WikiBabble/Cinebabble

2024-01-25

AAAAH Alessia I see you saw Monster! I saw it last Saturday! < Thijs

Have you seen Rashomon? <

2024-02-06

Alessia >  Yup! I really like Koreeda's work
                I see you are a man of culture :) Nope I still didn't watch Rashomon but I heard about it a lot. Has
                it the same narrative structure? 
        >       Thiiijijjijijss you should write a letterboxd review about monster!
                Did you explore a bit IFFR last week? I watched Firebrand and Fresh Kill, I am quite sure you would
                have liked Fresh Kill!

2024-02-07

(Babbling on my phone so forgive me for the styling that's surely off) < Thijs

I haven't seen Rashomon either, but from my understanding it is the canonical example that uses this narrative device. I'm curious to watch it, I haven't seen any of Kurosawa's films yet. <      

I went to the IFFR pubquiz! Didn't get to see any films though, as you know I wasn't really in the headspace for longer days / more trips to Rotterdam. Yesterday I impulsively went to see Poor Things though (the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie), and it was really good. Definitely motivated to watch some more, gotta prep for next year's pubquiz of course B) <      

Thank you for the recommendation :) <

2024-03-05

I just saw the 2017 Lanthimos directed Killing of a Sacred Deer (rated 3 stars by VodkaLemon I see). < Thijs

What I've been thinking about during these Lanthimos films -- and even more so thinking about Ander- <
son movies (always thinking about Anderson movies) -- is how seamless / seamful they are. I think I
entered this rabbithole for the first time when watching this short film The Swan. Aside from the
characters speaking Andersonesque, directing their speech directly at us, having a nested retelling
in a very 'forced' way, there's a particular shot that is really imperfect*. Deliberately imperfect,
I think. It reinforces the (subconsious) idea that you are watching a film. A construction. And this
construction is produced. In this short, and others, many set pieces are moved in and out of frame mid-
shot. There's no illusion being created that this is a snap-shot of real life. That's very seamful, I'd
say. The same with Lanthimos's style of dialogue. It is so obviously 'written'. And in a way, that's
very honest. But then, on the other hand, a director like Anderson is a famous / notorious perfectionist.
He wants us to see this. Every imperfection is a choice. And in that sense, still an attempt to approach
perfection, the seamless experience**. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this. I think this is a
rich topic for conversation of which I have certainly only explored the surface yet.

(*The scene in question is when the narrator is lying on the train rails and moves their head from facing <
to their side to facing up)

(**I don't want to equate seamlessness with perfection here. I'm trying to say that Anderson and co are <
crafting an experience for their viewers, and if a deliberate imperfection complies with the vision of
this experience, you can wonder if it was really a seam to start with***)

(***And in that sense, you can question if there is truly a way of showing seams like these without it be- <
ing seamless in the way of being the result of consideration. (Barring accidents and the likes))