Beautiful Pain

We hand over so much of ourselves to love when love is destruction, love is as evil as it is holy.
Never could there be a simple method of explaining the eccentricities of love. So much of it is beyond words; it is a feeling and it is knowledge but it is impossible to express with any truth in language. When a person says they’re in love their words bring to mind a myriad of emotions, hurts, and obsessions. We are slaves to love’s causality and, to this end, we become love’s casualty. Love is endless pain with but few moments of true peace and contentment. A warm kiss can undo endless hours of misery but, when this is unattainable, the desire turns to emotional torture.

Fanny walks beside us in the final scene of Bright Star, her face rich with joyful memories and wretched pain. She preserves her love to the chill winter air, reciting his words as only a lover could. Bright Star gives us a gently opening spring blossom which oscillates between the blackest black and brightest yellow, yet still bathed in the most naturalistic beauty. Bright Star glories in all aspects of Keats’ and Fanny’s connection, it acknowledges the fickleness of love: the innocence of Fanny’s butterfly farm, (“In honour of us”), in contrast with the sinister cut on her wrist inflicted upon reading a letter informing her that Keats would not return soon.

For all Fanny’s devoted affections, for the depth and purity of her love, for the few times they are able to share each others minds and bodies, she is handed a lifetime of sadness. But in death there is eternity; one lover dies in the midst of great affection, and their love can endure. It lives on as a dream, untouched by inevitable decay or decline. It always remains in the realm of purity.

The Basterd Children

There’s nothing much I can say about Inglourious Basterds that hasn’t been said or that wasn’t immediately apparent while watching the film. What I’m most interested in is the experience I had watching it. I would imagine that much of the love this film incurs is a result of what a fantastic cinema experience it is. It plays on the audiences most primitive instincts and never questions itself. Like all Tarantino it presents to us gruesome death and murder played for laughs and, when it’s not played for laughs (such as the massacre of Shoshanna’s family), it is devoid of emotion. It is this that makes the film so enjoyable; it’s easy, it’s cool, it makes us feel good and never requests that we consider just what horror we are laughing at. I’m sure most of the people who saw this film had very similar audiences; mine laughed, cheered, and applauded at the end of the film. What are they applauding? Senseless death and torture that truly adds nothing from any artistic or emotional point of view. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy all that unpleasantness. I laughed when Aldo Raine explained to a Nazi officer that beating nazi’s to death was about the “closest thing they had to going to the movies.”

I presume everyone knows that Tarantino is a child with an expensive camera and while people may know that they don’t consider it. I remember thinking many times throughout the film that I was laughing at things that weren’t, in an organic sense, funny at all. But that’s a talent of Tarantino’s I suppose, to offer total abandon in the cruelest of acts. The audience cheered the characters in their revenge without really feeling them; Basterds is an utterly hollow enterprise, wallowing in destruction. For these reasons I would not call it a ‘good’ film though I loved it all the same. I experienced such righteous joy watching it that I was almost completely silent following the credit roll. I was imbibed with every nuance of dialogue while the terrible and demonic climax rang through my head for hours afterward. This is a rare film in that it is rife with problems and yet appeared to me as total perfection.

Perhaps a different filmmaker would not receive such criticism over his violence, especially violence toward Nazi’s, but the violence is so typically Tarantino and it’s simply easier for people to accept the butchering of Nazi’s over regular people. One thing I commend him for is not necessarily treating Nazi’s any different from his apparently ‘good’ characters who also receive a bloody death. Though this would be more commendable if the higher ranking Nazi characters were not portrayed as absurd buffoons. This is counter-acted somewhat with the slick portrayal of Col. Hans Lander though this also descends into a semblance of buffoonery in the end. The audience is always okay with that sort of thing. That’s not to say that Nazi’s weren’t evil or that they didn’t have repugnant ideas but it’s such a cop out to portray them in a cartoon-like manner. Nazi’s were people too and I would imagine that the young men enlisted in the German army didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice. I would also imagine that, in Nazi Germany, it was either do or die when it comes to agreeing and reinforcing policy. It’s simply easier to give Nazi’s an incompetent facade because it reinforces our condoned hatred. Though I don’t believe hate is what we should be feeling, hate is something that fuels destruction. Perhaps we should instead pity the man filled with hatred, a hatred that creates a box to shield the mind from new ideas, cultures, and ways of life. Every audience will revel in the revenge fantasy that is Basterds, I know I did. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s highly cathartic, but does little to inform the self or offer insight. I like this film a great deal, though I’m sure that’s the child in me talking.

Alone in the Cinema

One of my favourite things to do is go to a film of which I know nothing about. There will be no preconceived notions and no expectations. Expectations tend to be grandiose and unrealistic as everyone has their own idea of what they’d like a film to be. They cloud the screen and can turn an otherwise competent film into a grave disappointment. Trailers mislead; they play as  a presentation of events in the interests of marketing .  Even a synopsis is sort of useless since they are unable tell me how a film may make me feel or what it has to say. When I read a synopsis, an idea of what the film might be forms in my mind but that idea is always false. I’m sure I’ve missed out on some great films because I wasn’t a fan of the synopsis, because I failed to realise it was  irrelevant.

