Author Topic: Top 100 Club: Bondo  (Read 21570 times)

colonel_mexico

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #130 on: September 25, 2020, 12:26:15 PM »
@Bondo - I was making a joke that Block and Jons were Bill and Ted, because Bill and Ted's use of the chess match against Death was a clear taking from SEVENTH SEAL.  I had forgotten about the SAVING AMY scene! But yeah that was a direct reference of WAITING FOR GODOT characters, though I found Block and Jons to be much more interesting.  The comedy is funny, but I can't lie I found myself laughing and smiling at Jof, the scene where he is waking up is like flipping over the tree and washing his face so loudly, it was like a Chaplin scene. But I do agree Block and Jons both have some very dry humor throughout, amidst the darkness.

@etdoesgood - Ha, I know I need to be careful with my RASHOMON references!  Yes, I would love to see those and will watch them soon, as the bar exam is now behind me I am watching a lot more, so I will get to them and report back somewhere, likely the respond to your last movie thread. 
"What do you want me to do draw you a picture?! Spell it out?! Don't ever ask me, as long as you live don't ever ask me more!"

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #131 on: September 26, 2020, 12:58:22 PM »
Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker / Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938)

It's impossible to ignore the propaganda aspect of these films, and what they were propaganda for. But it's quite obvious that Riefenstahl's ideas about what ideals the Olympics represented were not the same as Hitler's. Jesse Owens is the figure everyone remembers from the Berlin Olympics, but I was surprised to see that Riefenstahl identified that and didn't fuss around trying to diminish his exploits. That's because what she's after here is a celebration of humanity, a positivist vision of progress through competition between nations, basically the whole ethos behind the creation of the Olympics, really. That has it own issues, but it's remarkable how little interest she shows in framing this in a way that connects with nazi theories about race.

The introduction is striking, but a little laborious as well, and the main body of the film is essentially just a string of reports of sports results, which gets a little repetitive... but Riefenstahl has such an eye for how to shoot them, and she structurs the whole thing quite smartly. Ending with the marathon, which is this iconic struggle against oneself (and a relatively eventful race in this case) that is inherently very powerful, and Riefenstahl milks it for all its worth. It's remarkable how many visual tropes of modern sports coverage are present here, most of them for the first time.

Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der Schönheit / Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938)

I actually like this a tiny bit more than the first part, mainly because it starts and closes superbly, using the more artistic categories (gymnastics and diving) to go full "isn't the human body something?" which is really what the whole thing is about in the end.

Also Ben Morris is someone I was completely unaware of but feels like he was the second most memorable character out of these Olympics, after "der schnellest man in der Welt" (Jesse Owens).

7/10
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Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #132 on: September 30, 2020, 01:17:17 AM »
Anna Karenina



“The door of the jail being flung open, the young woman stood fully revealed before the crowd. It seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom that she might conceal a certain token which was wrought or fastened to her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush and yet a haughty smile, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Where's Count Vronsky's "Scarlet Letter," or Prince Oblonsky's, or Arthur Dimmesdale's, for that matter? No woman ever impregnated a man, but in cases of indiscretion, she solely gets to carry the stigma since time immemorial. It's unconscionable, but there it is. Anna is a pariah amongst society, while her lover has an all access pass to it. Anna's brother is a lifelong philanderer and yet gets to keep his children, wife and wealth. I wonder if this version of Anna Karenina relies on the Brechtian distancing effect, with its artifice and theatrical spectacle, so as to constantly remind the audience of the manufactured double standards for women. It's one thing to get caught up in a story and empathize with the characters, but it's another when the story is portrayed as a play with choreography, sets and footlights. Lest we forget, this woman is following a script not of her making. She's damned if she stays in a loveless marriage and damned if she chooses love elsewhere. She is powerless in the plot until in abject despair, she exists stage right. Curtains down. Lights up. Historical injustice dramatized.

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #133 on: September 30, 2020, 05:43:22 AM »
I was rereading my review and thought maybe I missed the sexist double standard aspect that you focus on, but there at the very bottom it was:
Quote
P.S. Didn’t have anywhere coherent to fit this in the review, but I thought it was interesting to note the disparity in social response or price to pay for the behaviors of males here compared to females. Very aware of the double standard.

Instead I started off quoting "All the world's a stage" and touching on the theatrical nature that you also touch on. I noticed that the more the character in the moment was having to put on an act for society, the more the scene was structured as theatre. The more they could be themselves, the more the style approached realism.

