[a-p a. niemi]

Oh, and the theme from The Third Man is quite an earworm!

[!@#$%!]

holy shit, i googled "a serbian film" and the review is pretty fucking disturbing. great choice of film to accompany a depression-- not.

fucking shit man, pick up something from criterion to make you feel better. watch the gaudí documentary or something like that.

http://www.criterion.com/films/536-antonio-gaudi

-------

apa-niemi

the reason citizen kane was considered that is because orson welles perfected in that film a lot of techniques he had been working on for a while-- like the use of deep focus (a technical feat back then, now a matter of course with video), or the use of light and shadow after german expressionism, which is what film noir picked up from him. besides, it was a huuuuge, epic movie, massive in scale but not cheesy like gone with the wind which is from the same era. anyway if you think of film in the late 30s/early 40s and put CK in its context, it's pretty fucking awesome, though i like touch of evil and the trial more.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

@ noiseredux - Thanks, man!

@ apa niemi - Haha, don't worry dude. You said more than enough!

I've had Pickpocket in my Netflix queue for quite some time now. I've heard Bresson's name a bunch of times, but have never actually checked any of his work out. So, I guess I should definitely give Pickpocket a shot.

I haven't seen Los Olvidados, but the one Bunuel that I really enjoyed (and mentioned in the classic films thread) was The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Ensayo de un Crimen). It is also bleak, grey, and dreamlike...ha. It's a pretty weird little movie, and my only criticism is that it does feel slow at times. But I'd recommend it if you're gonna get into Bunuel - who I'm not too familiar with.

 

 

 

 

As for Citizen Kane... "No sir, I don't like it," to quote Mr. Horse from Ren & Stimpy.

I can see how it must've been really neat a gazillion years ago to see all of the innovations in the film, but to still consider it the greatest film of all-time is absolutely absurd, in my opinion. There has just been so much done with the artform since 1941.

I honestly think that people who praise it so highly must either only be doing so because of the film's/Welles' reputation, or they saw it very early on - like Scorsese (who loves it) or somebody. Because let me tell you, it bored me to tears.

[noisereductions]

weird Joe. I love Citizen Kane. Not cuz I should. Just cuz I do.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I stand corrected.

[!@#$%!]

@ eugene - dude you should check out bresson's book "notes on the cinematographer" where he lays out his theory of filmmaking, use of non-actors ("models") etc. it reads like a smarter much much much much much more interesting version of dogme 95 40 years ahead of lars "von" trier. i like lars trier but he ripped off bresson.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

^ That sounds really intriguing. I'll have to look into it after I check out at least one of his films. I'd hate to dive in without a frame of reference, ha. Thanks for that though!

[a-p a. niemi]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

apa-niemi

the reason citizen kane was considered that is because orson welles perfected in that film a lot of techniques he had been working on for a while-- like the use of deep focus (a technical feat back then, now a matter of course with video), or the use of light and shadow after german expressionism, which is what film noir picked up from him. besides, it was a huuuuge, epic movie, massive in scale but not cheesy like gone with the wind which is from the same era. anyway if you think of film in the late 30s/early 40s and put CK in its context, it's pretty fucking awesome, though i like touch of evil and the trial more.

Yeah, i know that i shouldn't have tried to write anything when i'm so tired that i can't remember what i've said in previous sentence. of course i should've put CK in its context, timewise, and i truly think that most of the pictures from which the film is assembled, are absolutely stunning. and it's huge, epic, massive, technically fine and worth of many more superlatives - i acknowledge it's status and what it has meant for people in film industry, but i still can't say that it's the greatest movie ever made for me. or something.

just watched, and loved:

 

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

 

A perfect example of style over substance. The film is mainly comprised of beautiful ladies, beautiful ladies sprawled naked on beds, beautiful ladies fingering themselves, beautiful ladies kissing one another, beautiful ladies dancing, and beautiful lades getting slaughtered, with a plot very loosely tied in.

