Windows on the World

Been watching alot of French films in the last couple of months. In fact I’ve watched by far more films from France (26) than any other nation – and that includes England (9) and the US (6)

In fact I’ve not – deliberately – watched an American film since Goodfellas back in June. I’ve wanted – quite consciously – to cut the American sensibility out of my film diet. Detox myself of American ways and means of making films.

I’ve been enjoying these French films. Of course there’s duff ones too; but the French seem to take more risks – and there’s more variation of theme, treatment, style, content, in a French film.

Contradictorily, I’ve got a soft spot – maybe even a craving – for meaty intellectual French films where a lot of talky talking, angsty angst – and general self-indulgent rabitting on about pyschological turmoil is going on.

I say “contradictorily” because i also like the more childlike and visually allegorical films that get made – for example – in Iran, where the emphasis is more on symbolising and showing rather than the voluble telling, over-explaining, heavy analysing, that is characteristic of an intellectually intense film like Ma Vie Sexuelle or L’Ennui. I seem to get a lot of satisfaction and stimulation from seeing characters agonising over the minutiae of their personal thoughts, their innermost feelings.

Suprisingly – cus they are mostly talk driven – I’m coming to the conclusion I don’t like Eric Rohmer’s films as much as thought i did. He seems to have an unfortunate knack of turning pretty actresses into women suffering from mannered, self-conscious, self-absorption. Which they then make the unfortunate men in their life’s suffer too.

I suppose one of the things that attracted me to his films were the sumptuous settings: twenty-somethings in beautiful seaside resorts, lolling about; immersed in beautifying bright sunlight, blue skies, green grass, sandy beaches, clear waters – living the want life of desirable desires. Engaging in long “love” conversations about relationships; digressing about pseudo spiritual stuff with literate and articulate intention.

They seemed “deep”; deep with the personal stuff of life, the soul stuff. They’d stuff the souls out of one another – but be doing it inside a fuzzy haze of romantic projection; a longing for love, to be loved; a yearning for the specialness that bringing love into being can brightly bring.

But now i see the long conversations as long-winded; the abstract digressions on matters soulful or spiritual as dilettantish, immature, affectation. I don’t know. I’ve still got another 5 Rohmer films to watch. And I’ll watch them. Even tho they might irritate me. So i must also experience a kind of ambivalence about them – a “love to hate” them thing going on.

I’ve still to review a Tarkovsky film. They all wait there – all 7 of them – giving me a feeling of being daunted. Because to watch them, I’ll have to watch “properly”; that is, “seriously” – with earnestness. They aren’t films to be flippant about or trifled with. I’ll have to become immersed. I’ll have to go within, be as absorbed, as concentrated, as contemplative as the films are themselves. And i feel a resistance i have to say; a reluctance to go there, become like that. Truth is: the experience of watching a Tarkovsky film can feel like going to church, being a good boy, doing your duty as a good spiritual seeker of significance person. You aren’t there to enjoy yourself and have a fun time. You’re there to pay attention. And learn something spiritual that’s good for your soul. 

It’s possible I’m watching too many films, too quickly. I’ve seen 100 in less than 9 months. Thats about 3 or 4 every week. Not really enough time to inwardly digest or process what has been watched. And of course watching films on Dvd or video at home, on a TV screen, deprives them of being the “special event” that going out to the cinema could give. It’s not just what is watched; but where you watch, and who with; and how you talk and what you share about it afterwards. Seeing a film on a big widescreen, in the dark, with lots of people around creates something “other” out of the film; watching at home kind of creates something “same” out of the watching experience. Slide yet another film into the Dvd and press play… Too easy. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

A really good film adds something “extra” to your life. It doesn’t just reproduce what is overly familiar and too similar to what your life already is.

And a really good film – a great film – can transform your life.

Watching all of these films is all well and good. But creating my own film would be far better. Probably more engaging and energising. Probably more transformative too.

Maybe all this blog is, is relieving me of having to watch too many films for too much longer….

I’m not going to go into too much analysis of what these various dialogues mean – otherwise this post will go on forever (and anyway, i don’t have any genuine desire to pick away at them)

How about getting this advice from a friend:

Valerie has figured out how to make her existence an insult to your dignity – that way, you loathe yourself for hating her, and she can keep debasing you and enjoy your paralysis. The only thing you have to learn is that hating her is neither fatal or foul. It’s normal….. and amusing. And you’re going to win.

Go lie down for a few hours. I would.

And then you might have an omniscient voice-over come into your head:

He (Paul) turned into devotion the vengeance he wished to inflict and which made her (Sylvia) quiver when she defied him. Their affair would have been so different had he stood up to her mean-spirited pleasure. She hated him both for ignoring her insufficiency and for seeing it too well. She loved him for the same reasons: she gloated in his admiration and felt “redeemable” by his concern and exertion. She’d finally met someone for whom all “this” wasn’t easy.

