October 26
MIRRORMASK (dir., Dave McKean) (71)
In a real (not academic) world where filmmaking is back-breaking work requiring dozens of creative decisions per writing/directing hour, it seems faintly obscene to dismiss this with a shrug while praising something like TEN SKIES [see below] - even though SKIES is conceptually fascinating and this is conceptually not much more than an Attitude-laden 00s riff on THE NEVERENDING STORY. Early-teen fantasy elements drag it down, ditto a slightly alarming subtext whereby heroine's best chance to help ailing mother is not growing up (!) - her evil-twin, parallel-dimension self is snogging boys, smoking and being rude, therefore must be defeated if Good is to triumph. Trust comic-book writers to come up with a regressive Message (McKean and cohort Neil Gaiman are among the few comix names even non-comix people like me have heard of), though also trust them to create a parade of dreamlike visuals - a collage-faced sphinx; a roomful of spiral staircases to nowhere; random creatures floating around, incl. one with a shoe for a head - and spice it with self-deprecating wacky humour; the film is often very funny, esp. when it's using the conventions of LOTR-type fantasy like the oracle which Speaks! In a! Really! Slow! Portentous! Way! Not much more than a stylish kidpic with "Alice in Wonderland" touches, but that should be enough imho.
CITIZEN DOG (dir., Wisit Sasanatieng) (57)
Turned up late to this one, missing the first 10 minutes (due to having dallied too long in a Thai restaurant, oh the irony); as I sat down, a guy in a lime-green-and-purple uniform was looking quizzically at his middle digit while a V.O. explained: "Pod began to suspect the finger he had found may not have been his own". Obv. offbeat but very much a Thai AMELIE, a collection of tics based around a series of obsessive-compulsive characters - one likes to lick everything in sight, another always picks out the basil in her basil rice, and like Jeunet's characters they tend to collect stuff (bus tickets, plastic bottles, etc); the set-pieces too tend to feature a repeated idea, as when hero sees heroine's face everywhere (on his bedroom posters, the face of the news anchor on TV) or becomes obsessed with her blue dress and starts seeing blue dresses on everyone he passes, incl. a dog and its litter of puppies. There's also a ghostly cabbie, a slang-talking teddy bear who smokes like a chimney, a granny reincarnated as a gecko (hilarious!) and of course kitschy colours and an underlying urban melancholy (All the lonely people..., etc). An easy sit, but diminishing returns, and those ugly skin-tones are unfortunate. When I grow up I want a goatee like Chuck Stephens.
TEN SKIES (dir., James Benning) (no rating - but probably around a 63 if I had to rate it as an Experience)
Almost late for this one as well, barrelling down the bridge across the Thames toward the theatre, getting ridiculously sweaty, when I suddenly stopped and thought to myself: "Why are you running? If ever there was a movie where it wouldn't matter to arrive a little late. What's the worst that could happen - I miss two minutes of sky?". That's all it is - ten patches of sky shot with a locked-off camera, each shot lasting exactly ten minutes - though planes and birds make occasional appearances and a couple of the skies feature distant human sounds, and it's actually quite interesting because of course one starts seeing shapes and faces in the abstract image (I saw a sheep in Sky 8, Stalin and an otter - though not together - in Sky 4, and E.T.'s head near the end of the spectacular Sky 5), and of course the skies keep changing so you drift off for a minute then think 'How the fuck did that cloud get way up there?'; also it puts you in touch with the pulse of the planet, Eternal Verities going on while we live our meagre lives etc, also some of the skies (esp. the last one) are extremely beautiful. Unfor. didn't stay for the Q&A, where someone (hopefully) asked Benning why he picked these particular patches of sky - or maybe randomness is part of the deal in this kind of structuralist fun - but I did catch the opening comments, which proved once again how the pretensions of Art-world honchos can get in the way of the work. First the guy from the Whitechapel Art Gallery (they're doing a complete Benning retro) asked us to consider that the film "might be read as political", then Benning himself got up to say an artist's job is "to pay attention then report back", adding that we need to pay attention to the world, "need to find new solutions, not drop bombs on people". All quite sensible, and I do take the point that greater appreciation of the natural world might lead in a roundabout way to greater tolerance of the people with whom we share it, but dude ... you're talking about 10 shots of sky here. If you feel that strongly about it, un-lock your camera and take it into the war zone, make an Oliver Stone movie or something. Or is that too crude for the true Artist?...