The gore scenes are lackluster, the plot's weak, and the scares are non-existant; but the editing, depth of field, lighting, jump cuts, and use of long lenses are all top-notch. I think the closest thing I could compare it to would be Death Laid an Egg. A much more pornographic Death Laid an Egg... with less chickens.

I also liked how it gave the giallo cliche of black gloves the bird, and just made it's killer wear black over his entire body. Oh, and it also stars Klaus Kinski, for all you Herzog nuts out there.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I haven't watched it yet. I'll post about it when I do. Probably tomorrow.

[demonrail666]

 

Bruce Conner's A Movie (10/10)

One of those films that obssesses me a bit. One of the most beautiful, powerful things I've ever seen, even if I remain unsure as to quite what it's trying to say. Either way, it's up there for me with Brakhage's Dog Star Man and Anger's Invocation of my Demon Brother.

Something I imagine Adam would be a big fan of.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

 

**SPOILER ALERT**


Was it horrific? Yes. Was it perverse? Yeah, that too. But was it clever? Oh, certainly not, I was actually laughing at how stupid it was.

The scene where the director character plays a video of a newborn baby getting fucked is about as low-brow as they come. If you're going to show a baby getting fucked, at least do it in a clever way - not just some video being played. Or what about the part where he's fucking that chick and then some guy beheads her? I mean, I guess that was kinda cool... but still, where's the wit in how it was executed? Another one is where they make him fuck a mysterious masked/blanketed person, and you're supposed to be wondering "boy i wonder who's under the mask". Think of the most shocking character to be under the mask... and BINGO!!! YOU GOT IT!!! HE WAS FUCKING HIS KID TO A BLOODY PULP!!! The part where he sticks his dick in some guy's eye was the coolest part of the whole movie - although I can't even say that was innovative, due to the similar bit in the first Scary Movie.

It was vulgar, sure, but it just wasn't apt enough for my tastes. I mean, they even used the played-out OMG SO GRITTY David Fincher lighting.

Sorry to rip the film to shreds ni'k. I just wasn't much of a fan.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

I've seen hideous things. Like this beastiality video with all these girls playing with, and taking animal cocks. Most of the animals seemed to enjoy getting their rocks off. But there was this one black lab, who was getting his red rocket forced out by this bitch, and she was sucking on it, and he was fighting to get away so wildly. Not a happy camper whatsoever. That not only sickened me, but really depressed me, to be honest. It was just so depraved, and nonetheless - REAL!

But this movie? Man, they could've at least not shown so much footage of that fake ass baby. It would've affected me more had they left more up to the imagination. I mean, I've seen more shocking stuff on www.theync.com

[keep poppin pimples]

khal nayak- 8/10

 

[noisereductions]

The Fighter ...I fucking loved it.

[tw2113]

Stop Making Sense

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

damn ujene. an entire afternoon WASTED.

Haha, yeah that site is nuts! It used to be better though, there are too many off-site videos now for my liking.

Anywho, I finally got around to watching Amer...

 

This film has been on my mind since first seeing this clip way back in Dec 2009. I recently read a review that described Amer as a modern french rave spin on classic gialli. I think I can agree with that.

The film never lets up on it's sleek visual style, and definitely delivered the goods where I expected to. It is a film that is not afraid to boldly proclaim it's influences, yet still manages to speak in a cinematic language all of it's own.

The film is more than a bit disorienting though, and the complete lack of dialogue may leave you feeling more than a little lost by the end. It might not be the next Suspiria like I'd been hoping for all these months, but I'll be damned if it's not only one of the best visual treats of 2009/2010, but one of the very best films as well.

