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Oh dear the days do pass too quickly already four days since my last post. It is just such a flurry of activity and then night blankness. Last night I was so awake but with not a thought in my head, Tonight I watched Springtime in a Small Town on SBS and I am both wide awake and inspired so obviously all I needed was to see a good film.
I started watching this film once before in a restless mood and didn't stay with it. You really need to be in the right mental state to tackle an artiistic chinese film, a mood of appreciation not agitation. Tonight I was agitated and so the early moments of getting into it again involved clawing my nails into the seat but the cinematography drew me in. Masterpieces take patience to savour and I'm so glad I kept myself there. I grew mesmerized by the scenery, the clever framing on and off screen space conveyed the relationships between the characters. Their pent up desire, their longing, their relationships are all written so well with the camera. The slowness becomes time to savour, contemplate and be more deeply effected by the narrative. There wasn't really a resolution, perhaps there was I'm not sure, The train brings hope in the form of an unhappy couples old friend. A best childhood friend of the man and former lover of the woman. They are all caught in this strangled situation of regret and longing and dejectedness. The marriage is dead because her heart still lies with the other man and his arrival brings them all back to life, but then he is also destroying them and himself and they all know it and struggle to hold back from the longings of their heart.The husband just longs to see his wife happy, he doesn't want his friend to leave despite knowing he is letting go of his marriage by keeping him there. I just loved watching how well it was all expressed so brilliantly. There was so much to be read in the images so much said without words just intricate use of pauses, silence and lighting. I really loved losing myself in the detail of this film and am definitely adding it alongside breakfast at tiffany's, chungking express and in the mood for love as one of my favourites.
I'm looking up restlessness as a medical symptom but the stupid computer is so slow it is driving me insane in my restlessness to hang out for the answer. Computers are like everything in society they suspend you in waiting. You don't do something else because you think it will only take a second but that second creeps into minutes and you keep remaking your concept of time thinking just one more moment will make all the difference, Surely the little green lights at the bottom mean it is doing something. I don't think they do they are just the computers smoke screen to make you think it is doing something while it twiddles its thumbs with no intention of doing much at all other than freezing up. By the time you finally cotton onto the fact it is frozen you've wasted an age. If you press the back button it suddenly decides to work and takes you in the opposite direction from where you wanted to go.
Everything about society makes you wait and I guess TV and Film are recepricals you can put your mind in while your body is on hold. Time drains out of you and if you actually analysed what you were watching you'd find that like in class at school the content could be crushed down into ten minutes of viewing. But we hold on as in every aspect of life to the idea that the waiting time isn't going to be long. The ads will be over in a sec. We are in Watching TV mode or waiting for traffic light mode, contantly life seems to be full of lapses of consciousness created expecially for all the waiiting moments we even have waiting rooms in which the action is acknowledged with waiting passtimes like magazines and TV's provided. They really should extend the same courtesy in trains and all public transport, travel is just waiting when it is undertaken in a vehicle.
I have developed a phobia to the whole waiting business since discovering the release and freedom I felt breaking away from the convention. Instead of thinking I had to wait for the bus I started running home. Sure it took longer but I felt like I was making progress the whole way being proactive no longer waiting.
When I approach TV or film I like to feel I've run out all the energy that can make me feel like I am just on pause in waiting mode. I like to feel to approach the experience in a state of no more energy available to get up so I'm not waiting to get up and do something else this is the recovery from doing it. To watch not to wait is bliss but it is never a feeling that lasts long. Even if you are watching a show you specifically want to pay close attention to and take every detail in you find they have sneaked waiting moments into it. Waiting for it to start, waiting for the ads to finish for it to start again, waiting for the news break to finish for it to start again, waiting for the characters to figure out what you figured out in the first five minutes. The only thing you never have to wait for is the credits. For some reason they are quite happy to be in a massive hurry to role them and move onto the next thing. I guess to get you hooked into the first few moments of the next show so you'll get sucked into the whole waiting system again. The one time when you want to wait, to dwell on what you have just seen and let it absorb if it was an especially nice movie with cool music on the credits. It is odd really how society seems to have it's timing all stuffed up. They are allways hurrying us on to the next thing to wait for but we never seem to get more than a moment experience of what that was if that. Perhaps life really is just expectation, there is nothing to arrive at it is all the build up to it. After all party's and Christmas are an anticlimax once the sleeps til them are slept and it is the sleeps after them already. Delaying waiting time is perhaps delaying the enjoyment of the blissful ignorance of the mundanity of the actual reality. In the waiting time we can build up to excited feverish pitch an idea of how great and perfect everything will be. That dissolves like icecream or chocolate in the moment of experience and all we really have to console us is the next thing to wait for as it is still in our imagination thus still flexible and able to be coloured embellished as wonderful.
