Séverine: uncompromising?

The reason I watched Belle de Jour last Friday was because my father told me he thought Séverine should be on my list of uncompromising women. I was glad for the excuse, and admired the movie a lot. But while I think Deneuve's character is indeed strong and fascinating, is she really uncompromising?

Oh, she goes after her own desires, yes. She does not conform to society's norms, sure. But she wants to. What's more, (and worse), is that she doesn't take responsability for her actions, in fact claims that she's pushed by something beyond herself. This is not just because she relishes being out of control: it's because she cannot, even in the end, accept herself.

This is most clearly seen in the scene where she is confronted with Henri Husson, the man who gave her the address of the surprisingly fashionable brothel where she is now employed. At first, she blames him for leading her there, as if she had no say in it herself. Then, she says:

"Je suis perdue. Ça se passe malgré moi. Je ne peux pas résister. Je sais qu'un jour il faudra que j'expie pour tout ce que j'ai fait, mais sans ça je ne pourrais pas vivre."

(freely translated):

"I am lost. It happens in spite of myself. I cannot resist. I know one day I will have to atone for all that I've done, but without this I could not live."

The crux is in the sentence I italicized. She takes refuge in saying she simply cannot help herself. And that's why Séverine, while she is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating women ever put on screen, is not truly uncompromising.

First Reaction: El Laberinto del fauno

Wow, is this film brutal. Being punched in the stomach brutal. Despite myself, I'm too used to Hollywood conventions. I was scared, I was afraid (not the same thing), I was horrified, I cried, and yet I cannot help but describe the film as wonderful, as in, filled with wonder and promise and imagination and despite everything hope. Most amazing feat: there are many elements of outright fantasy, but the violence and pain and fear are more real than in many other movies. I don't remember the last time I cried so much at a movie. So happy I saw it on the big screen. But I can't recommend the experience to anyone.

One gripe: why the shot of Ofelia talking to empty space? Entirely uneccesary. Trust your audience! Ambiguity is a good thing. Will get back on this in contrast with Bunuel.

Note: as another revival attempt, and also as a kind of notebook for myself, I will henceforth (love that word) write a quick reaction to any new movie I see as soon as possible after seeing the movie. Uncensored by me, uncritical, it doesn't need to be more than 50 words but I need to write something, anything. I'm curious what it will yield: probably not coherence or correct grammar, possibly not even full sentences, but who knows, insight?

6 uncompromising women

In the interest of brevity, instead of yet another rambling posts, I've decided to adventure into the top something territory. I don't rank, because I don't like to discriminate between great and greater. Why 6? That's how many seemed worthy. Next time I might add explanations, but I'm tired. Feel free to add them yourself in the comment, or to offer your own suggestions. Enjoy!

• Catherine (Jules et Jim)
• Margot Channing (btw, I recommend Kim Morgan's wonderful tribute to Bette Davis)
• Mrs. Robinson (which should have been the title of that movie, 'cause she was way more fascinating than the character it was named after)
• Marge Gunderson (honorable mention: McDormand's dean Sara Gaskell from Wonder Boys)
• Vivian Sternwood Rutledge (yeah, I didn't remember the name either, had to imdb it. But I mean Lauren Bacall in the Big Sleep. Though every part she played opposite Bogie can be substituted here.)
• Katherine Hepburn in pretty much everything, but especially in The African Queen: "I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!"

I love a man, that Raines

It usually doesn't take me long to decide whether I like something. In the case of the new TV show "Raines", starring Jeff Goldblum, it took me exactly 1 minute and 3 seconds. 1 minute and 3 seconds, that is, before I paused the pilot and started downloading episode 2.

I'm a sucker for noir, what can I say. So when this started with jazz, a smart-ass voice-over, and the gloss of the first shot quickly replaced by something more gritty, I loved it. I think I even let an "awh!" escape me. And when the story moved, after this first impression, to an appartment just like the one from Altman's "the Big Sleep", and the detective started seeing dead people, I was sold.

Don't worry, this isn't "Medium". There isn't much of the supernatural here. Our hero's just gone a little crazy, that's all, as he is quick to aknowledge himself. This means it's always clear that what he's seeing is just in his head. It also means that the victim doesn't know any more than the detective, and is little more than a blank filled in as we get more information. Also, the way Raines sees the victim reflects his own prejudices and flaws, and he has more than a couple.

It's a gimmick, I'll grant that. But it's one that works for me.

I'd sign "the Shamus", but the blogger formerly known as the little round headed boy beat me to it ;-) Plus, I tried writing noir-speak. Let's just say it increased my respect for those who can.

Picnic

Note: this is my contribution to the White Elephant Blog-A-Thon, hosted at Lucid Screening.



When I first got my movie assignment for this Blog-A-Thon and googled the title, it got me all giddy. See, the cover (left) makes it look like a dime novel. And, well, I have a weakness for stories in which all the women are beautiful and forever in peril, in which all the men are strong and perpetually shirtless, and where the main protagonists feel uncontrollably attracted to one another. If they actually cost only a dime, my bookcase would be filled with them.

Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955) is, it turns out, just a little more complicated than that. Problem is, I'm not quite sure whether this makes it a worse or a better movie.

I don't usually include plot descriptions in my reviews, partly out of laziness, but also because it usually feels redundant, but as this movie is not exactly well-known, here goes: Hal Carter (William Holden), rugged and strong but kind of a bum, arrives by freight train in one of those stereotypical sleepy little towns in Texas, looking for an old pal from college and, hopefully, a job. Within ten minutes, he loses his shirt and is lusted after by quite a few ladies, including his college friend's girlfriend, Madge (Kim Novak). They all go to a Picnic. Trouble ensues.

To start with the good: this seems like a predictable story, but while the film is cliche-ridden in some ways, I never really was sure what was going to happen next. This is partly because there are many characters, and they're each allowed nice character scenes that have nothing to do with the new stranger in town. On the less positive side, it's also because you don't really feel the attraction between Novak and Holden until a dancing scene halfway through the movie that might have been very exciting then, but seems positively tame now. And was it ever really so sensual? "A Streetcar Named Desire" came out four years before this film, and it had no problems to portray lust for a hunky man a lot more explicitly.

Part of this can be blamed on Novak: while Hitchcock was able to use her blankness to great effect in Vertigo, she's little more than beautiful here. Her character complains about being called pretty all the time, but truth is, there is little more to her character than prettiness combined with some vague sense of dissatisfaction. The other part of the problem is Holden, about whom, come to think of it, the same could be said. Don't get me wrong, I like him a lot as an actor, and he certainly looks good without his shirt on, but he also looks too worn for the part. The character is written as a golden boy on the verge of decline, but Holden was too clearly on the way down already.

All-in-all, I can't say I really liked this movie, but I'm glad I saw it, mostly for one reason: I was fascinated by Rosalind Russell as Rosemary.

In the first scene she's in, she describes herself as "an old-maid schoolteacher" and brags about not needing a man, and I was delighted to find such an independent strong female figure. I should have known better. Having a women being actually proud and *gasp* happy by themselves was obviously too subversive then. Hell, I'm not even sure it's any less subversive now. So obviously, she doesn't just jump bed with him and leave him, no, she gets drunk, then desperately latches onto Holden's character for a dance (he is of course repulsed: what she's about 40, and he only looks 35! What is she thinking?) conveniently ripping his shirt in the process, and by the end of the night she is down on her knees begging a guy she despises to marry her.

Complicating things, Rosalind Russell was a great actress even when allowed to go over the top like she does here, and you can't help feeling for her when she cries desperately, fiercely, that all she wants is to have a good time. But the manic happiness on her character's face as she leaves in a "just married" car at the end of the movie left a sour taste in my mouth, not so much because it shows the director's backwards fifties mentality, but because it reminded me of how little we seem to have evolved past that.

