Saw Ten Canoes, a film that's half ethnography, half myth. It opens with an Aboriginal man telling a story about a hunting party. In that party an old man tells a story to a young man about the old days. Since we are focussed here on the old times, the old days are shown in color, the present is in black and white. This indicates both the backward-looking nature of storytelling, and also the unconventionality of this film. There's not a clear moral, for example, and there's less action and more analysis. The omniscient narrator tells us of the characters' inner lives, of what was going on in their hearts or in their souls.
This is a slow film. Like a Tarrence Mellick film, it will either entrance or induce sleep. We get lots of gorgeous long takes of swampland and Aboriginal folks stripping trees and performing ceremonies. It's gorgeous to look at but, like I say, a little meditative and slow. Approach with coffee.
Since this a partial ethnography of the Aboriginals, there's a danger of mythologizing, of making something mystical and exotic when it's really just the same human feelings handled slightly differently. I am out of my lane here, but I feel that that's not happening too much here. The narrator sanguinely rebukes us for being impatient and for expecting the story to go another direction (very postmodern!) but there's little talk of spirits and magic (although there is some) and more talk of personalities and tribal law.
This is a nice little film. Unpretentious and kindly, it was too slow for me, but it was very pretty and very different. I liked it.
May 28, 2018
May 26, 2018
Kill!
Saw Kill!, another samurai movie. This is the first in a while that wasn't about bureaucrats being assassinated. No, this one was a dark comedy. It opens with a starving ronin arriving in ruined town. He's told by some remaining villagers that an old lady runs an eatery down the road so he runs over eagerly, only to find she's hung herself. Amazing. The comic mischief is not really great, stunted as it is by distance from my familiar culture (and by my general grumpiness when it comes to comedy) but the film hold together fairly well as a knotty heist-ish movie.
The main plot involves a group of samurai hiding out in a mountain safe-house (they had recently assassinated a bureaucrat. Seriously.) and being sieged by another group. The clan leaders and city officials scheme and double-cross the groups, setting them against each other and trying to keep the peace. Against all of this and muddying the waters are a farmer ronin who wants to become a samurai and an ex-samurai turned beggar. There's a lot of plates spinning.
Comedies often keep many plates spinning to prevent any one comic storyline from becoming stale and samurai movies seem to tend towards very intricate plots. This film contains a double-whammy of plotlines and it's to the film's credit that wasn't harder to follow them all. But it was fairly hard to follow them all, alas, and I think I didn't get everything that happened.
Not one of my favorites - I got kind of lost in all of the plots and silliness. That silliness by the way is often dark - people getting hilariously killed at just the right moment. It's exaggerated enough that it was more funny than tragic however. The rest of the film is the usual sort of mafia film - lots of double-crosses and sudden twists.
Like the other samurai movies however, there's a deep distrust of petty tyrants. Authority is respected at high enough levels, but the local magistrates and ombudsmen are not to be trusted. These films come from the 60s. I wonder if this had anything to do with relaxing social standards, or with the recent defeat in WW2? It's all a rich tapestry I suppose.
The main plot involves a group of samurai hiding out in a mountain safe-house (they had recently assassinated a bureaucrat. Seriously.) and being sieged by another group. The clan leaders and city officials scheme and double-cross the groups, setting them against each other and trying to keep the peace. Against all of this and muddying the waters are a farmer ronin who wants to become a samurai and an ex-samurai turned beggar. There's a lot of plates spinning.
Comedies often keep many plates spinning to prevent any one comic storyline from becoming stale and samurai movies seem to tend towards very intricate plots. This film contains a double-whammy of plotlines and it's to the film's credit that wasn't harder to follow them all. But it was fairly hard to follow them all, alas, and I think I didn't get everything that happened.
Not one of my favorites - I got kind of lost in all of the plots and silliness. That silliness by the way is often dark - people getting hilariously killed at just the right moment. It's exaggerated enough that it was more funny than tragic however. The rest of the film is the usual sort of mafia film - lots of double-crosses and sudden twists.
