kind of provoking dichotomies that arise less-than-manageably from the premise. there are clear villians here, and- in a move which movies with clear villians don't usually make- "Lives" exposes those men who would be tagged "evil" in more epic histories as simply immature, infantile even: hungry for attention and praise and control for no reason but to fan their little teenagesque egos. . . with disproportionately tragic though entirely possible consequences. watch this one, but maybe not right before bed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

#57 of 2010: days of being wild

i can see how these premises and characters grew into Wong Kar-Wai's later movies (it's "sequels", "in the mood for love" and "2046", but also the chronologically-nearer "chungking express"). the whole film has a "learning" feel- in the content, people learn about how other people work, learn to move on, learn secrets, travel and learn new trades; through the visuals, the viewer must learn to translate darkness and the small, fragmented plains of faces or furniture or clothes that catch the light; after seeing the later films in the sequence, it is clear that the director is learning how to build and where to block characters, when they should enter and exit for greatest raw effect (rather than greatest/clearest contribution to narrative), and besides that, he is working for the first time with Christopher Doyle, no doubt entering into a relationship in which both parties learned from each other. if you haven't seen any Wong Kar-Wai, maybe start here and watch the "trilogy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_being_wild