saw a talkie at the picture show: new film thread

[elpollodiablo]

Wow. That sounds wild.

[Greg Nog]

Holy shit, I'm quite curious about that now.  I love Culloden and The War Game, but I'd never heard of this La Commune.

[auto-da-fey]

It IS wild, and what's amazing is that it takes the precise approach Watkins used 35 years earlier in Culloden (anachronistically-placed TV cameras live-reporting historical events), stretches the trick to its limits, then lets them break completely. There are traces of experimental off-Broadway theater, New Left verite*, postmodern meta-narrativity, and probably most of the rest of the important elements of the broader genealogy of, say, post-Beatles culture, but it's all done in a deeply felt way even at its most Brechtian. When Watkins pulls in the feminist struggle for gender equality, say, or Algerian anticolonialism, it never feels forced, but part and parcel of his deeply humanitarian project (for a film about a horrifyingly violent historical moment, La Commune consistently denies the viewer any even inadvertent spectatorial bloodlust-thrills). And for a film the mercilessly pummels you with its political vision, it's also miraculously un-dogmatic in its willingness to humanize brutal soldiers and critique utopian socialists despite its overwhelming sympathy for the latter.

Looks like it hasn't been discussed much here, but hannah put it on her top ten of the decade, and though it bears a 1999 copyright, I wholly concur. Especially recommended for all you anarcho-lefties, but I'd rep it to anyone, and not just as a manifesto but as a visceral film. Though perhaps with the caveat that it builds slowly, and might take a few hours to adjust to its deliberate staginess (shot entirely on a set in an old warehouse, with the characters mostly talking directly into the camera--potentially a bit off-putting at first {I was put off at first}).

* I thought at times of Robert Kramer's Ice**, with its process emphasis on SDS-like consensus democracy, and also of Frederick Wiseman's work*** that always examines systems and structures.

*** which recently arrived, at long last, on a double-DVD with Milestones, thus constituting the single greatest DVD release of the past decade IMHO and which every single person who reads this should purchase to support Icarus Films and thus encourage them to release more such work.

*** after the film, en route to eat on First Ave, we stopped by the relocated Mondo Kim's (I'm not sure if the old one is still there on St. Mark's but guessing not), and they had a ton of Wiseman films, which he self-releases and you generally don't see anywhere. Perhaps still dazed, I shelled out thirty bucks for State Legislature, his 217-minute film about the Idaho State Legislature, which I've been wanting to see since it came out in 2007. Excitement awaits!

[fishjim]

Especially recommended for all you anarcho-lefties

Recommendation rec'd!

Only place around here that might actually screen a 6-hr film is the Pacific Film Archive at UCB. Will keep an eye out...

[jebreject]

whoa

[Greg Nog]

auto!  Is there any nudity, visible fuckery, or gore in the film?  It just occurred to me that my Xmas journey up to NH is about six hours, but I try to keep bus-films family-friendly so as not to discomfort my seatmates.

[peacocks]

That movie sounds great but I'd have to watch it over several days.

I saw Persona tonight. It was great! more when I'm not super sleepy maybe.

[Chet]

so is black swan supposed to be a david lynch parody?

[jebreject]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Babar]

Yeah, I've always thought it's a shame only one guy is allowed to do weird movies in Hollywood.

[Chet]

come on, the lesbian sex scene, the dual identiy theme, and you know, the plot as a whole is eeriely similar to that of inland empire.

[jebreject]

And they both suck, so there's that

[jm]

What. I loved Inland Empire.

[elpollodiablo]

And they both suck, so there's that

[Ashley]

bus-films family-friendly so as not to discomfort my seatmates.

I get a little uncomfortable about how many movies on planes are really graphic.  The other day I was sitting behind a woman and her 4 year old daughter, and the woman was watching a movie with really detailed sex scenes.  Later she was watching the smurfs movie, so I'm gonna assume she was asleep during sexytimes tv.

[fishjim]

Haven't seen Inland Empire, but the wikis tell me it's got a lot in common with Mulholland Drive, which has got a lot in common with Persona.

I liked Mulholland Drive up to about the 2/3 point, and then I lost interest.

[jm]

There seems to be a thread that runs from Lost Highway through Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire that leads me to believe that Lynch is trying to make the same movie in as many variations as possible.

[fishjim]

Is Lost Highway the one where Laura Dern & her partner get a videotape on their doorstep, which turns out to be of someone breaking into their home and walking down the hall to their bedroom, where they're asleep? Scariest moment in film I can think of.

Sheer terror notwithstanding, I lost interest in Lost Highway after about the 2/3 point, too.

[jebreject]

Yeah, and that's Lynch in a nutshell. Some great, compelling and creepy imagery, but that's really all that's there. It's the most superficial surrealism imaginable.

*this does not apply to any of the Lynch stuff I actually like, of course

** also we've had this argument like a hundred fifty times so uhhhhhh I'm not super keen to have it again

[Thermofusion]

I lived in the apartment building from Blue Velvet (the one where Isabella Rossellini's character lived) for a year. I'm not really a Lynch aficionado but to me he's one of those directors who produces amazing individual scenes but whose movies don't quite fall into place as a whole. That's all I got!

[fishjim]

Fishjim & Thermo, united again 

[YojimboMonkey]

Fishjim & Thermo

Sounds like an oddball superhero team-up, like something written by a stoned Grant Morrison, or otherwise spun off from Doom Patrol.

[Thermofusion]

Justice League Dark

[auto-da-fey]

auto!  Is there any nudity, visible fuckery, or gore in the film?

no! Watkins is the least prurient director on earth. you feel like you're witnessing profound violence, but in terms of actual onscreen depiction, you see nothing more than a few bodies in the street, from a tactful distance. so, no sex/nudity, and no gore to speak of.

plus, the black-and-white makes it clear to any from-an-angle voyeurs that This Is A Serious Film And You Won't Get Any Cheap Thrills Peeking.

[Greg Nog]

Thanks so much!  I may well watch it on the Voyage North, then!