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SCREENING LOG
- 7/16-7/22, 2001
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Ranked in order of preference:
1. Jalsaghar (The Music Room), Satyajit Ray. This
film works on the level of musical abstraction. Bare bones
narrative of an Indian aristocrat who defiantly holds music
concerts in his house as his fortune and family deteriorate.
The music is intense,the mood is sublime, small moments are
recorded with great perception, Ray is a master. The ending
has the same kind of off-hand tragedy of Godard's My Life
to Live. Definitely want to continue expanding my acquaintance
of his work beyond the Apu Trilogy. Since then I've only seen
CHARULATA, which is also a masterful work, though this film
has stayed with me more. 9/10
2. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky. Longer, more sprawling,
deeply philosophical but I think marred by sentimentality
at points, as if trying to reel it all in. The visuals in
this film do the talking much more effectively than any of
the characters. Man, talk about stark -- get Seven outta here.
Give points to Tarkovsky for trying to be deep and getting
there without much pretension rubbing off his sleeves. The
language employed here is lamentably juvenile. I definitely
have to re-see this, as well as ANDREI RUBLEV and MIRROR,
again. 8/10
3. Spirit of the Beehive, Victor Enrice. Must say
after random posts of the past couple weeks hyping this movie
up, I was somewhat disappointed by what I felt was a lack
of cohesion. As much sloppiness as brilliance from this debut
feature. Effective as a mood piece, but as what else? I can
recall what I meant by this -- the episodic nature of the
film didnÕt sit well with me -- but IÕd be willing to revisit
it to see if there was something I missed. I donÕt like how
offhandedly assertive my tone is, I think it reflects laziness.
I think IÕve become much better at fully engaging with a film
on its own terms. 7/10
4. Los Olvidados, Luis Bunuel. I'd take Bunuel's latter
work over this less than sincere neo-realist tract done in
his Mexico years. I think he's more aligned to, more perceptive
and thus more qualified to film the bourgeoise. Too much of
the hand of God feeling orchestrating the stark events that
bring this film to its terrible finale. I still stand by that
last line but have a different view of it; if Bunuel is exerting
a godly control over his narrative, he does it purposefully,
almost self-critically. I regret using the criticism Ņless
than sincereÓ Š way oversimplistic. IÕd say in the last year,
my opinion of BunuelÕs overall career has evolved more than
with any filmmaker I can think of. 9/10
There are also two recent (and rather dubiously titled) movies
that I'd grant a certain claim to classic status: Abbas Kiarostami's
Taste of Cherry, which was absolutely rapturous and
totally confident in itself up to the totally random ending
which destroyed the film. It made the ending of Wong Kar Wai's
In the Mood For Love look masterful in comparison. The title
might mislead you: it has nothing to do with sex. Interestingly
enough, my opinion of the ending of TASTE OF CHERRY has skyrocketed
(I consider it as close to filming heaven as any filmmaker
has come) while my opinion of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE has stagnated.
9/10
On the other hand (and with my tongue somewhat in cheek),
there's Rocco Siffredi's When Rocco Meats Kelly. I
heard about this one in the current issue of Film Comment
which had a list of milestones in the history of porn. I must
say I was both entertained and fascinated by this "breakthrough"
(in more ways than one) of cinema-verite. I mean if films
like Romance (which Rocco "performed" in) can be
deemed art, then this film has art in spades. I'm serious.
Without going into detail about the premise of this work (which
would probably offend most of you), I have never seen so much
dramatic tension in a movie of this genre - moments that are
hilarious and terrifying, disgusting and charming, boring
and utterly fascinating, sometimes within seconds of each
other. Race issues, gender issues, power issues, this one
has 'em all. And I find Rocco to be far more entertaining,
complicated and sincere in his intentions that other Italian
stud, the pornographer of emotions: Roberto Benigni. I love
how I made certain to reference a well-renowned film magazine
to legitimize my discussing (much less renting) a skin flick.
Nonetheless I stand by everything I wrote and highly recommend
this to anyone with a more ŅadventurousÓ interest in cinema-verite.
8/10
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