I suppose some problems arise from seeing films with no guiding information. Sometimes the films are bad but a mistake is made when a bad film is taken as a personal affront. When I’m in the cinema, it doesn’t matter if the film is bad, I enjoy it anyway. A most recent example would be Cold Souls which I would call a bad film but good and bad don’t matter when it’s right in front of me. It’s bigger than life, it’s captivating, and there’s no reason to consider its quality while viewing because I might miss things I do enjoy. Cold Souls had a great sense of humour and pretty cinematography though, while neither of these things could save it, they are what I focused on while watching. A film is always trying to tell me something, and whether it’s good or bad I always want to listen. There will always be a time when I can map out its flaws or attributes but the experience of watching it is fleeting and joyful.

There are times I’ve left the cinema, after seeing a film a truly enjoyed, and the world outside seems brighter and happier just for having witnessed the film. I project my happiness out on a world which couldn’t possibly be bleak with the existance of cinema. The first time I saw I’m Not There was in the cinema to a packed house. The audience was responsive and eager, they seemed to swell and retract in time with the movie, allowing its images to sweep over them with no judgement or nitpicking. When I left the theatre it was twilight and light snow was drifting down upon me. The snow increased my joy and everything appeared perfect and beautiful. I’m constantly seeking to recreate this feeling. The films that cause it are random; most recently Mendes’ Away We Go created a shadow of it but not quite the real thing. To recreate it I must see a film alone. I find seeing films with others massively distracting because I’m so concerned with their reactions rather than being concerned with my own. When I go to the cinema alone my eyes never leave the screen whereas, if I’m with another person, they are constantly alighting on that person. It makes the whole experience far less pure. I’ve been going to the movies by myself a lot more often lately, maybe soon I’ll find this feeling again.

Cold Souls (Barthes, 2009)

We think of our souls as an essential part of who we are, separate from consciousness, separate from desire or thought. If it exists it possesses our humanity and our intangible selves that cannot be touched by decay. It represents our desire for immortality;  those who believe in a soul believe it will live on after our physical body has descended into decay. Losing your soul means losing your essential self. Paul is an actor who has become burdened with his soul and wishes to free himself from it. In his attempt to find a new self (which he quickly discovers does not exist) he loses himself both literally and figuratively. His search for relief is revealed in the form of ‘Soul Storage’,  A new company that offers to extract and store the soul until such time as the client wishes to retrieve it. the very idea of soul storage itself is fraught with difficulties, i.e, the cheapening of our essential selves. Though this is further put into perspective when Paul finds that they not only store souls but import them from Russia. This idea functions as a sort of comment on the way people are so willing to compromise their meaning and their humanity. They give themselves over to flashy ideas perpetuated by our blaring popular culture, a culture so eager to distract us from any true meaning. However a film cannot function on a true level as a mere  social commentary which is where it falls flat.

The idea behind this film offers the script so many opportunities to explore what it is to be human, what it is to lose your soul, and the nature of personal meaning. Ultimately though, the script does not take advantage of these opportunies and instead wallows in an all too traditional narrative, never fully exploring the ideas it claims to be concerned with. When Paul becomes weary and discontented with soullessness, he returns to the company to express his concern. He is offered a rent-a-soul from a Russian poet. Again the film touches on something worth exploring but neglects it; we are offered a few images from Paul’s experience of the soul but are given nothing more in the end but a remark that the owner had a ‘beautiful soul’. When Paul returns once again to the company to retrieve his own soul, he finds it has been stolen so he must accomapny a ’soul mule’ to Russia to get it back. It is here that the film really loses steam and becomes another search for self that offers no real insight into what the self is or what it means.

When Paul’s soul is first extracted, he is given a pair of goggles and told to ‘look inside’ which he refuses to do. One place the film succeeds is in illustrating Paul’s hypocrisy; he wishes for a new self without bothering to explore the one he already has. This is the film’s one truly insightful observation: our refusal to really understand or ’see inside’ ourselves. Humans are creatures so terrified of themselves that they often reject the things that would allow them to understand and really inhabit their own ’soul’ if you will. Art is one way people are able to explore their inner recessess but this too is all to frequently cast aside for things easy to understand, things we take as truth but have no basis in reality. Cold Souls could have been an insightful and thought provoking exploration of this but instead, much like Paul, is unable to see or take advantage of its true self.

10 Best Films I Saw in July

10. Dans Paris (Honore, 2007)

Some good performances and a few honest moments make this film more than mediocre. Not to mention the presence of Louis.

9. (500) Days of Summer (Webb , 2009)

Has tons to say about the futility and the rewards of bearing your heart and our seeming inability to understand the opposite sex. Delightful and charming with a great balance of drama and comedy.`

8. My Summer of Love ( Pawlikowski, 2005)

The lush, gentle cinematography contrast nicely with the cruel characters and their abject hypocrisy.

7. Made in USA (Godard, 1966)

Lacking Godard’s 1960’s lightheartedness, but retaining his usual style. Cinematic alienation served rainbow shades.

6. Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960)

Pitch perfect filmmaking and the ever detailed characterization of Mark make this film an enthralling experience.

5. Anatomy of Hell (Breillat, 2004)

Breillat loves to scream at her audience, this film is very loud.

4. Beware of a Holy Whore (Fassbinder, 1971)

This is what happens when you try to make a film

3. How to Get Ahead in Advertising (Robinson, 1989)

While it functions primarily as a pointed social commentary, its strength lies in its absurd sense of humour. Completely hilarious and highly intelligent filmmaking.

2. Weekend (Godard, 1967)

Laced with fire.

1. Dancer in the Dark (Trier, 2000)

Innocence personified, cruel world, difficult to watch and absorb. Perfect employment of the musical framework. Trier is a cinematic rapist.

Weekend (Godard, 1967)

Weekend brims with fiery angst, and Godard’s supposed anger towards the bourgeois; a searing indictment of everything the common man strives for, embodied in our heartless couple. The film is political, but it is not the politics that makes it great, it’s the brimstone with which Godard speaks, the cruelty he utilizes, and his absurd humour.

There is nothing truly like-able about this film, it is a film to be felt, appreciated, and absorbed. Godard’s hallmark of alienation is never more present than in Weekend, his extensive use of long shots and takes inform us of what we are never meant  to know. His characters play only on the surface  for they are simply pawns in his political enterprise. The film writhes on the screen, hopelessly black and angry, aching to bring forth its own distaste to the viewer.

To appreciate this film you must appreciate Godard’s distaste, he wanted the viewer to hate it, wanted the viewer to feel as angry as he. It is with this film that Godard shed his guise of playful innocence, it is the anti-A bout de Souffle. One should think of this film as a round out of his 1960’s oeuvre;  Weekend is is the death of a vision

Muerte de un Ciclista (Bardem, 1955)

Paranoia serves as a character in this film, weaving through the lives of the characters until every footstep, every word, evokes fear in Juan and Maria and they tremble at the thought of being cornered over their despicable act. They fear for the lives they don’t truly deserve and in their desperation to preserve themselves, they bring about their own undoing.

The film is peppered with beautiful close ups, capturing the innermost thoughts and feelings of Juan and Maria, though the camera seems to linger on her longer, to caress her, as though it longs for us to know her. We come to know her, we’re lead inside her self-centeredness and cowardly ideas, while everyone else is deceived by her beauty and status. The death of the cyclist is just an extra in Juan and Maria’s drama. Their affair  jeopardizes everything they claim to care though they consistantly make references to preserving their way of life, a way of life based on deception.

The film boasts one of the most gruesome and fitting endings I’ve ever seen. Though Juan and Maria reassure themselves that no one saw the accident, that fact quickly becomes hopelessly inconsequential.

La Frontiere de l’aube (Garrel, 2008)

Having attempted to watch Garrel’s films in the past (and being embarrassingly unsuccessful) I feel it’s safe to say this is one of his more “accessible” ventures. Shot in warm black and white, it details the sort of ‘mad love’ that is both dreaded and embraced.  Rarely does the film allow the viewer to feel anything toward the characters, we are simply shown the events with no room for emotional input. The characters themselves never feel true and unselfish emotion, as a result, the film is selfish with its audience.

We feel only the distress of Francois, our main protagonist, and the need-based affections of his lovers. The characters never feel love as something to be cherished and shared, but as a fundamental need, without which they will perish. It is a selfish love, one felt so desperately that it becomes impossible to maintain, it becomes the thing that destroys them. While Francois appears to distance himself from that love, he never can. His second love is just as fragile as the first, only she has managed to hold him there by becoming pregnant with his child. A child, another being with only selfish love to give and a symbol of the conventional lifestyle he begins to fear.

Whether or not the film can be called a tragedy depends on ones definition of what is tragic. Francois does not choose life, in the end. He is tormented by the spectre of a fallen lover, calling him away from a life he doesn’t truly wish to live. Where the tragedy would lie is entirely in the eyes of the viewer.

Eat the Document (Bob Dylan,”1972″)

These little seen remnants of a D.A. Pennebaker documentary are not the easiest things to stomach, documenting Dylan’s 1966 tour. Eat the Document, never officially released, was shot by Pennebaker under Dylan’s direction. It is also supposed Dylan edited the film itself, which would explain the reason for its lack of official release.

Eat the Document cuts from shot to shot, time to time, day to day, with no  rhyme or reason. The effect is to create something entirely alienating and frighteningly chaotic, as the film weaves a nonexistant narrative, one cannot help but be drawn into the wretched disorganization. It’s a film to float away with, to let your eyes glaze over and absorb the all encompasing ego of its subject. To watch various people move and speak things so insignificant yet rendered significant by their existance on film, to watch musicans at work and imagine the guitar in your own hands, to imagine what that time and place must have felt like.

Dylan never wanted to make his art easy for people and this film is no exception. It stands as a testament to Dylan’s often confusing artistic intentions over the years, as well as a big fuck you to those who were unable to understand them.