Come anticipate a dour, foreign language film about the apocalypse with me

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'Time of the Wolf'
Dir: Michael Haneke
Starring: Isabelle 'Lacemaker' Huppert, Beatrice 'Betty Blue' Dalle, Olivier 'Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train' Gourmet

Out: this Friday in the UK

This film is bloody great. But, unless it turn to a big Momus vs Republicans thing, this thread won't get a fraction of the posts that 'Kill Bill' did. Why? Marketing?

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Considering this is the first I've heard of this film I'm gonna go with "marketing".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

See also: it is a foreign-language film about the apocolypse.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah - but it rocks, it's really good, seriously. Visually. Thematically. I can't remember any dialogue.

Also: apocalypse = pressing issue of our time.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not saying it's a bad film. I'm saying this is why it isn't going to get 1/100th of the attention of Kill Bill. The only foreign language films that get any attention in English speaking countries are abject toss like Amelie and that horrifying Benigni happy Holocaust film, mainly because everyone in the US likes to think that Europeans are silly and twee and adorable, like Pinnochio.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Humans have always thought the apocalypse was coming up, this isn't exactly a right-now-in-human-history-specific topic.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

What was that film called again? The one where he did that thoroughly embarassing, hideous Oscar acceptance speech that involved incredibly strained "childlike enthusiasm" and running around on top of people's heads in the audience?

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry Ally but *cough*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*cough*.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

And there's less to anticipate, since people have been asking "what's Tarantino's next movie going to be?" since Pulp Fiction came out like ten years ago (I don't think Jackie Brown counts for most people; good or bad, it wasn't much like the movies that made him so recognizable and anticipatable.)

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

You know what, fuck Amelie, the most disturbing and horrible film ever is whatever that one was called. If I could fight anyone, I'd fight Benigni.

(xpost: when did Japan become part of Europe?)

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Life Is Beautiful.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Ally I just meant that those films you mentioned are certainly not the only foreign-language films that have garnered interest in English-speaking countries (and by English-speaking countries I mean America/Canada ha ha).

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

ack I realize I wrote "foreign language" in the first sentence when I meant to write "European"--which I wrote in subsequent sentences. That's my mistake, sorry nick.

(CTHD--marketing, and it's still pretty goddamned twee for a samaurai film. I'm not a fan of it)

(but the only foreign films I like are all horrifying Republicanism odes anyway)

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

'Life is Beautiful'. You don't get em any triter. I think this Oscar moment has me understanding Donald Rumsfeld just a little bit more.

Humans have always thought the apocalypse was coming up, this isn't exactly a right-now-in-human-history-specific topic.

Au contraire! It's only been a possibility since 1945. And (UK ref ahoy) heck, in just 45 minutes we could all be wiped out even now. I think the last two years have seen a little ante-upping in this respect.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's how it works:

Asian films: must have swordplay
Spanish-language films: must have lots of sexy
Euro films: must be twee ass bullshit

This is why Enrique's film will fail to garner a large audience.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Life is Beautiful makes me want to kill myself.

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes it's only been physically possible since around the dawn of the atomic age but humans have been obsessed with and afraid of cataclysms for ages - think of all the apocalypse themes in ancient mythology, floods, famines, wars, etc. Being blown up is not the only style of apocalypse.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

It's only been a possibility since 1945.

Is it specifically about nuclear catastrophe? Cause fear of the end of the world is a few thousand years older than that.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Euro films: must be twee ass bullshit

I think City of Lost Children disagrees with this.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

(oh wait now that I think about it I guess any film in which children play lead roles might = "twee" my bad)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is neither Japanese nor does it involve samurais.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

They tried, with Beatrice Dalle (mid-80s student bedsit poster sensation), to give it some of that European = sexy flava, but yeah, Ally's right - though it does have some violent bits.

The cause of the apocalypse is -- hey, it's European -- undefined!! Yes! In fact, the ending is todally frustrating! It might even be happy (fnar fnar). I think it's a big ruse to wind y'all up.