I'm not saying I'm happily single all the time. I'm not saying singlehood is the ultimate state of being. I'm not even saying -some- women should not aspire to marry and have lots and lots of babies (and god, are there lots and lots of babies, and shots of them, at the titular Picnic). And I know it's unreasonable of me to expect a more emancipated view from a movie with a cover like this. I'll even grant that yes, the movie does offer some hope in the form of Madge's sister, an "intellectual" (you can tell because she reads books and sneaks cigarettes) who claims to never want to fall in love. But especially when movies like this seem to offer a glimpse of hope only to cruelly dash it afterwards, it brings out my feminist streak.

Is Picnic worth watching? If you're a fifties nostalgic, definitely. Russell's powerhouse performance is impressive. There are some truly insightful character moments I loved: for instance, Madge's sister feels like she'll never be the pretty one anyway, so she hides behind glasses and a hat in the beginning. Ultimately, though, there is little more than that to recommend it.


Other White Elephants:

- Edward Copeland on Bio-Dome
- Tuwa revisits one of my favorite guilty pleasures: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
- Flickhead looks at Teen Witch
and many more can be found here. The movie I recommended doesn't seem to have a review yet...hopefully it will surface along the way.

Stranger than Fiction

"Everyone thinks about leaping off a building."

Seriously...

Why did nobody tell me about this movie?

Oh, of course I read the generally positive (though rarely elated) reviews. Sure, I knew it was a movie I would like. But how come nobody ever came up to me and said "Dude, you have GOT to see this movie."

See. the reason I hadn't seen it so far is that I thought it would be, well, ok. Kaufman-lite, as it's been called. Fun, but ultimately dismissable. I thought it would be one of those movies that would be exactly as I expected it to be. Like The Queeni was, not too long ago: I knew I'd like the movie, and I did, but it failed to surprise me.

So, I re-iterate, how come nobody told me this was one of the most charming, unassuming, heartbreakingly funny and above all literary movies of the past year? It might not quite be up there with The Science of Sleep, but it's definitely high up on the list. And that's not just because I think I might have a crush on Harold Crick.

Oh, it's not that I don't see the problems with the film. It's not a film you can figure out for example: it might be trippy, but there's no hidden explanation anywhere, what you see is what you get: Harold's life is being narrated to him. And that means there is no explanation as to how Harold and his author can be on the same plane of existence. But does there need to be? Emma Thompson's Karen Eiffel wonders at some point how many people she killed, and I actually feel the question is best left unanswered.

Another, potentially more serious, problem is that while the narration is funny and dry and relatively well written, there is nothing to sustain the claim that the book being written could become a masterpiece. And you can wonder: is the story actually interesting WITHOUT Harold hearing the narration?

The answer to that question might be a clue to why this movie charmed me so. Because while the outline of Harold's story (man wakes up, throws his life around) is rather boring and corny, the details are perfect. The narration fades to the background at some point to allow the courtship between Harold and anarchist baker Ana (the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal), and it's worth watching because it's so pitch perfect, from the gift Harold gives her (and if you haven't been spoiled yet, I'd be the last to do it) to the way they undress each other.

Then there's the humor. How come there aren't more movies that mix absurdist jokes ("Aren't you relieved to know you're not a golem?") with literary ones that actually, well, assume a certain level of intelligence and general knowledge from the audience? I heart huckabees comes to mind (although, considering some things that recently popped up on youtube, I doubt I would have wanted to be part of THAT particular creative process). Everything by Wes Anderson certainly qualifies, and Wonder Boys definitely does, but they are certainly few and far between

Finally, it's so rare to find a movie where the main character can be laughed at, but is never ridiculed or looked down upon. It would have been so easy to make Harold a laughingstock, but even if he starts out as little more than a bag of tics, he quickly becomes a full-fledged character we can, and do, care for, and care about. He inspires pathos, but he never is pathetic.

It's probably a good thing I went into this film with low expectations, and by hyping it so much I might actually be doing it a disservice. But to hell with it. This movie made my day, and deserves to be seen.

Just a quick announcement: I'm about to leave for my parents place to pick up a DVD my sweet dad (aka. the guy with the credit card) ordered for me off Amazon.co.uk for the White Elephant Blog-a-Thon, in which I'll be a proud participant. Look for the post on april 1st!

And also, my dad, proving he's not just the guy with the credit card but also incredbily generous and sweet (yes, he reads this blog occasionally. Why do you ask?), added to the humble order I proposed a whole lot more...and not just anything: I will also be picking up Double Indemnity and Body Heat, as well as a very nice Film Noir box filled with titles I don't know, but that I think I'll like.

Look forward to a Noir filled month at the Fruitstand!

Sodom and Gomorrah

Warning: off topic
(also, written while still slightly under the influence)

When you fail an exam, worse, when you fail a retake, you need to vent. Parties are generally good for that. Drinking, eating, dancing, ideally flirting and taking someone home. Well, tonight, I was a bit short on the latter two, but it was an interesting evening nonetheless. See, a stripper had apparently been ordered for the three birthday boys. And while she was, well, performing, all I could think was:

"So this is the western debauchery we are reviled for. This is the evil that will (through McDonald's and MTV, obviously) corrupt the world. Then, how can it feel so....innocent?"

Worse, how can it feel so tame, so (dare I say it?) boring even. Oh sure, it was funny. And two of the guys (one of whom, interestingly enough, was muslim) seemed to enjoy it plenty. But I doubt anyone was really turned on.

It strengthened me in my belief that things that are not forbidden or hidden irrevocably lose most of their appeal. This is actually my main beef with the sexualisation of our culture: not that it shows our culture is rotten, not that it is demeaning to women even, but simply that it leaves so little to be devined, that it somehow makes things less, rather than more, exciting, and that it leaves us looking in the few nooks and crannies left obscured for something to long for.

The anatomy of Desire

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

-Jane Kenyon (via)



-SPOLER WARNING- (for both Matador and A Streetcar Named Desire)

I know I promised a post about Matador some time ago already, and it's been a week now since I've seen it, but I've had a hard time articulating my feelings about it. I loved it, that much is for sure. And I am eager to discuss it, to talk about the odd but fascinating world Almodovar's movies take place in, about how matter of fact and logically he presents the outrageous, about the incredibly dated jackets his women wear, but I have a hard time finding a point, finding the core of what I want to say.

Luckily, I popped exactly the right DVD into my player tonight, one that is very different but shares some core themes, one that, well, only made me more confused, but eager enough to ramble to overcome my writer's block. The movie was "A Streetcar named Desire."

Now, Tenessee Williams and Kazan have a very literal way of introducing the theme: naming a streetcar the main character takes in the beginning after it, even referring to that literally later. Almodovar manages to be even more direct: his movie opens with a man jerking off to a montage of killing shots from slasher movies.

In both movies, desire and destruction are connected, but it's hard to say which is cause, and which is consequence. Or is it perhaps desire and fear? The former has Marlon Brando smoldering in his wifebeater, but it's not just his physical appearance that draws us towards him: it's that we are never sure whether he will kiss or slap us/Stella/Blanche. He drinks, he curses, he eats like a pig, he smashes things... and he wouldn't be quite as attractive without it. And for a 1951 movie, it's incredibly frank about this: we can see that the main reason Stella stays with her husband is that she lusts for him. She tells her sister that on her wedding night, Stanley smashed all the light bulbs with her slipper. Blanche is appalled, but Stella confesses "I was sort of thrilled by it."

In Almodovar's movie, two of the main characters, (former) Matador (the word literally means killer) Diego and lawyer/fellow killer Maria are attracted to each other because of the thrill of never knowing whether the other will kiss them or kill them. And we cannot simply dismiss them as two crazy people made for one another, because the other characters in the film are similarly obsessed. Angel (played by a still gangly and baby-faced Antonia Banderas) wants to be like them so much that he confesses to both their crimes, and -rather unsuccessfully- tries to project a sense of menace himself. Eva, Diego's girlfriend,dressed as a corpse to try to win him back, and when she finds out about his murders, she isn't repelled by it, but wants him even more, enough to risk her life for. What's more, they're not the only one seduced: the audience is also. I was, in any case.

What is it about the human psyche that makes us link fear and desire? What is it that makes us lust for danger? Or should I stop generalising and simply ask: what fascinates me so much in the combination?