Like the other samurai movies however, there's a deep distrust of petty tyrants. Authority is respected at high enough levels, but the local magistrates and ombudsmen are not to be trusted. These films come from the 60s. I wonder if this had anything to do with relaxing social standards, or with the recent defeat in WW2? It's all a rich tapestry I suppose.
May 12, 2018
Triumph of the Will
Saw Triumph of the Will, the Nazi propaganda film. It was #347 on a list of the top 1000 movies as aggregated across many critics, so this was bound to happen eventually. Let's get this over with.
The film is basically a documentary. It has no plot at all. It's essentially a 114 minute long military parade with a few speeches sprinkled throughout. It opens with an fly-over of some German city, with its high buildings and soldiers stretching off into the horizon. We see ancient grand buildings and flags of germany and of the Nazi party. This attempts the tricky association of the brand new and exciting Nazi party with the traditional glory of Germany. This bridge between the excitement of the new and the familiarity of the old is a running theme in the speeches and imagery.
Much can be gleaned from the state of the world at the time by listening to the speeches. They talk of mandatory work assignments and of weeding out the "weakness" of the country. Sure enough, the concentration camps had already been accepting prisoners for about a year prior to this film being made. We see the Hitler Youth being fed heaping plates of sausage and potatoes and hearty soups and we may conclude that they weren't out of their recession just yet. Indeed three square meals, the film seems to imply, are just a party registration away. There's also some weird business with farmers whirling their shovels around like guns, chanting about the soil and such. I guess there was kind of a militarization of agriculture (in addition perhaps to the militarization of all levels of society.)
They talk a lot in contradictory terms. As I said, they try to portray the Nazi party as both a new thing and as an extension of old things. They talk about how all people will be equal but also that they will remove the weak and corrupt elements of society. They talk about how they were a minority party at first, but only because they wanted it that way. This is an intentional effort to allow the crowd to hear what it wants and to avoid baldly stating their true ideology. Even the choice of a female director (Leni Riefenstahl) for this film was designed to indicate to the world that women were equal in this new German utopia (although of course these women must also return to their traditional roles for the sake of their own health and happiness. Of course.)
Credit where it's due: the rallies and parades are very grand and impressive. They fall a tad flat on screen but must have truly been something to see in person. At one point they have a trio of 100-foot-tall flags. Neat! Appart from the set design however, the film is sort of dull. It prominently features people that I know nothing about (Herr Todt anyone? Herr Lutze?) and endless self-congratulation and chest-puffery about how awesome the party is. I find that sort of thing fairly dull even when I'm on board with the message being delivered. Apart from that, there's a ton of shots of cute children, quaint old folks, and handsome soldiers - which was kind of nice. I kept myself awake by trying to read between the lines of their speeches. At one point Adolf himself says something to the effect of "we're all here because we want to be here! Other nations will only understand this as a government order, but we know better!" That was definitely the biggest laugh line in the film for me.
The film is basically a documentary. It has no plot at all. It's essentially a 114 minute long military parade with a few speeches sprinkled throughout. It opens with an fly-over of some German city, with its high buildings and soldiers stretching off into the horizon. We see ancient grand buildings and flags of germany and of the Nazi party. This attempts the tricky association of the brand new and exciting Nazi party with the traditional glory of Germany. This bridge between the excitement of the new and the familiarity of the old is a running theme in the speeches and imagery.
Much can be gleaned from the state of the world at the time by listening to the speeches. They talk of mandatory work assignments and of weeding out the "weakness" of the country. Sure enough, the concentration camps had already been accepting prisoners for about a year prior to this film being made. We see the Hitler Youth being fed heaping plates of sausage and potatoes and hearty soups and we may conclude that they weren't out of their recession just yet. Indeed three square meals, the film seems to imply, are just a party registration away. There's also some weird business with farmers whirling their shovels around like guns, chanting about the soil and such. I guess there was kind of a militarization of agriculture (in addition perhaps to the militarization of all levels of society.)
