Currently viewing the category: "films"

Crash

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Case Sound Tests: Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (c.1924-25) by Theodore Case and E.I. Sponable

Princess Nicotine / The Smoke Fairy (1909) by Vitagraph / J. Stuart Blackton

Rhythmus 21 (1921) by Hans Richter

Le Retour á La Raison (1923) by Man Ray

George Dumpson´s Place (1965) by Ed Emshwiller

Empreintes / Imprints (2004) by Jacques Drouin

Anamorphosis (1991) by The Quay Brothers

A couple of days ago I got into bicycle accident. I was cycling to work and a parked car beside the road hit me with it´s opening door and stopped my journey there. Luckily it was nothing severe but I have been a little bit upset and aching a lot. I got a week off from work and have been lying on a bed in our living room ever since. I sprained my left shoulder so not a lot of crafting here (I am left-handed).

On the second day R put up together a short film screening to pick me up. It was suberb, such good films – although I almost fell asleep during George Dumpson´s Place. My favourite of the above selection was obviously Anamorphosis by the ever-intriguing Quay twins.

Ruth Fisher

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I remember watching first episodes of Six Feet Under in 2001 and hailed it my favourite series back then. It was perfect. And Ruth Fisher captivating. I seem to identify older women very often for some reason.

Now that I started watching the whole thing from the beginning again I feel the same, except it feels even more special because it´s discontinued and sealed from time in a way.

In the 7th episode Ruth breaks down crying at the florist on her first day. She is overwhelmed with happiness and  perplexed because in the past she had associated flowers with mourning and sadness (fury even). For me that scene is very touching. Perhaps especially because for me flowers mean work and therefore unfortunately they don´t convey me that strong feelings and memories they have power to do.

Do you remember the series, even this scene? Did you like it? Who was your favourite? Why?

Fanny and Alexander

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I am about halfway watching Ingmar Bergman´s Fanny och Alexander (1982) and I am already very taken by it. I wonder how I have not seen it before because it´s on air often on Christmas Day. I love it the same reason every other Bergman film: the lightness and certain amount of extravagance and the solemnity that couples with ascetic. It has these both sides and I am looking forward where it will take.

Melancholia

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I saw Lars von Trier´s Melanholia (2011) a couple of days ago and I have been thinking about it ever since. I thought it was an awesome film but not something I like. This is because it left me feeling miserable which I still am a bit. I have been intriqued by melancholia for years but I recent years turned a little away from it and now it seems this film brought it all back with cosmic proportions.

What did you think about that film? How did you feel and the last few seconds of the film? How about now?

BTW Please see this picture search with ´melancholia´, it has so many interesting artworks.

Chaplin

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I kind of like that Google reminds me of important historical dates. Today is Charlie Chaplin´s 122nd birthday and google embedded a video pastiche in their logo. The video is also available in Youtube. Of course this Google Doodle doesn´t come even close to the brilliance of the real thing. That dance sequence embedded below in Modern Times (1936) is one of favourites in the history of cinema.

 

 

 

Exit through the gift shop

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picture from here

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), a documentary directed by Banksy. Be it a hoax or not, it was is one of the funniest documentaries out there. I laughed out loudly throughout the film while it was screened only once in my hometown – very successfully I might add.

Copie conforme

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picture from here

A couple of days I went to see a film called Copie conforme (2010,) also known as Certified Copy. It was directed by Abbas Kiarostami and starring Juliette Binoche. I knew barely anything about what I was to see and now that I think about it, it´s precicely how this film should be watched. Without plot spoilers or larger-than-life expectations, rather just by walking into a cinema after your everyday chores. You can see the trailer here, but luckily it doesn´t reveal anything. I recommend you go see this little big film, because it certainly has the power to leave something bubbling under.

A trip to Tampere

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I took a one-night trip to Tampere when they had their annual film festival. The reason going there, was to see Maska (2010) by The Quay Brothers.  In addition almost the whole screening was very good, especially Millhaven.

I don´t know Tampere very well so even though I was a little bad weather (snow blizzard) I had a chance to see many things around and about. I also checked out Anna Tuori´s (the young artist of the year) exhibition. And oh, I also saw Black Swan – finally!

Feist

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pictures from Feist´s website

Yesterday I had a truly fantastic day.

I had nothing urgent to do and could pretty much do what I liked. In addition to knitting and fixing up blog, I had sushi, my favourite and went to the screening of Look at What the Light Did Now. I had listened to her album over and over again a couple years´s back and felt this might be interesting.

The document Look at What the Light Did Now (2010) is about singer-songwriter Leslie Feist and the making of her third album Reminder (2007). I´ll quote Feist´s website on what it´s about:

This poetic film pulls back the curtain to reveal intimate partnerships with the people Feist calls her ‘amplifiers’: The photographer who helped her hide within the frame, shadow puppeteers in hockey arenas, an artist who built a thread-radiating mural, the video director who conducted fireworks, the pianist who guided the recording of the album, and other musical and visual collaborators. The film follows Feist and her supporting cast through an impressionistic array of flickering scenery, echoing stadiums, puppet workshops, the red carpet, a crumbling French mansion, definitive concert performances and uncommonly candid interviews.

The film was exactly about what the website promise. The intimate collaboration and appreciation of individual artistic skill in the film was truly inspiring. It had tons of creative ideas performed right from the beginning and left inspiring thoughts bubbling under. Even though it was not the perfect documentary in it´s unfinishedness and rambling images, I think it did highlight it´s obvious points about artistic collaborative creation pretty clearly. I especially loved to see things happening and evolving when certain ideas were pushed against each other.

Also, the document brought up two (and more) brilliant artists that I had never heard about before. The first one is Shary Boyle with her live projections: their analog sensibility and uniqueness. The second interesting artist/illustrator is Simone Rubi, whose yarn sculpture/collages formed the artwork of Feist´s Reminder.


picture by Simone Rubi

 

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