Take another movie I recently saw for the second time: Closer. Here there is no physical danger from the protagonists, who are all -at least superficially- sophisticated modern people. But the four characters show the whole spectrum of human desire, in a way. Alice wants what she loves. Dan wants what he cannot have, Anna what she does not have. As for Larry, he's the character closest to his animal instincts, someone who just wants, and takes. Not surprisingly, he's the most interesting character to me, Clive Owen's fierce performance managing to make Jude Law make thoroughly wimpy and unappealing.

Now, Closer doesn't really fit into this rant, I realise, mostly because it's not so much about desire as it is about honesty and purity, the most innocent and blameless character oddly being the most deceitful one, who even states that "lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off".

Which brings me back full circle, to "A Streetcar Named Desire", though Blanche would probably not agree. She doesn't lie for fun but out of desperation, because she's afraid she alone would not be enough. I have a postcard on my desk which says "only people without imagination flee in reality". Maybe that's a quote more fit for her to take in.

Well, this was rambling indeed. I warned you though. I'll try to make the next post more coherent.

Until then,

H.

A sign of the times?

It's book week this week in the Netherlands, and as a kind of publicity stunt, the committee for the promotion of the Dutch book introduced a new reading sign: the "irony sign". Meant to be placed at the beginning and ending of any word, phrase, sentence or paragraph that's meant to be taken ironically.

As it turns out, it's mostly food for columnists. Bloggers too, I assume.

The sign is silly, of course, and I seriously doubt it will catch on, but I think it's kind of alarming that we apparently need it. And I have to see, sometimes I do catch myself relying too much on smileys to convey the tone of my words, the ;-) smiley being especially abused in e-mails. And when I force myself to leave the smileys out, I sometimes worry that something I said as a joke might be interpreted as a slight.

Does that mean we're losing our ability to put nuance in our words out of lazyness, because we don't need to any more? I hope not, as it would mean a loss in style and language that no reading sign can compensate for.

Should I be worried...

...if when watching the new BBC Robin Hood show (I'm currently at ep6), I keep wondering why Marian likes Robin when right next to him stands a guy who adores her and who is WAY sexier? I mean, yes, there's the whole part where he's a brutal killer, a sadist, and someone who'd dump his own illegitimate child in the woods, but who cares, come on: do you want a boy,









or do you want a man? (Of course, in this update on the story, Marian has balls aplenty herself).










N.B. Do not worry, this is just a diversion, I'll return to more, well, classy posts soon, more specifically with a review of "Matador" (and come to think of it, having just watched that might explain my lusting for a murderer).

Films to see before you die

Yes, I am still alive. Just slightly out of inspiration. Which means that aside from a lousy draft for a post about Closer, this blog has been a little abandoned. So it's a good thing there are parents in this world, who delight their daughter with a "1001 films to see before you die" book.

I have seen 188. So there's work to be done.

To be precise (and I am a scientist, so I cannot help it), there is a slight error margin here, say +/- 2. See, for example, I didn't count Lawrence of Arabia as "seen" because I only saw the first disc when I was living in the same house as someone who had the DVD, and I moved out before I had a chance (or the urge) to see disc 2, but I DID count Apocalypse Now, even if I never saw the last half-hour, but I feel like I have for all the clips of colonel Kurtz I have seen. Some films I know I saw/must have seen entirely a long time ago, but don't remember much about.

But so, my new assignment: if I have nothing to write about, I should pick open this book at a random page, find a film I have seen or one I have not seen but have something to say about nonetheless, and write at least a short entry. I would try to go through them one by one, but a) I don't have that kind of time, b) many films are hard to get a hold of here, and c) someone's already doing it.

As for the selection, I have to say I agree with it overall, also because it does not present itself as a list of the 1001 best films, but more a list of 1001 significant films. I like that genre films are included as well as the more traditional "classics". I like that they include a significant portion of old films, even silent ones, but don't forget classics from the seventies and eighties. I do feel, however, that they should have put a limit in 1997 or something (like the National Film Registry does, for example), because if you're talking about the significance of films, you simple NEED time to tell what impact has been made.

Maybe that's why the later films are the ones where I have the most question marks to put. I understand the inclusion of "There's Something About Mary", even if it's a film I've never understood the appeal of, simply because it's become so ingrained in populat culture, but "the Constant Gardener"? I have to admit that'sone of the many films I haven't seen, but the need doesn't seen very pressing. And "Un Long Dimanche De Fiancailles" (A very long engagement) for instance: I liked the film, thought it did some innovative things, but is it really a film people will still watch 10, 20 years from now? Especially with Jeunet already represented by "Delicatessen" and "Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain", it seems a bit much. Personally, in their place, I would have put "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "A History of Violence", but I admit we'll have to wait a while to see if those stick. I wonder also, this being the 2nd revised edition, which films had to be dropped to make room for Brokeback Mountain and other recent films.

Among the older films, I don't really have many objections. Many I love, many I have wanted to see for a long time. 3 films, actually, that I own on DVD but haven't watched yet, meaning I should probably stop buying DVD's for a while and watch those I have. One notable ommission: "The Third Man", which I believe to not only be a wonderful film with one of the most beautiful endings, a gorgeous long shot which just takes my breath away every time, but also a film with a significant impact on filmmakers then and still to this day.

I'm sometimes unsure whether to be delighted by the store of great films I can still see, or desperate considering how impossible the task to see them all is, especially when I cannot even keep up with all the movies coming out now. But I do hope that I will one day have seen most (all seems hard) of the films in this book.

H.

CORRECTION: The Third Man is actually in the book. Apparently I missed that particular page when going through the book in the train on my way back home.

Lost in Tokyo

You know sometimes you read a book, and you get so lost in it that when you look up, the world seems a silly place? Seems less real than where you were? Seems like a dream?

But what if the book itself reads like a dream?

Such is the case with the aptly called number9dream, David Mitchell's sophomore book, and, as far as I'm concerned, his best yet. Admittedly, I have yet to read ghostwritten, but this book has more heart that Cloud Atlas, and much more wow than his latest, Black Swan Green.

Mitchell is a bit of a mystery, because his most distinctive feature seems to be the lack of an own voice. And it's not just because he's such a chameleon, though he is: in Cloud Atlas he adopts 6 different kinds of not just perspectives, but also styles, lexicons, emotional ranges, and even in Black Swan Green, he subtle modulates his style. He doesn't let his own voice come through, but that's not the only thing. If I met Dave Eggers, I think I would know more or less not just how he would talk, but also what his interests are, his obsessions, his sense of humor, I'd know (to an extent) what kind of person he is. David Mitchell? I have no idea. It's a well-known cliche that it's impossible to write anything without revealing much more than you'd like, but Mitchell seems to be an expert at remaining in the shadows.

That is, I think, why I admired Cloud Atlas, but couldn't bring myself to love it: it was a masterful stylistic exercise, but -except for the Frobisher segment- it was cold. As for Black Swan Green, it was affecting, but I felt too acutely how Mitchell tried to be more small scale: his effort showed.

But number9dream....Maybe it's because, apparently, Mitchell lived in Japan himself (and, as I just found out on wikipedia, 5 months in the netherlands for research. Damn. I could have met the guy. Soaked up some writing genius, even.), and maybe that's why his portrayal of Tokyo feels so vibrant, so there, so alive.

Not that he's not up to his usual tricks here, too. Heck, I'd probably lose interest without the tricks, and he's so good at them, too. Every chapter here is part of the same story, but different nonetheless. Take the first chapter. It starts in reality, at some indeterminate point lapses into daydream, then backs up to the point where reality stopped, only revealing then what was dream and what wasn't. Only to jump back into dream a few paragraphs or pages later.

I suppose what humanises Mitchell here is how well-found the daydreams are. Not only do they only gradually stray from the plausible, but they're both imaginative and exactly how daydreams can be (and trust me, I'm enough of a daydreamer myself to judge).

What's more, it sets the tone for the whole novel: it makes us both go along with anything that's said because it might be true, but it also keeps us guessing. This is why you don't tune out when the story takes a turn for the bizarre (and gruesomely funny) in chapter four. And when the author, in the final (well, officially penultimate) chapter tells us about Eiji Miyake's dreams, it's not boring (like other people's dreams usually are), but on the contrary is a fitting way to lead us out of the strange world of the novel.