 

[batreleaser]

Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

 

a serbian film is in many ways the antithesis of the film hostel. in hostel the pure innocent american selflessly saves the day and rescues the girl. in hostel, the evil is presented as emanating solely from a racially isolated corruption. hostel confronts us with our own feelings about torture and murder sadism as an act of pleasure. it's prepared to have an american citizen (the guy in the locker room) admit to these desires. it's basically hinting that the reason you watch all these horror films is to narcissitically self identify with the murderer, not the triumphant escape of the potential victim. but it has to step back here and desperatey reterritorialise this desire. isolating it geographically, then offering an attempt at redemption in the main characters rescue of the asian woman.

"a serbian film" is a clever way of throwing the wests shit back in its face. the plot is similar to aforementioned piece of crap hostel, in that its about people taking advantage of lax laws and poverty in eastern europe to create frontier capitalist ventures absent any human morality. but in a serbian film, this is all being funded by rich foreign investors. a serbian film doesn't try to sublimate anything into cheesy horror movie violence. it admits that the basis of all these desires are sexual. then it pushes this to the absolute limits, and we end up in a nightmare of depravity and murder. one wherein human life is literally destroyed first sexually and then murdered, and all to make a profit. noone in this film hides from the sickest reaches of desire, after all "there's a market for it".

but while hostel offers an act of heroism as some sort of redemption in the face of such dehumanisation and murder, a serbian film doesn't. it depicts a nightmare world wherein everyone is ultimately a victim. there's no way out for anyone, there's only corruption, a corruption mandated by money its inescapable necessity. a serbian film is simply refusing to hold back and hover around limits of decency.

 

but as i said in my previous post, that is the entire problem. that people enjoy this stuff. it may make the rest of us sick, we may not WANT it to be the case, and we may try to stop it, yet its clear that humanity is capable of these acts. capable of shutting down its empathic abilities completely and taking pleasure in this extreme violence. the very pain and cries and torment that is intended to induce sympathy in the attacker can become the very source of the attackers jouissance.

so its completely obvious why people would censor a film like this. because you think "let's do anything we can to stop people from even knowing that this kind of product is out there. let's try to halt the flows of these desires." we think that although we may not be able to stop them from occuring in people, we can at least fight so that noone in our society can ever start thinking it would be acceptable by the majority. we can (and very obviously should) prosecute the people who make this type of snuff in real life.

yet there is another problem here, for in our efforts to maintain moral standards in our own societies, we often end up overlooking the outsourcing of such taboos.

it's the same with the constant murder committed by our militaries. the campaigns of genocide. the depleted uranium that serbia itself was bombed with by NATO. the very violence that is absent from our tv screens, that our media and government work so hard to obfuscate. that their shills in the press provide endless rationales and justifications for. "collateral damage" "regrettable civilian casualties". don't worry, god's on our side, who wants to think of depressing stuff anyway, we were liberating them from a dictator! etc. etc. no, its just simply genocide no matter how much you maintain the official ideology of denial.

a serbian film is presenting us with the horrible outcomes of the most fucked up voyeurism. voyeurism that isn't unique to that country. we are left to imagine what kind of person would be buying the products created in the film. of course, my problem with the film is that it turns out to be us. and its obvious a lot of people will be into this for the wrong reasons.

again, there is a moment (and rest assured it will only last for a moment) when its possible to feel sympathy for the director character in the film. before you find out what it is he's actually planning. when he gives his drunken tirade about art, victimisation and what life has become under neo liberalism. a struggle to "prove you can take care of yourself", but for no other reason than survival itself. to live is to simply have to take care of yourself for the sake of it. to eat, fuck, sleep, drink, work - all for the sake of itself, being unable to deny that the only point of this is to delay your death for the miniscule amount of time that that actually works.