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

i am anticipating this film right along with you, enrique. as to why it's not generating as much excitement as 'kill bill' or whatever, i don't think it's been promoted at all in the states yet. if i hadn't been over in england when time out did a feature on it, then i'd probably be unaware that it was coming out.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

You know what? I'm walking away now, nickalicious. We aren't talking about what films should be. Nor are we talking about what films actually ARE, nick. We're talking about WHAT BY AND LARGE SUCCEEDS IN BEING MARKETED TO A LARGE AUDIENCE IN AMERICA. What is difficult to understand about this fairly accurate generalization? Of course you're going to find a contradiction or an exception; that's the manner of the art world, sometimes things become well known that don't fit the generalization but it doesn't make the generalized theory any less true. Why do you think Miramax buys up the films that it does and presses them so hard down everyone's goddamned throat?

― Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Keep buying Time Out! Has some excellent critics, esp in the film section feel me?

― Enrique (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I read something about this film, but it's not out in the states yet, I don't think. I'd like to see it, Isabelle Huppert is an excellent actress. I saw a film a few years ago in Chicago (don't think it ever got picked up for distribution in the states, it was at a festival) where she played a woman who was stuck, sans passport, in Orly Airport. It was pretty good.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

RINGU RINGU RINGU oh wait we had to have that recast and rewritten and remade for us, that wasn't a foreign film at all, oh and they're going to do a ton of nihon/hanguk remakes now because that was such a brilliant success and asian filmmakers can be bought off for cheap.

the suckiest part is that the American 'RING' made more money IN JAPAN than the original movie. What is wrong with some people. Oh well, fuck this, I hate George Bush and all his American motherfuckers.

BRAAAAA ZIIIILLLLLLL LA DADA DADA DEEEEEEEE YA DEEDEE DEEDEE HEE TEE TEEEEEEEEE YA LADA WADA WADA WHEEEEEEEEEEE yaaa daaaa, daaa daaa da deeeeeeee

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Dude my bad Ally, shit. All I was saying was that, well hey, here's one European film that was moderately successful in the States that was a couple spooky nightmare scenes left of "twee". I dunno, I like to remain optimistic to the possibility that occasionally things aren't going fall directly in line with tradition. Especially in terms of stuff-being-successful-in-America, where every once in awhile you get these "WTF? how did that become so popular?" endeavors (fr'instance 28 Days Later, Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc).

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(btw it's not that you're not OTM cuz you obv. are, it's just that you're OTM in regards to something that really pisses me off about America)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I just realized TOMBOT is singing one of my all-time favorite songs.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Momus, is that you?

...

Haneke is definitely in my list of Top Ten European Directors Currently Active.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

anyway the greatest foreign language movie ever is Pootie Tang, the rest can't hold a candle

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

sa da tay!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 15:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Michael Haneke = smug rockist idiot. He likes to stress in interviews how his films matter and sensitize the audience to important issues and stuff. Of course he's kicking open doors in because his films are drab as fuck so no one gets to see them except sufficiently pre-sensitized arthouse audiences. He's Oliver Stone minus cojones.

Fuck Haneke, go see some Tavernier films instead.

― Herbstmute (Wintermute), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Michael Haneke = smug rockist idiot. He likes to stress in interviews how his films matter and sensitize the audience to important issues and stuff. Of course he's kicking open doors in because his films are drab as fuck so no one gets to see them except sufficiently pre-sensitized arthouse audiences. He's Oliver Stone minus cojones.
Fuck Haneke, go see some Tavernier films instead.

I have, and I like both very much (as well as Stone). Would you really want to follow a director who doesn't believe his films matter and/or have important issues as such? C'mon! Just because they don't say it explicitly doesn't mean they aren't thinking it.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Just because they don't say it explicitly doesn't mean they aren't thinking it.

I do not object to films having a message. I do object to directors explicitly stating I AM THE DIRECTOR! HERE IS MY MESSAGE! in the film and in interviews because it's... it's... I don't now, you just don't do that.

― Herbstmute (Wintermute), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Just because they don't say it explicitly doesn't mean they aren't thinking it.

I'm talking only about the interviews, but you honestly can come up with something better than "because it's... it's... I don't now, you just don't do that"?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 17:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I do object to directors explicitly stating I AM THE DIRECTOR! HERE IS MY MESSAGE! in the film and in interviews because it's... it's...