I suppose what really won me for this novel is the chapter "study of tales". In it, there are fragments of stories about "goatwriter", "Mrs. Comb", and "Pithecanthropus", and these finally show something deeply personal: the author's love of storytelling. And his inventiveness with it.

See, it starts innocent enough. Yes, Mrs Comb might be a chicken, maybe, and it's a little weird and jumpy, and it seems to have nothing to do witht he story at hand, but it's easy to just read through and dismiss as a fairy tale that might be explained later. And then Mitchell shows us what he can do.

First, there's a scene where Mrs. Comb is revealed to be, indeed, a chicken, but it happens in a weirdly realistic warzone, and without apparent consequences. Goatwriter's finds out that his stories were not stolen, but that he's eaten them (and what does that say about story creatures?). But the thing that really threw me, that gave me a jolt of surprise depite my willingness to accept anything at this point, is that when they're confronted with the stereotypical Evil Queen...she's an internet creature bent on digitalizing goatwriter's creativeness.

How do you do that? Take fairy tale creatures that belong in another age, that drink from literal streams of consciousness, and then put modernity in there?

Oh well. I'll stop spoiling the fun and just bow to Mitchell in deep veneration. It's my weakness for all things pomo, definitely, but it's more than that. The man's a genius. And his love of storytelling is infectious.

Just call me goatwriter.

H.

So, being a pathetic sucker, I of course HAD to check my (snail)mail box this evening, just in case. But instead of the red envelope(s) I'd secretly hoped for, there was just a blue one. Which, as every Dutch person knows, means a letter from tax services.


The most ironic thing? Even that wasn't for me.

Happy Valentine's day everyone

Review Index

Titles are usually in their original language, unless the language uses another script.

Les Amants Réguliers (Garrel, 2005)
Átame (Almodóvar, 1990)
The Big Heat (Lang, 1953)
A Bout de Souffle (Godard, 1960)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Burton, 2005)
Crash (Cronenberg, 1996)
Croupier (Hodges, 1998)
Death Proof (Tarantino, 2007)(pt. 2)
The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)
Detour (Ulmer, 1945)
Gerry (van Sant, 2002)
Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
The Good German (Soderbergh, 2006)
Hairspray (Shankman, 2007)
Heathers (Lehmann, 1989)
A History Of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005)
King Kong (Cooper & Shoedsack, 1933)
El Laberinto del Fauno (Del Toro, 2006)
The Lake House (Agresti, 2006)
Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006)
Masculin Feminin (Godard, 1967)
No Direction Home (Scorsese, 2005)
Ocean's 13 (Soderbergh, 2007)
Once (Carney, 2007)
Othello (Welles, 1952)
Picnic (Logan, 1955)
The Player (Altman, 1992)
A Prairie Home Companion (Altman, 2006)
The Prestige (Nolan, 2006)
The Science of Sleep (Gondry, 2006) (pt 2)
The Sheltering Sky (Bertolluci, 1990)
La Stanza Del Figlio (Moretti, 2001)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Milstone, 1946)
Stranger Than Fiction (Forster, 2006)
Le Temps Qui Reste (Ozon, 2005)
Thank You for Smoking (Reitman, 2005)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Jones, 2005)
Volver (Almodóvar, 2006)
Whistle Stop (Moguy, 1946)

A Prarie Home Companion

I am ashamed to admit that I've only seen 4 Robert Altman movies. Gosford Park, Cookie's Fortune, The Long Goodbye and, as of yesterday night, A Prarie Home Companion.

I liked the first one, though it left me rather cold. The second one, well, enjoyable, but I barely remember it. I loved The Long Goodbye, but mostly for its brilliant first 20-30 minutes. But I feel like it's only now that I've really discovered Altman.

See, I don't think this movie is a masterpiece. It doesn't have much in the way of a plot, there's not really any arc or tension, and only one character goes through some kind of development. But you know? You don't care. Because I wasn't watching this film because I was curious what would happen next. I wasn't watching to see if they would "save the show". I was watching because I was thoroughly enjoying hanging out with these people.

Maybe that, in retrospect, is why I couldn't get into Gosford Park. I was too focussed on the murder plot, because the characters were not likeable and interesting enough to me.

The characters in A Prarie Home Companion have as a job to make people listen, to entertain them, and they are good at it. I was so full of good will toward them after a while, that I laughed uproariously at the "bad jokes" told by Dusty and Lefty, even if they were, in all honesty, quite bad. I wanted to sing along with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, and I wanted to listen to the entire back catalog of shows (which can be found online, btw, so I did listen a little after the movie).

These people are storytellers, first and foremost, maybe that's why I liked them. We hear several versions of how GK got into radio, one weirder and more implausible than the other, but told without a wink, without irony. It's a competition, but it feels like the viewer is the winner.

"The death of an old man is no great tragedy"

Still, it's too bad we won't be getting more moving from Altman. Luckily for me, there are many left to discover.

Why you should be reading Questionable Content

link

You've got mail

Under normal circumstances, based on poster, trailer, plot, main actors, etc., I probably would have passed on seeing "the Lake House". It looked sappy, corny, unbearably earnest. It looked like something nobody with any taste or sense of irony could like. Dismissable, that's probably the best term for it. Not necessarily bad, but not worth the time of anyone who wanted to call themselves a cinephile.

However, then, the movie led to one of the most amusing episodes of Filmspotting (aka. my favorite podcast. Ep #110, if you want to look it up). And not because it was artfully and articulately ridiculed (although Sam did quite a good job of that). No, it was hilarious mostly because of the fight it occasioned. See, Adam, to own surprise, admitted he thought the movie was quite charming. Even that *gasp* he thought Keanu gave quite a good performance.

You understand, this movie I had to see, if only for its divisive qualities. And as a friend of mine loves it unabashedly and was over to study, we decided we'd watch it as a reward.

The verdict? Who do I side with? Well... It is sappy. Corny, definitely. Unbearably earnest? Well, very earnest, in any case. Still, as much as I am a cynic, and as much as I hate to sound unhip, I see Adam's point.

Alright, I'll admit it: I am, I'm afraid, a hopeless romantic at heart. Romantic enough to accept the magic mailbox despite some glaring problems with the internal logic, in any case. Romantic enough to think "Oh, I wish people still wrote letters, that someone would send a love letter to me" instead of "why doesn't she just google him?". Romantic enough to admit that, to use Adam and Sam terminology, it got a little dusty in my room towards the end.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm not romantic enough to overlook one thing: these people are kind of boring. Actually, strike that: they're incredibly boring. So, no matter how romantic you are, it becomes a little hard to understand not only why they would fall for one another, but if we could fall in love with them.

This is tricky for the movie especially because we have to believe the characters fall in love without meeting, without even knowing what they look like, so it can't be something based purely on physical attractiveness or something else primal. It has to be about ideas, passions, about connecting on a deeper level. Kate and Alex in this movie, bond over... a walk through chicago. Loving "when it starts to rain just at the end of the picknick". Trees (I kid you not).

I like to hope that this was intentional. That they wanted to make these character everyman/everywoman. But if we're supposed to believe two people belong together and not with anyone else, there's got to be something distinctive. I've often complained about the superficial quirks assigned to characters in romcoms, but these characters don't even have quirks! Additionally, it doesn't help if your main characters are played by two of the most bland actors working today. I've defended Keanu in the past, but lonesome, tortured and pining? Not his thing. As for Sandra Bullock, well, I she's given a supposed fear of commitment, but we never really see any evidence of it. All she does, really, is look sulky.

I am a hopeless romantic. So I'll give this film a pass, if only because its refreshing to see a film where characters don't always have the perfect quip ready. And because, I admit, I was charmed for the duration of the film. But to be truly moving, truly romantic, the people have to be real people. Flawed. Damaged. Twisted even, if you really want to get my attention. And this is only a temporary substitute for the real thing.