They talk a lot in contradictory terms. As I said, they try to portray the Nazi party as both a new thing and as an extension of old things. They talk about how all people will be equal but also that they will remove the weak and corrupt elements of society. They talk about how they were a minority party at first, but only because they wanted it that way. This is an intentional effort to allow the crowd to hear what it wants and to avoid baldly stating their true ideology. Even the choice of a female director (Leni Riefenstahl) for this film was designed to indicate to the world that women were equal in this new German utopia (although of course these women must also return to their traditional roles for the sake of their own health and happiness. Of course.)
Credit where it's due: the rallies and parades are very grand and impressive. They fall a tad flat on screen but must have truly been something to see in person. At one point they have a trio of 100-foot-tall flags. Neat! Appart from the set design however, the film is sort of dull. It prominently features people that I know nothing about (Herr Todt anyone? Herr Lutze?) and endless self-congratulation and chest-puffery about how awesome the party is. I find that sort of thing fairly dull even when I'm on board with the message being delivered. Apart from that, there's a ton of shots of cute children, quaint old folks, and handsome soldiers - which was kind of nice. I kept myself awake by trying to read between the lines of their speeches. At one point Adolf himself says something to the effect of "we're all here because we want to be here! Other nations will only understand this as a government order, but we know better!" That was definitely the biggest laugh line in the film for me.
Marwencol
Saw Marwencol, a documentary about outsider artist Mark Hogancamp who was beaten by five men so severely that his face resembled a newborn child's. This beating caused a coma, amnesia, and brain damage. Like a newborn, he was dumped into a new life. He had to learn to walk, talk, read, and write all over again. Because he had the misfortune to be both American and poor, he had little physical or mental therapy to help him recover and had to make do with his mother and friends. So, in order to deal with his trauma, he created an amature form of therapy where he creates and photographs super-realistic dioramas of Marwencol, a fictional peaceful town in Belgium in the midst of WW2. In Marwencol there is a G.I. Joe doll representing him and various other people in his life, along with a bunch of Barbies representing his female friends. He uses these dolls to play out elaborate storylines.
Mark's town of Marwencol is a decidedly adult but very friendly place. The storylines have a sitcom-ish feel. A bar seems to be a Cheers stand-in, but there's also a magical witch with a time machine and most of the women are in love with Mark's character (natch.) It has a very playful, amateurish feel. Then again however, there are also SS officers perpetually hunting for the village who sometimes beat his alter-ego doll senseless, re-playing the attack that put him in a coma. Other times they murder the women, or angrily demand alcohol. We know that before the attack Mark had been an alcoholic, so the SS officers are playing out not only his attackers but also Mark himself. It's fascinating.
The documentary follows Mark in his life, giving us little insights like this and drawing connections that Mark never explains but never really makes any effort to hide either. Mark opens himself up completely to the camera and talks happily about anything the director wants. He seems like a completely sweet, genuine guy who is earnestly trying to cure himself. This is a kindly sort of film that feels non-exploitative, that interviews a man with frank mental problems but does not leer or skewer. It just lets us get to know Mark and his work.
Mark's town of Marwencol is a decidedly adult but very friendly place. The storylines have a sitcom-ish feel. A bar seems to be a Cheers stand-in, but there's also a magical witch with a time machine and most of the women are in love with Mark's character (natch.) It has a very playful, amateurish feel. Then again however, there are also SS officers perpetually hunting for the village who sometimes beat his alter-ego doll senseless, re-playing the attack that put him in a coma. Other times they murder the women, or angrily demand alcohol. We know that before the attack Mark had been an alcoholic, so the SS officers are playing out not only his attackers but also Mark himself. It's fascinating.
The documentary follows Mark in his life, giving us little insights like this and drawing connections that Mark never explains but never really makes any effort to hide either. Mark opens himself up completely to the camera and talks happily about anything the director wants. He seems like a completely sweet, genuine guy who is earnestly trying to cure himself. This is a kindly sort of film that feels non-exploitative, that interviews a man with frank mental problems but does not leer or skewer. It just lets us get to know Mark and his work.
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