Films have always played on the overactivity of the imagination. They want to suspend us in the imagined moment, they want to take us into that world when everything is perfect. (Well generally if they are classical hollywood as it is all about entertaining, taking you out of reality, taking you on a ride, other cinema's focus more on disrupting this concept but I'm not discussing them)
In a way by doing this films have damaged us because we indoctrinated by them from childhood when reality and fiction is hard to delineate and we spend our life waiting to grow up and experience this wonderful perfect extraordinary reality that films have convinced us exists, We have expectations this should be our reality (The fact that most hollywood films are about middle class american life can give very unrealistic expectations of how well jobs are going to pay and what are supposed to be norms of everyday living. normality can be blurred with luxary's that most people live without but films suggest normality should include. )
Films can leave the impressionable in a very disillusioned or suspended state. A state of disatisfaction, always looking up wondering when the something better is going to be. We can't accept the normality of reality because we are convinced that things are meant to be like in films. If we fall in love and that love is just an ordinary feeling we may question if we are in love at all because we don't feel like they seemto feel in the films. And we could miss the actual real thing because we have preconceived notions of what it should be and so it passes us by without us recognising it.
Films can be an escape from reality which is a good thing if you know you are escaping, but it is impossible to live a satisfied and fulfilled life if you always have this idea that it isn't an escape at all but the way life should be that we just aren't experiencing yet. Films start the whole when I grow up idea building in a childs head. But life is so strange, you can grow up and if the things you though would happen because they do in films haven't happened you can never feel like you have grown up yet.
I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that there is no actual destination waiting doesn't seem to require that you actually have anything to show for what you waited for. The only remedy is to make sure the waiting time isn't time wasted, that you are waiting for something worthwhile, that it is something that actually exists, that you get a realistic idea of what you are waiting for, that it might not resemble at all what you thought it was going to, that things that tell you what it is going to be like are very likely not very good indications, they are someone elses idea for a start, they are based on someone elses experience, most likely their ideal of what the experience should be. They are manipulated to entertain not to bore so you don't realise you are waiting.
Films are so clever this way, they are designed to fool you they are taking you on a journey when they are only really distracting you from one.
Most of our time settles in a coffee cup, cafes are sophisticated waiting rooms
I have lapsed once again but finally back I shall try and commit a concerted effort to posting something every day. I have certainly felt quite passionately to the point of spitting about a number of issues of late so I finally have a whole splurt of ramble to add.
At the minute The world seems quite red. Alight with the ocurrance and threat of the tragedy of fire. Being in a dangerous area for bushfires the whole issue has ben extremely proximate. I have felt intense sympathy for all the people effected, great powerless bewilderment and anger at careless cruel arsonists whose humanity I cannot begin to ceonceive of (If they actually have any I mean)
But the flame of the fire has not just been literal It has been to an awful extent figurative and this has made me see red for another reason as my irritation with the media circus that erupts over any tragedy has reason to a fever. I hate the way reality is sensationalised to the point of fictionalisation. I hate the media frenzy the way they feed off the drama, fan the flame of it. Invade peoples privacy and personal space always searching for the tear always fishing for the thankyou. I'm so tired of Bushfire commentary, My nerves are run ragged by the read outs of areas under threat I'm sick of the opinionated ringing up to discuss or pat themselves on the back for their actions. Those who do things in silence I admire, those who have to advertise their generosity tire me. I'm most sick of not being able to feel this sick of it all without risk of accusation of insensitivity.
It is mainly just that When something so awful like this happens in everyday life the horrificness does not really need exaggeration. The romantic language used in fiction to evoke emotion is unecessary for the emotion is already at the surface, it doesn't need to be aggravated and embellished.
And just because something awful happens to people doesn't immediately make their lives, their tragedy everybody elses property. Must the offer of help come with the price tag of their right to grieve, react, let it all settle in in private.
The media acts like they are so wonderful invading these peoples space. But there is a fee for the help they give although they are constantly insisting it is free, that is their almost theft of the rights to record and broadcast peoples natural and most private moments. It's their rare opportunity not to have to fabricate or falsify to have a tap into a pure source of humanity which due to human empathy hooks everyone else in. Why can't there be some law though to stop horror being turned into entertainment. Why can't the line have some way of being delineated between honest, sympathetic reporting of events versus competative thirsty exploitation of a real situation for ratings. The real in this case is often even tampered with in order to be presented on camera to the point where unreality creeps in and cheapens the whole scenario. Surely to orchestrate it so you can unite people on camera and squeeze every tear and thankyou from the moment from dazed zombified subjects who haven't really a clue whether they want to be filmed or not isn't responsible. Maybe years later they'll look back and wish they had had that moment to themself. Maybe they won't everyone is diffferent but I don't see that anyone is necessarily given fair choice when they are not really properly sane at the time of consent. The media takes advantage of their bewilderment to offer up their raw state to an audience. To watch for information is fair, to watch with empathy to be aware to act, but I do feel some media allows it all to be reported in a way that blurs reality into the type of drama people are supposedly entertained by every night. Why are we entertained by drama anyway?
Anyway rant almost over I guess what is really niggling is the ads for the news and how well so and so station or show has reported it, the journalism awards to come in the future when people will pat themselves on the back for how well they did this or that story when it should never have been a source for all that, it should never have happened and story's should only serve to make people aware so it is less likely to happen again not dampen the reality of it with boosting the drama of it to the level of the drama we usually watch as entertainment (For some crazy reason) and are desensitised to.
