Author Topic: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 712454 times)

m_rturnage

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2940 on: March 18, 2009, 10:20:50 AM »
There's also the fact that, aside from Lux, none of the girls are defined as anything at all.  If you showed me a lineup of the characters immediately after watching the movie, I would only be able to name one of them (and none of the guys other than Trip).  It seems to me that that would not be the case in a film about characters defining and constructing identities for other characters.

I had similar problems with the film, especially since there wasn't anything that visually distinguished the characters. All of the members of the male chorus looks the same (same body type, hair color, etc.) and all of the sisters looked the same.
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FroHam X

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2941 on: March 18, 2009, 11:05:52 AM »
There's also the fact that, aside from Lux, none of the girls are defined as anything at all.  If you showed me a lineup of the characters immediately after watching the movie, I would only be able to name one of them (and none of the guys other than Trip).  It seems to me that that would not be the case in a film about characters defining and constructing identities for other characters.

I had similar problems with the film, especially since there wasn't anything that visually distinguished the characters. All of the members of the male chorus looks the same (same body type, hair color, etc.) and all of the sisters looked the same.

I'm just going to keep repeating this. The whole point is that they are totally anonymous and all blend into each other. The problem is that the film also fails at getting that across in any way. Bad film, go read the book.
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skjerva

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2942 on: March 18, 2009, 11:13:31 AM »
Yeah, unfortunately I don't see any basis in the film for looking at it in that way.  It clearly defines itself as an investigation/memory of an inexplicable event.  Now, the narrator may be unreliable in his assertion that this is the subject of the film, but given that none of the boys is defined as a character with an individual point of view (we don't even know which one is the narrator), I don't know how you could say that the film is about their process of seeing or defining anything in contradiction to what the narration explicitly states.

There's also the fact that, aside from Lux, none of the girls are defined as anything at all.  If you showed me a lineup of the characters immediately after watching the movie, I would only be able to name one of them (and none of the guys other than Trip).  It seems to me that that would not be the case in a film about characters defining and constructing identities for other characters.

granted it has been a year or to since i last experienced this one, but all the boys do in the film is wonder about the girls and try to understand them.  this effort to understand is about trying to "define" them - obviously not literally define them.  that we get something about Lux speaks to the boy/girl theme i note, what we (think we) know about her is only through her relationship with a boy, and that we essentially know nothing about anyone is, like i wrote earlier, because the boys don't know anything about the girls and all the boys do is this wondering so what could we possibly know about them.  there isn't individuation because this is a social phenomenon.  it all works quite brilliantly
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2943 on: March 18, 2009, 02:09:11 PM »
So the reason the film doesn't bother to have any characters is because it's about the inability to define characters, except for the characters it does define, in which case it's about the ways boys define girls.  So it says boys define girls but no one can actually define anybody, except when they do, but they can't really because these aren't characters but groups of "boys" and "girls" who can't be individually defined because no one can "define" anyone?
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philip918

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2944 on: March 18, 2009, 02:20:17 PM »
Ha!

skjerva

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2945 on: March 18, 2009, 02:22:34 PM »
are you being deliberately daft or do you really not get it? 
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2946 on: March 18, 2009, 02:40:18 PM »
I think I'm defining something.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2947 on: March 18, 2009, 04:34:36 PM »
(First viewing of both - Reviews with lots of pictures and few words)[/center]
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skjerva

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2948 on: March 18, 2009, 08:10:15 PM »
(First viewing of both - Reviews with lots of pictures and few words)[/center]
We need more people like you in the forums. Films are primarily a visual medium after all.

what a turd ;P  gimmie a list of yr ten fave films and i bet they'd be completely different without sound (i'm assuming they all have sound)
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Junior

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Re: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #2949 on: March 18, 2009, 08:12:26 PM »
Now try making a list and see how different they would be without your eyes!
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