All of “this” isn’t easy. Who said life as a French fag smoking intellectual would be easy? It’s meant to be complicated, contorted by complex thought. That’s a French intellectuals job. To be carrying the burden of yours, mine, the worlds, thought on his skinny little shoulders.

Skinny shouldered wimp Paul gets stuck into Esther, the girl he’s wanted to finish with (for 10 years!)

I can’t go out with a girl if i don’t know how it will end. Love affairs are meant to end. They always end. It’s not my fault, it’s universal.

I carry the burden of your responsibility. It’s too heavy. I’m trapped. I’m becoming a loser. If i screw up my life I’ll never forgive you. I wish we’d won, but we’re losing. I’m drained. You can’t help me”

Poor sad self-pitying Esther:

You were, and still are, in my faith, my hope, and in my love….Your absence falls asleep against my spirit.

Her face is bloated with crying her eyes out for her lost Paul.

While Paul is pre-occupied with his other 2 “affairs”. Nutty Valerie scares him:

You see yourself in me. Because you admire me. I’m flattered. You see yourself in me, so you want to destroy me and be the original. You want to tame me. Or else you’d be kind. To please me. To keep me.

Back to that Voice-over again (Voice-Over knows best):

Paul is mistaken. Val doesn’t need kindness. Her lack of tenderness is not hard to explain. It’s simply a question of Valerie’s nature. As Kundera wrote: “Tenderness is the fear of adulthood”. Valerie fears nothing of the sort, having no childhood nostalgia. A child wholly integrated into the adult world, she is furious that anyone else can stake claim to childhood.

Makes me want to read Kundera novels again. Just so i could have a bit of fun trying think into his way of thinking. So the above could mean that: tenderness is a lack of independence, a childish need to be dependent (on mother), a sentimental clinging onto nostalgia for childhood, when life was safer, when living was sweeter (not my experience at all) But i don’t totally go along with it; “tenderness” doesn’t have to be a negative expression, “a “fear of”; it can be close to something kinder – like compassion.

Paul is getting as troubled by Valerie as he is sick of Esther:

You’re the sad one. You want connections and ties. You want to enter my mind and me to enter yours. That’s because you’re sad. And because I’m happy. I love you as an object. I found you pretty. I wanted to reach out, to touch you, to grab you.

Sounds pretty self-serving Paul. He is. They all are. And despite all the sophisticated thought and convoluted self-analysis,  Paul is immature:

There’s one pleasure I’ll always feel, even when I’m depressed, or in a rut, or when i can’t move. It’ll never change. It’s the surprise when i stick my hand in the panties of a girl i don’t know. It scares me each times. It’s always different. And it’s so strange. But it’s the moment when i feel alive. Some people say it’s always the same. That a pussy’s a pussy. But each girl is so incredibly different down there. When you tell people they say, “Just get used to it. Grow up” Some people frown and say, “I hope there’s more to your life than that!” But that’s my greatest pleasure, when i realise life’s worth living even if it’s unbearable. It’s not Heidegger climbing some fucking mountain. No, it’s the girls face, it’s your fear as you pull back the elastic, her belly…..you see? There’s nothing better in life.

He’d probably have a less neurotically interesting life if he stuck his head into Heidegger rather than sticking his hands down girlies panties. His “sex life” contaminates his thought life. No, I’ll reverse that: it’s his thought life that contaminates his sex life.

Esther can’t get over “losing” Paul:

What kind of love do you have? What kind of love can come to a halt? I want you to love me to death, forever!.

There’s a Voice Over at the end, making a final judgment:

For 10 years, Esther filled a role – which had existed before her and would exist after. This (Paul’s) involuntary cynicism seemed to destroy 10 years of memories. He loved only himself. Tho he was no longer with her, he carried her within himself indelibly. He would always be, “Paul who’d been 10 years with Esther” The old Paul was dead. He did not live for naught.

Which seems to be putting a gloss on, a way of extracting a judicious verdict on what we’ve been watching for the last 3 hours. “He did not live for naught” is either a hopeless translation or a some kind of grandiose summing up, neat – but ludicrous.

The statement that rings truest is: “He loved only himself”.

That judgement sums this film up perfectly.

Thought it might be an idea to include some of the dialogue from L’ennui in a separate post. Then i can take my film reviewer hat off and put my “analysis” hat on.

We’ve got philosopher Martin, who’s up to his eyebrows in heady abstraction:

“A man without sublimation is pathetic, a lunatic with a tyrannical penis, and a tiny brain“

He’s saying at the beginning. But that’s before he’s met the exasperatingly elusive obscure object of desire Cecelia.