@Teproc: In approaching Olympia I definitely was concerned, what with the whole Nazi propagandist thing, and thus was surprised how much it didn't serve that purpose and arguably worked against it at times. Instead, the artistry carries through. As an ardent supporter of women in cinema, and obviously for the sake of mankind what with the whole World War/Holocaust, one likes to think of an alternate world where the Nazis never rise to power and Riefenstahl can apply her talents untainted.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #134 on: September 30, 2020, 07:25:41 AM »
I have watched The Night Porter but have yet to get my thoughts written down, I will hopefully have it done in the next day or so.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #135 on: September 30, 2020, 09:11:10 PM »
The Night Porter  (1974 Liliana Cavani)

This is a film about building up the mood, slowly carefully. Slowly we discover how horrible a person Dirk Bogarde's Max. Max is a former SS scumbag, who 12 years after the war is facing a trial for his actions during the war. His legal team is working to destroy evidence, as they have done for themselves and others. There is a wrinkle for Max, a victim of his actions, Charlotte Rampling's Lucia, has turned up at the hotel he is working at as the night porter. However she does not seem inclined to denounce him.

This is an incredible performance from Rampling who has immersed herself in this role of a very damaged woman.

Over the course of the film I started to not find Max as horrible, he is in love with Lucia. It is rather disturbing how he gains your sympathy during the film.

The snatches of the past that we see were good, but lacking, they failed to show Lucia's breaking. From her actions in the present I can see that she has a twisted need for Max, but the flashbacks fail to provide me a sufficient reason for that need. Her change in the past needed to be better explored or it should have be been expressed in the present without the past being directly mentioned.

So while I greatly enjoyed watching the performance of Rampling and Bogarde, and the story was interesting, the delivery of the story missed the mark.

Rating: 74 / 100

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #136 on: October 01, 2020, 05:51:04 AM »
It definitely is trodding a fine line. I'm very sensitive to films that start with mistreatment and then resolve into some form of romantic attachment. But I think this film is working at more of a level of abstraction and kind of provocatively turning the Holocaust into a dom-sub role play. Based on my response when I saw it 8 years ago, clearly it worked at the time, though it has fallen off a bit.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #137 on: October 01, 2020, 09:54:56 AM »
I was rereading my review and thought maybe I missed the sexist double standard aspect that you focus on, but there at the very bottom it was:
Quote
P.S. Didn’t have anywhere coherent to fit this in the review, but I thought it was interesting to note the disparity in social response or price to pay for the behaviors of males here compared to females. Very aware of the double standard.

Instead I started off quoting "All the world's a stage" and touching on the theatrical nature that you also touch on. I noticed that the more the character in the moment was having to put on an act for society, the more the scene was structured as theatre. The more they could be themselves, the more the style approached realism.

Ah, I like this take. I spent much of the movie trying to decipher the why's of using stage vs. realism. The only one truly free from pretense was Konstantin Levin (and later, Kitty) as he left society and worked the land. That's a great statement. I've been reading about Forest Bathing or Nature Therapy. Getting out of the city and into nature improves health in a big way, mentally and physically. :)

I initially wanted to do a review on the techniques used by Joe Wright, both with stagecraft and body movement, but I was so agitated by the story, my review ended up being a call to arms. :D

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #138 on: October 01, 2020, 11:47:23 PM »
Alright, we've done REALLY well to this point. If we include They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in my recent Bondo Experience, we were 3/3 (TSHDT?, The Prestige, and Nausicaa). To me, a hit in compatibility is when both people can agree that the film is a good one. Expecting anyone to love the thing you love is pretty tough, but overlap in ideas of good quality is fun. All three are good movies to talk about, too.

So #4, 5 Centimeters Per Second, didn't work out. While there are certain haunting images and Shinkai and I seem to share a certain affection for the wonders of outer space, I found the narration and overall story arc to be painfully shallow. The second of the three parts was probably the hardest to bear as Kanae's words are a string of teenage melodramatic cliches, as is the story of a girl who loves a boy but cannot say it, before realizing that it would never work anyway. I feel strangely guilty writing this because obviously you love this film, but I also feel it would be disrespectful to totally avoid saying anything, as if you needed sparing from my opinion. At this point, I really want to know why it is you like this movie so much. Soooo...?

My third Shinkai. After Your Name rocked my world, Weathering with You Brought Me Down a little bit, even though I still think it's a good-to-very-good film based on the animation alone. Now, I feel like I'm in a place where three Shinkai films are enough. So for the time, I'm awaiting the host's thoughts!
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: Bondo
« Reply #139 on: October 02, 2020, 04:13:03 AM »
It may be important that I found 5 CM/Sec 10 years ago when I was closer to a teenage angst sort of point. It is very much a film of intense internal emotion presented in a somewhat dry way where you have to really connect with it or you can be lost, as I was with The Place Promised In Our Early Days. I also watched it immediately on the heels of that less successful film so by contrast it was vastly more powerful. You are coming to it starting with Your Name, which anchored different expectations, though they all have a distinctly Shinkai-style.

Anyway, I kind of like the play with perspectives here. The first section sets up the core relationship and how distance is forced upon it. At the point I'd watched it, my most significant relationship had been a long-distance one, so I related to this. The second section is from the perspective of a third person who doesn't know what we know about how the boy she's interested in carries this sense of loss with him. The small third section was the weakest. Shinkai often explores relationships that are kept apart by space or time, and I guess this film's melancholy resonated with me.