 

of course, this characters remedy to such existential malaise is an amoral disaster. the only aspect of the film i can say i really enjoyed was this characters passionate rant about art. art as an end in itself. i enjoyed this because it provides the ultimate cinematic evidence of my contempt for the concept of art and how it functions in the world now. not as redemptive, but as a kind of superstitious excuse for hedonism. as a kind of mad conceptual relic, a weapon no longer effective, one that by now weilding you can only find yourself doing the bidding of the enemy.

in fact, i can think of no other example were the notion of the "goodness" or "value" of art has been so thoroughly trashed.


the director characters rant about the circular purpose of life now stays with me as perhaps the most powerful section of dialogue in the film. because here he seems to elucidate very clearly an obstacle we all face and have yet to surmount.

the sense of asphixation, of life claustrophobically doubled over on itself. "i have to eat better, and exercise more, so i can lose weight, so i can be healthier, so i can be more attractive, so i can have a better career and be richer, so i can afford to eat better, so i can lose weight..." etc. etc. this is something that i think is key to the almost puritanical obession with enjoyment that has reigned in our ideology this past decade. life becomes very possible, but only when you have money, and everything is getting more expensive while you are only ever getting older. we've ended up losing any time for pleasure, because all our free time is subsumed in work. everything is now work. and what is the purpose of it all when we no longer believe we can change the world, or can even imagine a different way of organising it? enjoyment. but we face only isolation and consumption and when it comes down to it the only option open to us IS consumption.

accompanying this almost fascistic impetus to enjoy everything and shut the fuck up if you don't, we see rates of alcoholism skyrocketing (in the uk at least). mental illness and depression are statistically increasing. we live in a world were the desperate sense that something is wrong is rarely met by anything other than a subtle aggressive reinforcement of the superstitious idea that happy thoughts and behaviour can produce happy states of being.

so, perhaps the director character in a serbian film is an example of where this world is taking us. of what happens to the desire to enjoy when it malfunctions, when it starts to derive itself from acts of torture and evil. it's the ultimate form of negative solidarity - this isn't just bitching at the fact that you have to have a job but some other person doesn't, therefore they're a lazy scrounger and secretly stealing your enjoyment. this is taking the right wing idea in wanting your misery compensated in the lack of someone elses success to its final destination. becoming so sick you literally torture and murder people for enjoyment. you can only cum when someone else dies.

so we have an example of the unleashed desire of capitalism starting to consume itself. in a serbian film, it is ulimately people and their murder that has become an interior component of the commodity. so obviously we end up back were we started. arguing - is it an attack on the bourgeious morality that doesn't want to know of the autophagic forces the system has unleashed? or - is it just wallowing in cruelness for its own sake?

so, the question is the same as before - were does this type of film lead us? are we in the beginnings of a new anarchic era were this kind of violence becomes part of the media spectacle? we already saw the hanging of saddam hussien, and with phone cameras becoming ubiquitous, its impossible there won't be more snuff and violence enacted solely for the camera.

i'm going to watch "life and death of a porno gang" next, a film that was released and promoted alongside this one. i'm aware that there is supposed to be something redemptive about its ending. which will perhaps give me some hope after witnessing its vile brother film.

i actually have a soft spot for hostel, and have yet to see a serbian film (not sure if i even want to from what ive heard about it) but i enjoyed reading that.

[noisereductions]

I like Hostel. But I LOVE Hostel 2.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

^ I fully agree with that. It's a shame that Hostel 2 tanked, huh? Seems like Eli has been having trouble finding directing work since then. Aside from acting in Inglourious Basterds, almost all of his recent work has been producing. *yawn* Poor guy, I remember him freaking out and blaming internet piracy for the reason Hostel 2 didn't bring in the audience it should have.

Think of all the projects he's been attached to as a director that have never seen the light of day since 2007 (when Hostel 2 bombed) - Trailer Trash, Stephen King's Cell, the feature-length Thanksgiving, and that one Sci-Fi movie he was working on recently.

There's a Hostel 3 supposedly coming straight to DVD/Blu-Ray this year. But without Roth attached, I'd be kidding myself if I pretended I had any high hopes for it. Directed by Scott Spiegel, writer on Evil Dead 2, though.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1255916/