Bring on the LoVe

"That might play with the masses, but underneath that angry young woman shell, there's a slightly less angry young woman who's just dying to bake me something. You're a marshmallow, Veronica Mars. A twinkie!"

So, yeah, you know you're addicted to a show when you start reading quotes on wikiquote to prepare a blogpost...and all of a sudden more than an hour has passed. And what's worse, aside from bringing back countless memories of moments that make the show great, I still don't quite know where to start talking about it.

Maybe here then: aside from being snarky and funny and heartbreaking, Veronica Mars constantly subverts (gender) expectations, and offers an exploration of what it means to be a girl in today's society.

Now, those are big words. But I think I can defend them.

Let's start with the concept. It's not just P.I. in high school, it's girl P.I in high school, and the girl part is just as important as the high school. I mean, just think about it: how many books or movies with a female detective do you know? They're there, actually, just google it and see, but generally, when we think private eye, we think private dick.

Considering this, making the main character female was already quite innovative, and to be honest, would probably not have been thought of were it not for the success of Veronica's big sister Buffy. But the creators went further, and dared to investigate what this gender change meant.

Joss Whedon has stated on numerous occasions that the inspiration from Buffy came partly from the "take back the night" campaign. What would happen, he wondered, if after a cute tiny blonde and a scary monster went into a dark alley, it was the monster who would come out battered and bruised, and the perky blonde victorious?

Rob Thomas took this idea to the logical next step: Veronica is a rape-victim. This immediately makes us aware that she is more vulnerable than the traditional PI's, who ran the risk of getting beaten or killed, but rarely to be violated. At the same time, it makes her stronger, or at least more fierce. Veronica is not just a PI with boobs: she's a PI who has other problems than the traditional ones, and other solutions.

In this way, the show investigates not only what it is to be a girl PI, but also more generally how to be a strong woman in today's society. Veronica copes by putting on her "angry young woman shell", and getting vengeance. In her own words: "Here's what you do: you get tough. You get even."

On the one hand, we can understand why she turns to this technique. On the other, we are presented with some alternatives, girls/somen who deal in different ways. We have the traditional madonna represented by Meg (complete with "immaculate" conception), though it has to be said she ends up dead. On the "whore" side of the spectrum, there are many examples, chief among them Kendall, who's gone so far into the manipulative and out for herself that she doesn't seem to have any emotions (she ends up dead too, incidentally). It seems nobody has found the perfect way of coping, not even Veronica

There is no doubt that Veronica is a role-model, at least in some repects. She is smart, she is strong, she is funny, certainly pretty, and while the most terrible things happen to her, she always stands back up and fights back. The stand up for herself, and for others. At the same time, she is not by far perfect, and she might not even always be the hero. In this way, she is exactly like Sam Spade, Phil Marlowe and all those others. She doesn't even always have the moral high ground. And she struggles with the balance between the twinkie inside and the (often all too ) necessary barrier that protects it.

No PI, of course, without a dame. And of course, here it's easy to run into trouble, and they did at first.

See, the mistake made at first is to intepret the femme fatale as someone who might be dangerous. And hence, we got dreadfully dull Duncan, who had weird "spells" and might have murdered his sister. But there's a problem with this did he or didn't he approach: if and when it turns out he didn't, the character becomes entirely uninsteresting. And let's be honest, nobody ever believed Duncan did it. Furthemore, while Duncan fit well with the overly sweet and vulnerable pre-murder and pre-rape Veronica, there was never any noticeable spark with the Veronica we all know and love, and luckily the writers quickly discovered they had another asset on their hands: Logan.

See, what really makes a femme fatale (or in this case homme fatal) dangerous is that they're in the big grey zone between good and bad. They usually feel real affection for the hero, but they never forget their own agenda, and they can't stop themselves from exploiting the hero's weaknesses.

Still, there remains a problem with the concept. See, the gender reversal here can never be complete. Veronica is a woman who is quite resolutely from Mars, and how could she ever fall in love with a Venus denizen?

They tried "feminizing" Logan in some respects. He is, for example, often the more affective of the two, while Veronica keeps her self-protective impulses firmly in place, as witnessed in this exchange:

Logan: [About Keith] He should feel lucky. I mean, you could be out here with some pretty boy jerk just looking to get laid.

Veronica: Wait, what are you saying? You aren't pretty?

Logan: What I'm trying to say is that I'm in love with you.

Veronica: The things guys'll say to get past second base.

There are more respects in which Veronica is "the man" in the relationship. Witness for example the first LoVe kiss: without a doubt, Veronica is the initiator. However, while Veronica is often the leader and the one who invests less, Logan is never weak, because as subversive as gender roles often are in this show, the makers can't change the fact that while a certain weakness and perceived powerlessness is found attractive in girls (a fact Veronica often exploits), it is not something perceived as remotely attractive in a guy.

I often wonder what it is I find fascinating about guys kissing. One of the explanations I have considered is that when two guys kiss, there can be ambiguity about who's kissing whom. While there are, of course, differences within the particular relationships, the basic premise is one of equality. When a girl and a guy kiss? Not so much. No matter how equal a relationship might be, when it comes to kissing, the girl is always supposed to be yielding.

I'm as guilty as the next girl. When I like a guy, not only do I giggle more, but I also try to appear somewhat softer. More vulnerable, even. I'm not sure how much of this is nature and how much is nurture, but there's no denying it's true. And I'm not even sure it's a bad thing, to be honest. I kind of like the feeling of being protected. But there's no denying a thrill is missing. A thrill often present in scenes of boys kissing boys. A thrill present in that wonderful scene in which Buffy and Spike bring the house down. A thrill present in those first two kisses Veronica and Logan share, because there is no way Veronica is yielding, ever. But here's where my examples stop, simply because I can't think of many.

What about girlpower, you say? What about the surge in female action heroes? Well, because despite their butt-kicking ways, they're often either non-sexual or as girly if not more so in their private lives. In the former category, think of Lara Croft, for example. Yes, she has big boobs. And I am aware she is very much lusted after by boy geeks. But the character itself is a video-game character, and even in a film remains flat and devoid of any true sexual nature. In the latter category, think of Charlie's angels, especially the ones played by Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore. They might be able to hold their own in a fight, but in their private lives they're just the same giggly, unsuspecting creatures men love to protect -and deceive.

The closest we've come to a LoVe or Buffy/Spike situation was another Angelina Jolie outing, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", which had some interesting things to say about gender roles as well (note especially how Mrs. is the more professional assassin). And strengthening my theory, I thought that kiss was not bad at all.

Still, no relationship on TV is as consistently fascinating and subversive as the one between Veronica and Logan (currently "on" again, for those keeping track). Theirs is an "epic" story, as Logan says "Spanning years, and continents. Lives ruined and blood shed. Epic! ". They're perfect for each other, and perfectly wrong. Logan's right. No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.


P.S. Wow, this was meandering, wasn't it... Oh well, as procrastination, it did its duty. Also, if you don't know VM, don't be discouraged by the above blather: the show is actually a lot of fun, not an exercise in feminist critique. It references "The Big Lebowski" repeatedly, for instance. And it has episode titled "Hi, Infidelity". And basically, it just rules. So watch it. Help keep it on the air, 'coz I can't.

Now THAT's inspired casting

via

Volver

It's strange. My top 4 of 2006, made only in 3 weeks ago, reads:

Brick
Brokeback Mountain
Volver
The Science of Sleep

Why strange? Because it's already shifting. Brick is fading, was already when I made the list, but I do want to see it again soon, re-evaluate it. As for Brokeback Mountain, I was putting together a wishlist for my upcoming birthday the other day, and I realised I don't really feel the need to own it. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a beatiful, heartbreaking film, and I loved it, but I somehow doubt I'll see something different, discover something new on a second viewing. That, and I'm afraid the sweeping landscapes won't translate well to the small screen.

Numbers 3 and 4, on the other hand, keep climbing. My love for The Science of Sleep should be obvious now from the previous two posts. And Volver (#20 in cinemarati's top of the year), well, snatches of the film come back to me every once in a while, and I can't wait to see it again. In fact, I think it might be my favorite Almodóvar movie (of those I've seen, at least).