The more real something is and the more it effects people is often when it is the most ordinary, subtle, unremarkable a part of our everyday life. People need to be made to remember that the big show of emotion and fire and the outpourings of upset and sympathy are all going to die down and it is then when the threat is going to be at its greatest when the media need to be bringing it into the public consciousness again because the whole situation has really proved how too blase we have all been and risk becoming again when the weather seems colder and everything is not so obviously under threat.
Last night my TV watching became to me like when you are craving something in the kitchen that tastes nice and you can't move on from searching for it and everything you try is just bland and unsatisfying. I was left in limbo searching in this case not for chocolate but for a program to watch.
I had enough channels to choose from. I was staying at a nice hotel with foxtel and the movie channel (though you have to pay for them so they weren't really an option but none of what was offered was any good anyway
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Once I saw a brilliant German film called Mostly Martha. I think that was the title anyway. It was a very fascinating emotional journey which was masterfully woven together. It is all about a rather obsessive compulsive Chef whose sense of control over her life is wound up in her control over her cooking and her kitchen. The tragic loss of her sister upsets the fragile balance of her world as she is left with the responsibility of getting to know and caring for her sisters little girl. She is not good with Children. She is stiff and cold and deals with her emotions and frustrations by hiding in the restaurants Fridge whenever the stress gets all too much. Her sisters child is silent and won't eat suffering with the grief of losing her mother. This makes the situation even harder as food is the only medium through which her aunt feels confidant to communicate. The entrance of another Chef further shatters her sense of security control and power in her life. I was really impressed with this film when I first saw it. The main characters emotional developement and the developement of the characters relationships was so natural and believable and artistically orchestrated.
Tonight I saw the hollywood version. One of my favourite actors is Catherine Zeta Jones, yet still I was dreading watching this as I knew I had the original in my head and I felt antagonised by the fact that the americans can't just admire another country's movie they have to make an american version. Like the ideas are good but the american audience needs it be interpreted or something (Other examples... Three men and a baby is an american version of a french comedy. More recently the hideous american version of Kath and Kim. I just don't understand the point of remaking something else in another country when it only makes sense in its own context - I'm thinking of the awful australian version of top gear and the equally cringe worthy version ofso you think you can dance here and thus straying way off topic
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Tonight was a good night for grand speeches and strong female presence on the ABC late night old movie lineup. A nice counteraction for the Time Lock film the other night in which all the women did was look pretty, useful or distressed. Movie 1 was an interesting American history lesson which contained a speech at the end by the female character which resembled that of Portia in the Merchant of Venice. The dialogue has a dominating role in old films. And they are a philosophical discourse albeit lacking an unbiassed nature. The Message is always very strong and conservative.
The Second film was the exploration of a womans character through reminisance of her and the men who had loved her throughout her life. It starts at the end and the plot is told in flashbacks which is a good way of showing the subjectivity of the memory by revealing how the different characters saw the same memory in an a different way at points. She never ends up marrying and the Conservative code is strongly reins in the plot. She spends forty years paying for sleeping with the love of her life before she had married him. He runs of the next week and at the end of her life when she meets him again does not remember her while her life has been haunted and overshadowed waiting for him to return
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Inspired by last nights post I checked the ABC for an old film tonight. There was one starting called Time Lock. It was quite an interesting buildup of suspense and release of it.It felt a bit like a theatre performance with a cast of characters.
The plot was quite skeletal. A little boy arrives with his mother to meet his father after work at the bank. It is his sixth birthday and he received a flashlight as a present which he proudly displays for his father and his father's boss to see. His father just has to lock up the safe with his boss. There are two combinations and a time lock which is fixed until Monday Morning
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I love late night television. Well when there is something on. I do love discovering things at 2am in the morning like an artistic french film on SBS or an Old movie on the ABC or a comedy or late movie on the other channels.
It's takes a bit of patience and research helps otherwise you could stay up all night for nothing. It is just something about being wrapped up in the darkness as the rest of the house sleeps
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I have long imagined Sunday afternoons should idealically be spent at the Cinema watching arthouse films. There is something bohemian or intellectual or atmospheric about it that inspires me but I haven't actually ever done it before today. I feel like it's the first sunday I've actually lived in the right way.
Today or Aujourd'hui perhaps I should say in the spirit of the film I just saw at the Nova Cinema. I saw a beautiful french film called "Il y a longstemps que je t'aime" or "I have loved you so long" en anglais. After the film there was a question and answer session with the director and one of the actors. I found this quite a fascinating opportunity to gain a deeper insight into film making. It was quite surreal to have the director and actor right there bringing you outside of the world you were just immersed in and giving you deeper insight into it by talking about how it was created at the same time
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Well 37 days is a long time to not write a thing. Finishing a course and being out dawn til dusk is what stole all the time. But I had to log back in today and get back into the habit of this as I had the most beautiful experience the other night.
Beautiful isn't the right word more of a thrill like christmas morning
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