Week #5. I need a break.

Zodiac (2007) dir. David Fincher
02/04/16
rewatch

Written for Letterboxd:

“I just want to help.”

An absolutely celestially exhausting experience. One that poises knowledge as the highest form of power, the need for closure as the driving force and the mystery as the formal bind that ties its inquisitors together only to tear them apart when they stretch too far. Knowing when to call it is the curious man’s only saviour. Gyllenhaal appears to surface as the only figure safe from the catastrophe until full-frontal obsession kicks in gear and the fringes of a homeliness woven by his initial fascination begin to tear at the seams; boxes upon boxes of files inhabit rooms in the place of those close (Sevigny’s “It was just the date that never ended” breaks my sore heart). Manages to appear ethereal all the while conscious that it is drenched in both exposition and information, Fincher juggling multiple characters and time periods without missing a single booming beat. Pre-Avenger Ruffalo and Downey Jr. corroborate on exactly why MCU needs to fade away or at least loosen its restraints and give the superhero stockpile some eminence away from the superhero stockpile. Eternally wishing Fincher and Reznor (and Ross, if he wants) starting collaborating a couple of works earlier, the grimy and industrial reverberations sorely missing from the hazy streets of San Fran. A man can dream. ★★★★★

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir. Stanley Kubrick
03/04/16
rewatch

It’s becoming an annual event to experience all of Kubrick’s glory in 70mm at the Astor in April. Still as dazzling as the first time. ★★★★★

Retaliation (1968) dir. Yasuharu Hasebe
04/04/16

What a treasure trove the Swanston library is!! I have never been more impressed by a library’s collection of films (the amount of OOP copies they have is mind-boggling). Retaliation itself is an admirable feat from Hasebe (who would later on go on to create the Stray Cat Rock pentalogy, which I hear are something special), his frames here are always crowded, replicating the characters reservations and hesitations in their mob-related scheming. Nothing particularly special, but any Japanese movie with a sword fight is worth viewing at least once. ★★★

Zodiac (2007) dir. David Fincher
05/04/16
rewatch

Twice in a week for my Intro to Cinema course, but regardless of its length and jam-packed expository content I feel as if I could watch this at least twice a week, every week, for the rest of my life. Fincher is a magician, this has no right being as enjoyable as it is. Clean, gritty cinema. ★★★★★

Crushed (2015) dir. Megan Riakos
05/04/16

Received an email from someone high up in the Media program with an invitation to a free screening at Nova, and who wouldn’t take up the opportunity? For an Australian independent film, it looked and sounded incredibly crisp, Riakos certainly nailing the mood of country Australia without pushing it to parody (although, this featured an incredibly hilarious (intentionally, I assume/hope) bogan guy who generated a fit of laughter with every sentence spoken). Becomes a hilariously messy film by its conclusion, but enjoyable to say the least. I just wish the lead could’ve been replaced with someone with a little more oomph. ★★★

Querelle (1982) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder 
06/04/16

Undoubtedly the gayest film I have ever seen, and will probably ever see. Every character appears drenched in sweat, tightly-clad leather wrapped in binds around their tanned flesh, speaking not-so-poetically in spiels of derogatory descriptions of private parts and private acts that the whole idea of sex becomes so public, an inescapable reality. These men attempt to conceal their pent up homosexuality, in straight up denial to any titles that could possibly emasculate them, yet when given the chance strip down and give in to the pressures. Querelle‘s entire look is so explicitly artificial, shot (in opposition to Fassbinder’s usual on-set shooting preference) in a studio, a pulsating, expressionistic warm pink-red light drenching every inch of the location. Phallic architecture stands so obviously in the streets of Brest, much to the discretion of the sailors who inhabit these streets and loom between ruins and beneath the surface in sewer-esque corridors, trying to mask their true feelings. Scenes in which fights break out tend to appear reminiscent of dance, choreographed so that the actors twirl in circular motions around each other rather than take swings. A truly theatrical and uncanny achievement (and in glorious 35mm!!). ★★★

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
06/04/16

Written for my cinema studies blog post:

R.W. Fassbinder’s haunting The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant exposes the beauty of mise-en-scene, its importance potent in every frame; the entirety of the film’s 2 hour duration is spent closed in the bedroom of one Petra von Kant, no action taking place any further than a few metres from her bed (setting existing as its own character, etc.). As the tale progresses, Petra’s reliance on make-up to cover the insecurities and shortcomings of her highly stylized and material life is attended to heavily, with the change of a wig and switch of an outfit defining each five parts of the narrative. Here, Fassbinder exerts complete control over his actresses (all female cast!), Petra herself receding from a drunken buffoon into an unaccustomed reserved nature by the film’s conclusion. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant also exists as a perfect how to guide of the technique of blocking; the emotional frailty of characters’ woefully defined by their steps, their overlapping bodies as they slump side by side on the edge of a bed. ★★★★

Army of Shadows (1969) dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
07/04/16

Written for Letterboxd:

So outrageously frustrated in my disappointment with this. Call this rating an extension of my immense tiredness as a uni student and cinematic fatigue emerging from the never-ending cinema-going experience that has defined my life these past months, or just a cop-out, a rendering of my poor cinematic judgement, but know I wanted to love this. Melancholic tinges of blue that Melville so perfectly executed later in Le Cercle Rouge fade into a grim greyness, achieving a distinctly more miserable visual tone (accompanied by seriously dismal murders, particularly the strangulation of young Dounat where what are presumably his shrieks of sorrow happen to be coming from a member of the Resistance) to the detriment of the overall form. Nothing Melville puts to screen here ever left me bored, but rarely anything particularly involved me either (some isolated occurrences; namely moments when a hard not to love quasi-spy theme rings off, and scenes in which Melville, as he so illustriously does, leaves the silences to do the talking) and left me craving more of the close-knit crime clan of Rouge as opposed to the distanced leading ensemble that is played out here. I failed (miserably) to find any strand of emotion worth investing in this band of Resistance misfits, and in turn, (the masterpiece that supposedly is, and one day I hope to find as) Army of Shadows failed to slip through the hazy boundaries of imprisonment and into my heart. And yes I know, I’m a POS. ★★★

Taking the weekend off. I hope.