He can’t talk to Cecelia because she doesn’t know – or like – to talk in his funny abstract way about things. She hasn’t read Lacan or Freud. So he dumps his angsty (psycho) analysis onto the head of his ex-wife:

“She’s totally uninteresting. I’m trying to get rid of her. She bores me. I have no contact with her. Or rather only physical contact. She is so basic. She has no conversation. When she speaks she sounds silent. Her only means of expression is sexual. I find her cunt more expressive than her mouth. Yet, oddly, she is not sensual, she’s only frenetic and avid. When she kisses her lips are flaccid, cold, inert, but her cunt is hard-hitting, domineering. She is unstoppable. She goes at me, goes at herself, to make me come, make herself come, to the last spasm“

Her way of making love does come across as “frenetic and avid” in the film. Like she’s programmed to go into automatic thrusting and gyrating mode with her thighs, pumping her cunt out around his cock like an animated sex-doll.

He wants to get soulfully inside her soul. But it seems like she doesn’t have one:

“Sometimes she seems vacuous and opaque like an object. I bring her to life by making her suffer, by tormenting her. She is making me a sadist because she bores me“

He got her running around his flat in the noddy performing inane requests; to manipulative her like an object; and also to see how far he could push her out of her automatic “thingness”, into a reaction, a feeling, some evidence of life existing  – behind her opaqueness  – from within her soul.

“The more i take her the less i own her. Making love so often uses up the energy i’d need to possess her”

Personally I think he would have been better off sublimating the energy of his desire elsewhere – and not bothering to possess her, cus there’s nothing much about her to own. But then we wouldn’t have had a film to watch. So the fascination becomes in seeing how tyrannised by his cock he becomes, how shrunk his brainy brain becomes (to the size of a tiny pea in a pea-shooter!) And how much jealousy and lunacy get sprung from the loins of  his neurotic, philosophic personality.

He’s constantly riling her, prodding and provoking her, trying to get at and get in to where she might be – truly and really be – inside. But he’s getting nowhere, she seems literally “mindless”:

“What am i meant to say?. I’ve nothing to say. I haven’t thought. You see beds not what people are like. I don’t see the detail. I only see if people are nice or not”.

What you gonna do Martin? Give up, i would. “Nice” isn’t for you. “Nice is meaningless”. You want more than nice – you want meaning:

“My mind is empty. Cecelia’s escaping me. I can’t possess her. My spirit’s empty because reality escapes me“

To possess her you’d have to become like her, to be her “reality”. And her reality seems to be blank, bland, banal, boring – an ennui. At the core of her soul is the boredom you are trying to escape from.

“Are you ever bored?” says Martin. “Sometimes, yes”

“What do you feel?” says Martin. “Boredom”

“What is this boredom?” says Martin. “Boredom is boredom”.

“It’s much more than that” says Martin.

It is Martin. Well, your kind of boredom is. It’s existential ennui. It’s the inescapable emptiness inside the heart of things. It’s the desire that enflames your soul with the energy of despair. It’s all those questions and the wanting to know, that you have to know exists – as understanding – inside your heady head head. It’s the dreadful realisation that: the bigger your cock gets, the tinier your brain becomes.

Does boredom brings “being” into existence?. Not for Cecelia:

“If someone never considers something, that thing doesn’t exist. To me, religion doesn’t exist. Religion is boring“

So best not to be “considering” boredom. Best not to think about it. Then it won’t exist. It will go away, vanish; disappear into the emptiness where it belongs. And then you can get on and do non-boring things like fucking your brains out (literally) whenever you want, with whoever you want.

Which means Cecelia can fuck Martin. Then she can go fuck Momo (who’s younger – and seems more “fun” than “dull” head-fucky Martin) Which of course Martin gets – understandably – quite upset about:

“You’re like a hungry beast, you’re his, you’re mine, our semen mixes in your belly. You’re a whore“

I guess it had to come down to that in the end. That’s she’s a “whore”. Just cus she enjoys some mindless sex. And likes orgasms. And isn’t all dull and boring about it – making it “mean” something more than it actually is. Fucking is fucking. “Boredom is boredom”. Eggs is eggs.

Martin tries to kill himself.

“I tried to die really. Now i believe one mustn’t die of despair, but feed off one’s despair. Not die of it, but live off it. Live at any price“.

But he survives. To live on. Live off his despair. And maybe even enjoy it. Go on Martin! Cus now maybe you’ve also realised what despair was all along: just boredom fipped upside down!

Ok, I’m taking my Analysts hat off now (it was hurting my ears)

Thats how many I’ve reviewed already in the last 5 months or so.

So it feels like time to take stock.

First thing to say is: just because a film is not made in Hollywood doesn’t necessarily make it a better, more worthwhile film.

Considering I’m self-selecting all the films i watch, its interesting – and even a little dismaying – how much duff stuff I’ve seen. Only about a dozen of these 50 films would have been worth going out to see at a cinema.