I know that, even among Volver lovers, I'm in the minority here. And I'll admit, it's easy to discard the film as nothing but a piece of cotton candy. But I think that Almodóvar finally found the perfect balance between camp and melodrama here.

Most of the time, when camp is used, when films go so over the top as this one does, when everything in a film is bigger (like Penelope's butt) and brighter than life, it tends to be to undercut the drama, rather than underline it. (Melo)drama is unhip and, more importantly, uncomfortable, so irony is used to put some distance between it and us. To make sure the drama doesn't come too close.

There is a scene here that could be interpreted in that way. Raimunda (Penelope's character) sings, and her mother looks at her hidden in a car across the street, crying. Thing is, it's obviously not Penelope who's singing, or if she was it's clearly overdubbed. It's deliberately fake, and it's tempting to think this is meant to be off-putting. I don't think it is though. It reminds us that we are just spectators, certainly, but also that it's not so much the specific story that matters, or the specific relationship, but beauty and feeling in general. I'm not phrasing this well, and it's hard to articulate, but in a way it's pulling the emotion of the song into the abstract, and it's all the stronger for it. Overwhelming, even, at least to me. Everything in this film is, in a way "fake", except the emotions themselves, with the strongest being the love Almodóvar has for life, for his characters, and last but definitely not least, for his actresses.

Of course, it's not the first time Almodóvar has pulled this trick, but it's the first time he's succeeded so perfectly (again, of the movies I've seen). In Todo Sobre Mi Madre, the melodrama takes the upper hand. And well, it works, I remember crying buckets, but in a way it's a little too easy. The loss of a child is always a tragedy, while the loss of a parent is of course very sad as well, but it's less trick of destiny and more of a transitional phase, not luckily a universal experience but one that hits closer to home, less something that happens "just to other people". Hable Con Ella was beautiful and disturbing, but it was a little too much on the earnest side, missing a sense of fun. On the other hand of the spectrum, there is for example La Mala Educación, which I loved, but which missed the sincere emotion present in Volver.

Despite the hyperbole above, I realise defending Volver as Almodóvar's best is probably beyond my writing and analysing skills, but I doubt he's made a warmer film, or one that's more alive. Words like vibrant and luscious have already been used too often too describe it, but it's because it is. It's a film that makes scrubbing a headstone seem life-affirming, a film where a farting ghost seems like the most natural thing. And it's a film I'd love to get for my birthday to watch over and over again.

The Science of Sleep (just a small thought in addition)

I should have done this a long time ago. I write, and all of a sudden the thoughts keep on coming. I know this effect won't last long, but I'm going to exploit it while I can. For too long now I've fallen back on TV series and other easy-to digest fare, sitting back and just absorbing what comes towards me, or rather letting it flow through me without causing the slightest stir.

See, I was standing under the shower (aka. the only place I can think undistracted) and all of a sudden it hit me. Stéphane is what Calvin could have turned into had he grown up. And by analogy, Gondry is in fact the new Watterson.

Think about it. Calvin has his transmogrifier, his time machine, his other inventions. Stéphane has his one-second time-machine, the 3-D glasses, etc. Calvin sees his teachers and parents sometimes as aliens, while Stéphane sees his co-workers in very different guises in his dreams. Calvin's makes art with snow, Stéphane with cellophane. They both have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy.

And isn't it a nice fantasy to think that there might actually be a place in our world for a grown up Calvin?

The Science of Sleep

" Stéphane: [Shows 3-D glasses ] You can see real life in 3-D
Stéphanie: Isn't life already in 3-D?
Stéphane: Yeah but, come on. "

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as I probably have mentioned more than once, is a movie I love. It gets everything right. It's unbearably romantic without being sappy, it's smart, it makes sense, it features people with true flaws instead of the standard rom-com "quirks", and its ending is both unexpected and inevitable. Some find it cynical, but I think it couldn't possibly be more optimistic.

All this time, I somehow gave 100% of the credit for this wonderful film to Charlie Kaufman. That is, I did until I saw the Science of Sleep. Now I'm not so sure any more.

Oh, Kaufman is definitely responsible for how neatly the plot fits. For the surreal idea at the basis also, probably. But for the heart, the optimism, the idealism (if that's the right word)? For that, I now think we have Michel to thank.

See, The Science Of Sleep, written by, directed by, and clearly entirely of Michel Gondry, is all heart, all warmth, and again without even becoming sappy or predictable. It's less clever, less carefully constructed than Eternal Sunshine, and rather than ending in a perfectly formed and placed period it unravels like a homemade sweater, but despite and somehow also because of that it might be the movie I like better. The one I'll return to more often. I might even go see it again in theatres, something I've never done.

I've always had a longing to be creative. I wanted to be an artist, I wanted to make music, sing, paint, craft, anything really as long as it meant creating something that wasn't there before, and couldn't have been without me. As I aged, more and more options closed off as I discovered I had no particular musical talent (I tried the piano, the guitar, singing in a band, singing in a choir), that my most serviceable drawing was of my left hand, and that clay, in my hands, refused to become anything but just that: a lump of clay. The one glimmer of artistic talent I could discover in myself was writing, but even there... There is a scene in The Man Who Wasn't There where Scarlett Johanssen has just played for the famed french piano teacher, and Ed anxiously await his judgment. "She's a nice girl", the man says. "She plays...like a nice girl."

I've always felt like I write "like a nice girl" (whether I am in fact nice is still a matter under discussion).

I also discovered, however, that I was a pretty good spectator. Someone who noticed things most other people didn't, someone who could get lost entirely in a different world, mostly in books at first but then also in movies, in music.

I know this is a long digression, but stick with me a little longer, there is a point and I'm getting to it. See, just when I had made my peace with the fact that I would be a spectator rather than a creator in this world, I went to a screening of "the Science of Sleep". Not only did it re-awaken my desire to create somehing, anything, but it made it seem like a possibility. It made the entire world feel full of possibilities.

Most movies about creative people keep you at a distance. You see them paint, compose, write, but as a viewer you remain outside, looking in. It seems in film, it's as difficult to show the creative process than it is to illustrate how a mathematician thinks. Or should I say "seemed"?

What's made in the Science of Sleep is not, by any stretch, "high art". Clouds made of cotton, a sea made of candy wrappers, a toy horse that hobbles. But there's so much fun here. So much enthusiasm. And it feels like you're part of the creative process, like you're sharing in a secret with the main characters.

There is also, or course, a lot about love. Stephane and Stephanie, that's got to be meant to be, n'est-ce pas? It's impossible not to fall for Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane, the boy who can't really distinguish dreams from reality, and who charmingly mingles French, English and Spanish. He cooks up dreams within his dreams, and they're a concoction that's both eclectic and oddly tangible and down to earth. And how could we not fall in love with his next-door neighbour Stephanie (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) outwardly tough but with oh-so-recognisable insecurities lurking just under the surface, who needs only a little encouragement to come out to play with Stephane in his dream world, but who has a hard time finding the patience to deal with all his odd behavior?

Still, even if the love story is front and center, the movie is ultimately about more than just relationships, and that might be what makes it stronger than Eternal Sunshine. Aside from revolving around two people who belong together and whether they will, in fact, make it, it's first and foremost about creativity. About being and staying a dreamer. About seeing the world with fresh eyes, as I certainly did after walking out of the theatre, blinking against the harsh sunlight of reality.

The feeling of possibility fades all too quickly, I'm afraid. Maybe that's why I long to get myself a new shot of optimism by seeing the film again. In any case, I know one thing for sure: Michel Gondry is not just a guy who can do amazing things with his toes. He's also someone in whose world I'd love to live.

N.B. Dreamers be warned. Click here only if you're a cynic.