...well, it's obtrusive. Like explaining a punch line. If the joke is bad, you come across as self-important git. If the joke is good, you don't need to explain it (and maybe ruin it forever by doing so).
Stone tells long beautiful jokes with crappy punch lines; he can explain them all he wants, they are still entertaining. Haneke tells dreary, obvious jokes, keeps giggling all the way through, and goes into a huff if nobody laughs in the end. And then he goes on and on about his punch lines, complaining that he cast pearls before swine. You just don't do that.

― Herbstmute (Wintermute), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

No one is making you read the interviews. Relax.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 14 October 2003 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of Tavernier, did anyone see Laissez-passer? I started a thread on it once and no one responded. Then I cried.

By the way, Enrique, voila, lots of people responded to your post, making big generalizations about ILX and what people will and won't do is kind of insulting and unneccessary.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

(I am aware it is kind of the national sport around here)

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I really can't stand Haneke's films.

― adaml (adaml), Tuesday, 14 October 2003 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I am looking forward to this, admittedlly in a slightly wary manner. Post-apoc has been done so many times that obviously i would like to see an original take, but will it be as good as Survivors?

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 08:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Haneke is great. Everybody else sucks shit. Oliver Stone is OK.

― dave q, Wednesday, 15 October 2003 10:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Stone is, ow you say, a nincompoop, but an entertaining one. Anyway, Haneke never explains his films, what are you on (that's a good thing)? And Tavernier is mezzo-crap.

his films are drab as fuck so no one gets to see them except sufficiently pre-sensitized arthouse audiences.

Anyway, just cos he aint Michael Bay doesn't make him drab. I thought this newie was very exciting, and very daring with its use of darkness.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Enrique I wish you'd stop assuming that if someone doesn't like what you like then their only point of reference must be Michael Bay, or some such thing.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, point taken, I shdn't engage with the art-house = drab thing, but people do use it, so...

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

The poster's point wasn't that art house = drab, but that Haneke = drab. People like art house films here as much as they like Hollywood stuff--don't need to get defensive about it.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 15 October 2003 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

10 out of 10.

― David. (Cozen), Friday, 31 October 2003 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

the only reason this thread got any attention was because he mentioned kill bill.

― Dean Gulberry (deangulberry), Friday, 31 October 2003 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm ambivalent about Haneke generally because I think he betrayed some of the talent he could have tapped from The Seventh Continent ("mouldering long shots a-go-go yiyi let's dance") in making a film like The Piano Teacher ("stay still godammit!") (which incidentally I still love but could see maybe it having been made by Claire Denis instead?).

But this, this! I don't know what to say. Stunning, just stunning.

― David. (Cozen), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't want to say too much with saying so little but I'd urge anyone to go see this.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

― David. (Cozen), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

if i wr to be a film-maker i'd construct my WHOLE career around films with Isabelle Huppert in! wow!

― David. (Cozen), Friday, 31 October 2003 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

this film got a reputation as a big stinker here in paris. i know nothing else about it.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 31 October 2003 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i love paris.

but, wow, wrong!

― David. (Cozen), Saturday, 1 November 2003 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone else seen this?

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 11:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Haneke is NOT drab! I was knocked upsode tha hedd, but it got little love from critics. Lacked human centre -- all that nambypamby bollox. Whole point was that it was told from post-apocalyptic perspective, so no humanist bromides for us.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked it a lot, but it never really gets better than its tremendous first thirty minutes. Haneke is surprisingly firm on his storytelling commitments, which then puts him in a bit of a bind when he has to think of an ending (he does not quite bottle it, the ending makes sense) but how do you end a PA drama. Either
a) Everyone dies = v.v.depressing
b) Everyone (sort of) happy = end of 28 Days Later and we know what i think of that.
c) Everything stays the same, lack of decent conclusion.

Under the circumstances it manages rather well, but needs to be seen in conjunction with Survivors.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Also a (mentioned b4) excellent nu Chinese film (from DP of 'Platform' and 'Unkown Pleasures') 'All Tomorrow's Parties' -- ends exactly the same! Train and all.