Secondly: I haven’t seen anything truly, genuinely, inspiring. Only a couple of films – “Whisky”, and “Alice in the Cities” – might I consider buying in the future – but they aren’t must-have films. They aren’t “Forever” films.

I keep watching – and hoping – to find a Forever film; a film that I want to watch again and again; a film that feels like a friend; a film I feel a belonging to, because its sown itself irreplaceably into the fine fabric of my soul, and become an essential part of my life – “forever”.

Thirdly: I’m getting more aware of the kind of film i seem to take to:

They’re either naturalistic, heart-warming, symbolic parables of a simpler more innocent way to live: “The day i became a woman” (Iran), “The Story of the Weeping Camel” (Mongolia) are 2 examples.

Or they have a languid and laconic stylised “take” on life ala Kaurismaki. I seem to like deadpan, droll, and understated acting; characters that don’t necessarily say a lot, or if they do, say it quietly without over-dramatising their feelings, or performing theatrically expressed emotions.

I want characters to have feelings, to be full of soul; but lets keep the interiorty of the soul where it belongs – inside, and (mostly) private, and not splurging self-indulgent Egotism out at you the whole time.

That said, I prefer character-driven to plot-driven films.

That said, I’ve seen 3 of Kaurismaki’s films and i don’t know that I’d want to see too many more. Once you’ve “got” what he does – that’s it; everything else seems like a repetition of the same minimalistic deadpan drollery.

Maybe that could be said of every “Auter” director who has a distinctive style and definite way of making films (and I include Tarkovsky, Rohmer, Herzog et al too)

Most of the “classic” films I’ve seen seem merely historical; kind of out dated and hoplessly old fashioned; irrelevant to life as it is lived now (Truffuat immediately springs to mind)

I don’t go for genre films at all. I’d much prefer for a film to stand alone as idiosyncratically and stubbornly itself – be genre defying, be outside the conventions of what constitutes say a “Rom-Com”, or a “Thriller” etc.

I’m pretty much against film soundtracks; especially of the swishy orchestral swings kind. I don’t like all that hyped up sugary sentimentality being poured into my ears, and pulling on my heart-strings.

I’ve become increasingly watchful and wary – of how manipulative films are; all the jumping about with POV, the fast cutting and editing, the way that so-called suspense is contrived into the story telling so as to get you lurching forward to what happens next (rather than simply being with what is happening, and being seen, “now”)

So what is it i want to experience when i watch a film?

Well, not spoon-fed easy escapism or being passively entertained. Too often I’ve felt hollowed out by the superficiality of facile “fodder” like that.

I don’t mind being “challenged” (ala Tarkovsky, or Bela Tarr – who i haven’t seen anything by yet, but I think he’s going to take me out of my comfort zone) Probably – more than challenged – i like to be “charmed”. I want a film to charm me into its world. So as to feel inspired enough to come back into my own world again – and live life “more”.

With more heart. And a wish to connect.

I don’t want watching films to disconnect me from my life; to be arid, abstract exercises in how to be more clever “about” life.

A film needs to feel like it’s representing “life” itself: real life, authentic experience, genuine expression, coming from integrity – and with heart.

I’ll put a lot of myself into watching if a film is giving something that feels truthful, something true; and not just something that’s been made up and contrived to get you into customer and consumer mode: the main aim being to get you – me – the unthinking Joe Public, into buying tickets, products, merchandise. Drugged – all of us – into sleepy acquiscent forgetfulness.

Ok, that’ll do for now.

No doubt I’ll have more to say later (at the 100 film milestone!….Lol….)

These are all thoughts in progress.

I’m writing this blog to:

Define and refine the kind of things I might be looking for , and wanting to see – in my watching of films.

It’s gonna be a slow process; moving tentatively towards articulating the features, and fleshing out the characteristics, of what i consider to be my kind of film.

Anyway, the Dogme approach seems to nail a few things; it’s an anti-Hollywood Manifesto:

No expensive or spectacular special effects.

No post-production tarting up or gimmicks.

Sound not to be produced separate from images or vice versa; music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed.

The camera to be hand-held.

No special lighting. No optical work and filters.

No superficial action (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur)

There’s an emphasis on “purity”; which makes the filmmaker focus on the actual story and on the actors’ performances.

Basically, it’s about stripping away and paring back, and not getting into all that overproduction that Hollywood likes to waste millions on.

These “rules” were adhered to for a while (the Dogme movement was started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg) then they started getting broken (rules should be broken)

The rule about the use of sound and music i definitely go along with. It’s a major bugbear of mine; so many films i’ve watched have been ruined by film soundtracks (I watched the film “The girl with a pearl earring” a few months back – and the soundtrack to it was so annoying i stopped watching the film after 20 minutes)

This thinking and writing I’m doing about film-watching is really about me self-educating myself into the process of film-making.

Cus I’d love to make a film.