In a real (not academic) world where filmmaking is back-breaking work requiring dozens of creative decisions per writing/directing hour, it seems faintly obscene to dismiss this with a shrug while praising something like TEN SKIES [see below] - even though SKIES is conceptually fascinating and this is conceptually not much more than an Attitude-laden 00s riff on THE NEVERENDING STORY. Early-teen fantasy elements drag it down, ditto a slightly alarming subtext whereby heroine's best chance to help ailing mother is not growing up (!) - her evil-twin, parallel-dimension self is snogging boys, smoking and being rude, therefore must be defeated if Good is to triumph. Trust comic-book writers to come up with a regressive Message (McKean and cohort Neil Gaiman are among the few comix names even non-comix people like me have heard of), though also trust them to create a parade of dreamlike visuals - a collage-faced sphinx; a roomful of spiral staircases to nowhere; random creatures floating around, incl. one with a shoe for a head - and spice it with self-deprecating wacky humour; the film is often very funny, esp. when it's using the conventions of LOTR-type fantasy like the oracle which Speaks! In a! Really! Slow! Portentous! Way! Not much more than a stylish kidpic with "Alice in Wonderland" touches, but that should be enough imho.
CITIZEN DOG (dir., Wisit Sasanatieng) (57)
Turned up late to this one, missing the first 10 minutes (due to having dallied too long in a Thai restaurant, oh the irony); as I sat down, a guy in a lime-green-and-purple uniform was looking quizzically at his middle digit while a V.O. explained: "Pod began to suspect the finger he had found may not have been his own". Obv. offbeat but very much a Thai AMELIE, a collection of tics based around a series of obsessive-compulsive characters - one likes to lick everything in sight, another always picks out the basil in her basil rice, and like Jeunet's characters they tend to collect stuff (bus tickets, plastic bottles, etc); the set-pieces too tend to feature a repeated idea, as when hero sees heroine's face everywhere (on his bedroom posters, the face of the news anchor on TV) or becomes obsessed with her blue dress and starts seeing blue dresses on everyone he passes, incl. a dog and its litter of puppies. There's also a ghostly cabbie, a slang-talking teddy bear who smokes like a chimney, a granny reincarnated as a gecko (hilarious!) and of course kitschy colours and an underlying urban melancholy (All the lonely people..., etc). An easy sit, but diminishing returns, and those ugly skin-tones are unfortunate. When I grow up I want a goatee like Chuck Stephens.
TEN SKIES (dir., James Benning) (no rating - but probably around a 63 if I had to rate it as an Experience)
Almost late for this one as well, barrelling down the bridge across the Thames toward the theatre, getting ridiculously sweaty, when I suddenly stopped and thought to myself: "Why are you running? If ever there was a movie where it wouldn't matter to arrive a little late. What's the worst that could happen - I miss two minutes of sky?". That's all it is - ten patches of sky shot with a locked-off camera, each shot lasting exactly ten minutes - though planes and birds make occasional appearances and a couple of the skies feature distant human sounds, and it's actually quite interesting because of course one starts seeing shapes and faces in the abstract image (I saw a sheep in Sky 8, Stalin and an otter - though not together - in Sky 4, and E.T.'s head near the end of the spectacular Sky 5), and of course the skies keep changing so you drift off for a minute then think 'How the fuck did that cloud get way up there?'; also it puts you in touch with the pulse of the planet, Eternal Verities going on while we live our meagre lives etc, also some of the skies (esp. the last one) are extremely beautiful. Unfor. didn't stay for the Q&A, where someone (hopefully) asked Benning why he picked these particular patches of sky - or maybe randomness is part of the deal in this kind of structuralist fun - but I did catch the opening comments, which proved once again how the pretensions of Art-world honchos can get in the way of the work. First the guy from the Whitechapel Art Gallery (they're doing a complete Benning retro) asked us to consider that the film "might be read as political", then Benning himself got up to say an artist's job is "to pay attention then report back", adding that we need to pay attention to the world, "need to find new solutions, not drop bombs on people". All quite sensible, and I do take the point that greater appreciation of the natural world might lead in a roundabout way to greater tolerance of the people with whom we share it, but dude ... you're talking about 10 shots of sky here. If you feel that strongly about it, un-lock your camera and take it into the war zone, make an Oliver Stone movie or something. Or is that too crude for the true Artist?...
posted by Theo at 11:28 PM
1 Comments:
It is a shame that you missed the first ten minutes of Citizen Canine on account of they are the best part of the picture. There is a big musical number, etc. Also it is a shame that you did not see this at FUCK and have the bizarre experience of the Unit staring blankly at you afterwards and saying No what are you talking about I saw no resemblance to Amelie whatsoever.
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