" Stéphane: P. S. R. Parallel Synchronized Randomness. An interesting brain rarity and our subject for today. Two people walk in opposite directions at the same time and then they make the same decision at the same time. Then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it, and then they correct it. Basically, in a mathematical world these two little guys will stay looped for the end of time. The brain is the most complex thing in the universe and it's right behind the nose. "

Further Reading:
Gondry interviewed about dreams
A little about his new project

A Scanner Darkly, or, some thoughts on living in an open society

Recently, on Filmspotting, Sam remarked that one of Richard Linklater’s great strengths was his talent for writing and directing dialogue. He was talking about Fast Food Nation, but oddly enough, he might as well have been reviewing Linklater's other 2006 film, A Scanner Darkly.

Why oddly? Because what jumps out at first sight in this film is the visual aspect. Like Waking Life, this was first filmed as a live-action movie, then drawn over digitally. Unlike Waking Life, the style here is consistent, with one overall style, and there is even a semblance of a plot, adapted from the Philip K. Dick book of the same name.

The style works wonderfully within the surreal world of the film, and allows the shape-shifting suits and the character's drugged delusions to come to life. But it's the dialogue that sticks with you, the rhythm and cadence of it, delivered especially well by a twitchy but fascinating Robert Downey Jr. It's crazy dialogue, but it feels uncomfortably familiar, what with all the non-sequiturs and people talking more to themselves than to others. It's funny, too: the scene with the 8/9/18 speed bike made me double over in laughter (but also made me want to yell "MULTIPLY" to the screen).

Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot more to the movie. I wanted to love it, I really did, wanted to put it next to Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in my personal pantheon, but unfortunately, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. Not only does the movie lose its momentum entirely in the last 15/20 minutes, but I'm afraid it's not by far as relevant as Linklater wants it to be.

The world Philip K. Dick created, or at least the world Linklater brought to life, is one under permanent surveillance. There are cameras everywhere, there's a file on everyone, and only one big corporation escapes. In parts, the film itself feels like a surveillance tape.

Some things Linklater gets right. He perfectly illustrates, for example, how boring surveillance must be. But he gets the most important thing wrong: what's scary about today's world is not so much how much we can and are being watched. Instead, it's how much we enable the surveillance ourselves, how much, in fact, we seem to crave it.

It's only 8 years ago that, in 10 things I hate about you, Heath Ledger had to ask the sister of the girl he wanted to seduce for advice. Nowadays, he could just google her, find her MySpace/Facebook/whatever profile, visit her blog, and he'd get a point by point instruction manual: what movies, music and books she liked, her type of guy, her political opinions, maybe even her idea of the perfect date.

In this day, we are all exhibitionists. I more than participate, of course: I might not share many details of my personal life, but all my opinions, tastes, and weaknesses are here for anyone to explore and, possibly, exploit. I put it all up there willingly (also because I've decided being an open person in every aspect of my life is in some respects safer, but that's a story for another day), but was I always fully aware of how much I was sharing? Is everyone every time they post a comment on a blog somewhere, a note on someone's "wall"?

The scary thing is, today, you don't need to be a nameless, faceless, all-powerful government or even corporation to be able to investigate people. Everyone can. And that is much more scary than anything A Scanner Darkly has to offer.

Don't let me discourage you from seeing it though. It's a trip, and as I mentioned, the dialogue is wonderful. As for Keanu, I object to people who say he cannot act. He doesn't have an awful lot of range, true, but within his narrow range he can be quite good, and he is, here. He gets a chance to explore what it means to still be a slacker when you're 40 or thereabouts, and he even manages to imbue this with some poignancy.

H.

"Alright, I'm gonna give you a little feedback since you seem to be proceeding through life like a cat without whiskers perpetually caught behind the refrigerator. Your life and watching you live it is like a gag-reel of ineffective bodily functions. I swear to god that a toddler has a better understanding of the intricacies of chew-swallow-digest-don't kill yourself on your TV dinner! And yet you've managed to turn this near death fuckup of yours into a moral referendum on me!"

Let's try this again, shall we?

Ahem.

*clears throat*

One, one two.

Testing, testing.

Alright. Let's do this.

I realize that this nth attempt to give this blog a restart might seem futile, seeing how the last few have failed rather unspectacularly. Why? Procrastination on my part. Lack of inspiration. Lack of self-esteem (aka. finding my own writing unbearably terrible). And, although I hate to admit it, lack of response. I am afraid I am burdened with an (apparently genetic) longing for confirmation.

Just like my dad cannot help asking my mom three times "wasn't it nice that I brought you to the train station", just like he needs to hear from every single person at the table that the food he cooked was delicious (at least twice), I have a tough time staying motivated if there isn't someone reading every single word, and responding. I hate to admit it because I know the fact that I have few visitors is unlikely to change, but I'll try to get over myself.

So, what brought on this new elan, to quote our embarrasingly dull prime minister? And isn't it a bad idea, maybe, to try restarting a blog two weeks before rather crucial exams?

Probably. Thing is, I seem to be once again in something which I, with a somewhat overblown sense of drama, call an existential crisis. I started a Master's programme in Theoretical Physics last September. While the foolishness of such an endeavour might seem obvious to most, it's only starting to dawn on me now, mostly because I am starting to suspect I might simply be too stupid for it. And bit by bit, I feel like I am going a little more crazy every day, or at least a little more miserable.

I'm not about to quit, don't worry. And I am studying hard for those exams, and will continue to do so in the next two weeks despite how futile it feels. But to stop the going crazy part, I need not just some distraction and relaxation, but I also need to feel like I am doing at least something productive. I can't paint, like one of my friends/study mates does. I can however write (whether I can write well is, of course, another point entirely), and so when revamping my blog I decided I will. And since I was in this resolution-making mood, I decided I'll photograph more again too.

About the revamp, some new things: an elaborated link list, at first. I've added a picture, as you can see, although it'll probably be replaced soon. I intend to keep the filmlog up to date for a lot longer than last year. I've also used the new labelling feature, although I might still tinker with it some more. Furthermore, and maybe somewhat less noticeable, is the "recommended reading" list at the bottom. I'll post there every interesting article I find, and older links will be posted in a backdated post with a link in the sidebar.

The labelling was interesting, as it forced me to go back through old posts. I admit it was often a little embarrassing, like meeting an older version of yourself and thinking, 'what a silly girl'. But it was also motivating because some posts, some of the longer, more thought-out ones, reminded me of how much fun I had writing them, and of how much of an accomplishment I felt they were. They got the label "starred", and they're the posts I'm proudest of.

I hope more of them will come.

Phew. That was it. Wish me luck. And let's see how long I keep it up this time.

