roujin's 2nd verdict. what are you doing to yourself?
A Nightmare on Elm Street vs. Tongues Untied
A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)
Another 80s classic that I've never seen before. I think I saw
Freddy vs. Jason once and it was one of the most terrible movies I'd ever seen. Long story short: I didn't really know what to expect from this. I know Wes Craven isn't really involved with the other movies so it should be different. I mean, the first one is always the best one, right? Turns out I had a lot of fun with it. It seems different from other horror films. It's kind of about dread more than the violence (although the violence ramps up the feeling of dread). The concept is also kind of perfect. A villain who attacks you in your dreams. You can't really stop yourself from sleeping for too long. He'll get you either way. I enjoyed the way the film toyed with my expectations during the beginning as it opens with that one girl but then switches. Is this another case of the slutty teen dying first? Stupid horror movies. Anyway, who cares about these demons. What I meant to say was, the true horror of this being set in a dream world is that our dream worlds can be changed and not to our advantage. That's scary. Plus that Johnny Depp set piece is bananas. Too bad he wasn't tortured and beaten in a savage commentary on American foreign policy. What am I talking about?
Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1989/1990)
Fascinating stuff. The film is about how black men loving black men is a revolutionary act. No, really, the movie says that. The film uses a variety of methods to explore this, from direct address (by the filmmaker and others) to poetry/spoken word to documentary methods (found footage + other) to whatever else is needed. There's also a fair bit of personal testimony from Marlon Riggs himself covering his own experience (as one of many). The film covers a little bit of the same ground as something like
Paris is Burning does (I think I even spotted one of the vogue dancers from that film in here) but in a much more interesting way.
Faceboy, in his review of
Black Is... Black Ain't (also by Marlon Riggs), described this film's style fairly accurately with its "lone actor in front of the black background making movements meant to be thematically evocative" all while the actor also recites poetry that is meant to be profound and relevant and beautiful. It comes off as a bit silly but it kind of gets to you after a while and the poetry and the images and the cadences that the speakers imbue the words with, give it a certain kind of slant and oddness which is refreshing.
What I personally thought the most interesting was the segment when the film dispels the notion that being Gay and Black presented a conflict because, as they say, who will you be loyal to you? By film's end, the silence is gone, the music is back, black men loving black men is presented as something beautiful and wonderful. Also, Eddie Murphy's stand up routine from way back when was pretty homophobic. I should rewatch those films. . .
To be honest, I don't really know where to go. I know that I would probably rather watch
Nightmare, not because
Tongues isn't entertaining or illuminating in its own right, but because it's just a lot of fun.
Tongues is certainly the more ambitious work but I kept wishing it was longer, specially to flesh out the final passages.
I think I'll give it to
Nightmare, but I really want to check out
Ethnic Notions and
Black Is... Black Ain't now.