Hedwig

Filmlog 2007

12/28 The Stranger* (Welles, 1946)
12/27 3:10 to Yuma* (Mangold, 2007)
12/27 Black Snake Moan* (Brewer, 2006)
12/26 Ratatouille (Bird, 2007)
12/23 Marie Antoinette (Coppola, 2006)
12/22 Kiss Me, Deadly* (Aldrich, 1955)
12/22 The Postman Always Rings Twice* (Garnett, 1946)
12/22 Bottle Rocket (Anderson, 1996)
12/21 P the Darjeeling Limited* (Anderson, 2007)
12/20 Rio Bravo* (Hawks, 1959)
12/16 Inland Empire* (Lynch, 2007)
12/15 Brick (Johnson, 2005)
12/13 Knocked Up* (Apatow, 2007)
12/12 Lady Chatterley* (Ferran, 2006)
12/09 Zodiac* (Fincher, 2007)
12/07 P Du Levande/ You, the Living* (Andersson, 2007)
12/07 P Wonderful Town* (Assarat, 2008)
12/05 Waitress* (Shelly, 2007)
12/03 P No Country for Old Men* (Coen bros. 2007)
12/02 Eastern Promises (Cronenberg, 2007)
12/02 My Man Godfrey* (La Cava, 1936)
11/30 P TBS* (Kuijpers, 2008)
11/30 P Before The Devil Knows You're Dead* (Lumet, 2007)
11/30 P I'm Not There* (Haynes, 2007)
11/25 L.A.Confidential (Hanson, 1997)
11/21 The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
11/20 Beowulf IMAX* (Zemeckis, 2007)
11/19 Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Mitchell, 2001)
11/16 The Big Lebowski (Coen bros. 1998)
11/06 The Hitch-Hiker* (Lupino, 1953)
11/04 Quicksand* (Pichel, 1950)
11/02 P Enchanted* (Lima, 2007)
10/31 Red River* (Hawks, 1948)
10/29 Control* (Corbijn, 2007)
10/28 Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!* (Yauch, 2006)
10/26 True Romance (Scott, 1993)
10/25 Notorious* (Hitchcock, 1946)
10/24 Casablanca (Curtiz, 1943)
10/21 Impact* (Lubin, 1949)
10/21 Michael Clayton* (Gilroy, 2007)
10/20 Plan 9 from Outer Space* (Wood, 1959)
10/18 Dead Man* (Jarmusch, 1995)
10/16 Trapped* (Fleischer, 1949)
10/15 The Heartbreak Kid* (Farrelly bros., 2007)
10/14 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
10/12 The Dreamers (Bertolucci, 2003)
10/12 P Eastern Promises* (Cronenberg, 2007)
10/10 The Searchers* (Ford, 1956)
10/07 Closer (Nichols, 2004)
09/30 The Royal Tenenbaums - Prologue + first two chapters (Anderson, 2001)
09/28 Hotel Chevalier* (Anderson, 2007)
09/24 P The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford* (Dominik, 2007)
09/23 Dirty Pretty Things (1st 2/3) (Frears, 2002)
09/22 The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)
09/21 They Drive By Night* (Walsh, 1940) + Swingtime in the Movies* (Wilbur, 1938)
09/21 P The Brave One*(Jordan, 2007)
09/14 The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
09/08 Bande A Part* (Godard, 1964)
09/05 Wonderboys (Hanson, 2000)
08/29 The Simpsons Movie* (Silverman, 2007)
08/28 Spartan* (Mamet, 2004)
08/27 Ratatouille* (Bird, 2007)
08/27 Quo Vadis* (LeRoy, 1951)
08/26 The Lookout* (Frank, 2007)
08/23 L'Eclisse (Antonioni, 1962)
08/21 L'Eclisse* (Antonioni, 1962)
08/20 P The Bourne Ultimatum* (Greengrass, 2007)
08/12 2 Days in Paris (Delpy, 2007)
08/10 P A Guide to Recognizing your Saints* (Montiel, 2006)
08/08 Point Break* (Bigelow, 1991)
08/07 The Passenger - with Jack Nicholson commentary (Antonioni, 1975)
08/06 School of Rock* (Linklater. 2003)
08/06 Say Anything* (Crowe, 1989)
08/04 Cronaca di un amore* (Antonioni, 1950)
08/03 Rear Window* (Hitchcock, 1954)
08/02 Bride Of Frankenstein* (Whale, 1935)
07/31 Plein Soleil* (Clément, 1960)
07/30 Det Sjunde Inseglet/The Seventh Seal* (Bergman, 1957)
07/30 Clerks II* (Smith, 2006)
07/29 Witness for the Prosecution* (Wilder, 1957)
07/28 Don't Look Now* (Roeg, 1973)
07/28 Days of Heaven* (Malick, 1978)
07/27 Hot Fuzz* (Wright, 2007)
07/27 Glen or Glenda* (Wood, 1953)
07/26 The Sea* (Kormakur, 2002)
07/26 Fast Times at Ridgemont High* (Heckerling, 1982)
07/25 Reform School Girl* (Bernds, 1957)
07/25 Beat the Devil* (Huston, 1953)
07/24 P Once* (Carney, 2006)
07/24 P Hairspray* (Shankman, 2007)
07/22 Get Carter* (Kay, 2000)
07/21 Goodfellas* (Scorsese, 1990)
07/20 Heathers* (Lehmann, 1989)
07/18 Escape from Alcatraz* (Siegel, 1979)
07/18 The Fabulous Baker Boys* (Kloves, 1989)
07/17 He Walked By Night* (Werker & Mann, 1948)
07/16 Gerry* (van Sant, 2002)
07/16 The Big Heat* (Lang, 1953)
07/15 The Sheltering Sky* (Bertolucci, 1990)
07/13 The Gift* (Raimi, 2000)
07/12 Blowup (Antonioni,1966)
07/11 Death Proof (*)(Tarantino, 2007)
07/10 Crash* (Cronenberg, 1996)
07/09 Othello* (Welles, 1952)
07/08 Croupier* (Hodges, 1998)
07/06 Ocean's 13* (Soderbergh, 2007)
07/04 A Bout de Souffle* (Godard, 1960)
07/04 Whistle Stop* (Moguy, 1946)
07/02 The Player* (Altman, 1992)
07/01 Torn Curtain* (Hitchcock, 1966)
06/30 Masculin Feminin* (Godard, 1966)
06/29 Three Graduation films of the class of 2007*
06/24 The Devil Wears Prada* (Frankel, 2006)
06/22 La Stanza del Figlio* (Moretti, 2001)
06/10 Miami Vice* (Mann, 2006)
06/08 Babel* (Inarritu, 2006)
06/04 Grindhouse* (Rodriguez&Tarantino, 2007)
06/03 Bobby* (Estevez, 2006)
06/03 Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
06/01 The Strange Love of Martha Ivers* (Milestone, 1946)
05/31 The Departed* (Scorsese, 2006)
05/28 Das Leben Der Anderen* (Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
05/27 Thank you for Smoking* (Reitman, 2005)
05/24 The Good German* (Soderbergh, 2006)
05/19 Atame! (Tie me up! Tie me down!) * (Almodovar, 1990)
05/18 Yossi and Jagger* (Fox, 2002)
05/15 The Prestige* (Nolan, 2006)
05/14 Detour* (Ulmer, 1945)
05/03 The Cooler* (Kramer, 2003)
04/29 The Apartment* (Wilder, 1960)
04/20 El Laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth* (Del Toro, 2006)
04/19 Short Cuts* (Altman, 1993)
04/18 Belle de Jour* (Bunuel, 1967)
04/12 The 40 year old virgin* (Apatow, 2005)
04/11 Back to the Future III* (Zemeckis, 1990)
04/09 Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962)
04/06 Children of Men* (Cuaron, 2006)
04/03 Double Indemnity* (Wilder, 1944)
04/03 Dogma (Smith, 1999)
03/30 Picnic* (Logan, 1955)
03/28 Marie Antoinette* (Coppola, 2006)
03/27 Before Sunset (Linklater, 2004)
03/26 Scarlet Street* (Lang, 1945)
03/25 Stranger than Fiction* (Forster, 2006)
03/24 300* (first half) (Snyder, 2007)
03/18 A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951)
03/14 Donnie Darko (for about the 17th time) (Kelly, 2001)
03/12 Matador* (Almodovar, 1986)
03/04 Coffee and Cigarettes* (Jarmusch,2003)
02/26 Back to the Future II* (Zemeckis, 1989)
02/25 Closer (Nichols, 2005)
02/24 A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005)
02/21 The Virgin Suicides (Coppola, 1999)
02/17 La Môme* (Dahan, 2007)
02/13 The Queen* (Frears, 2006)
02/12 I Vitelloni* (Fellini, 1953)
02/11 Little Children* (Field, 2006)
02/07 Listened to Mallrats (Smith, 1995)
02/07 Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Almodovar, 1988)
02/06 Almost Famous* (Crowe, 2000)
02/05 A Prairie Home Companion* (Altman, 2006)
02/03 Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
02/03 Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003)
02/03 True Romance (Scott, 1993)
02/02 A Fistful of Dollars* (Leone, 1964)
02/01 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)
01/28 The Lake House* (Agresti, 2006)
01/21 Vincent* (Burton, 1982)
01/17 Various Edison Movies (Edison e.a., 1891-1922)
01/14 It happened one night (Capra, 1934)
01/13 Paris je T'aime * (Coen bros., van Sant, Salles, Doyle, Cuaron, Payne, Craven, Tykwer e.a. 2006)
01/11 The Graduate (Nichols, 1967)
01/10 A Scanner Darkly *(Linklater, 2006)
01/07 Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
01/07 The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941)
01/02 Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick, 1999)


Films with a * were seen for the first time
Bold-faced = seen in theatres
P(ress screening)