I think... they woke up and it was all a dream.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I was kind of hoping that the fire was hiding an oncoming train and they got run over, anctually hope is the wrong word - dreading. One thing I wasn't sure about, was the bloke at the end the same as "the bloke at the begining with the gun" (trying not to spoil anything).

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think so -- I think he was one of the guys hassling the Poles earlier? I saw it in July, so if they weren't Poles, that wasn't offensive!

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

it's definitely the best french film i've seen this year (sex is comedy,vendredi soir, la chignon d'olga, um &c.)

what i liked ws when ppl said 'i'm sorry' in the film and why they said it, how it operates, and why maybe it has to operate.

another film strong on the 'ends' of relationships (as this one is) i thk is the end (?) which has david cronenberg in (?).

i guess my favourite scene ws in the first thirty minutes in the barn huppert is watching the kid assemble a fire and you can't really tell if her face is strong or fragile or resentful or guarding. first time i saw it i tht 'she looks resentful of the kid because of her vertical relationship towards him: one of trust, dependency etc' (this ws backed up by the kid sister going over and hugging the little boy ie assertion of horizontal etc). but then i realised tht the mother-child axis isn't a simple up-down relationship cs a significant part of love has to work horizontally.) (sorry this is stuff i've been thinking about wrt to law and social theory and i thk this film is interesting to anyone who is concerned / fascinated about the whys and hows of the operation of law.)

have the reviewers been mentioning locke and hobbes and stuff? i dunno if this would disappoint me.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

enrique's right abt the guy at the end i thk.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

'what i liked is when ppl said 'i'm sorry'...' = i'm a dirty legal theorist and really interested in the different types of power tht perhaps auto-exert themselves between ppl in the mechanics of social etiquettes whatever (i am ruining this thread with the tremendous weight of my OWN dour / drabness!).

so places like s. africa and post-Mabo australia interest me and so does the 'bringing the future into the present' of saying 'i'm sorry'.

um, like, yeh, i loved it. a lot.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:27 (twenty-one years ago)

cronenberg = 'Last Night' (not based on the strokes song of the same name < /ntk>)

― Henry K M (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:30 (twenty-one years ago)

have the reviewers been mentioning locke and hobbes and stuff? i dunno if this would disappoint me

They didn't pay it that much attention sadly -- out same day as Coens. I like it -- idea of 'thirld world' being broken down. according to interview in sight & sound it was tohave a firsat act in which water supplies etc in city start to fuck up. i wd liike to see this, though 'code unknown' wd function.

Also -- he only got funding after 9/11.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought so too to be fair, then started second guessing myself on the way out. Can't agree more about the fire scene. I think the Polack stuff was just general abuse to "foreigners" (though they might have been Polish). Huppert is great in it, and agreed it is my favourite French movie of another pretty poor year (caveat - from what I have had to see).

David, film you are thinking of is Last Night. Which is mentioned a bit on this thread:
s/d - movies about the end of the world

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm seeing Bertolucci's 'The Dreamers' tomorrow which might be a late entry, but it hasn't been so hot for France this year.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Yesterday I saw a fantastic film, Goff in the Desert, a two hour succession of views of the buildings of American architect Bruce Goff. A 'biography in buildings', it was also a fantastic evocation of 'sense of place'. The sound design was great, paying careful attention to the sound of passing traffic, the stirring of wind in the trees, the tapping of a computer keyboard. Most of the houses were occupied rural or suburban buildings. There was no commentary at all, no characters, just a visual narrative of one man's evolving sense of form and its relationship to nature, as well as the way the occupants of this architecture had reconciled its sci-fi 'otherness' to their own, sometimes twee, sense of the domestic. This was very much a German film about America, so it shared some of the strangeness of 'Paris, Texas'. It highlighted that odd tension you often feel in the US between the culty-utopian-spiritual-idealist and the twee-provincial-comfortable-pragmatic. For instance, you'd get a shot of this totally Ray Bradbury pod-dwelling of unearthly curves and angles and, in the corner of a vacant room, see the TV weather forecast. And there was a battle to see which was more 'real', the Goff curves or the electronic weather. And the curves won. Fantastic.

(This is the first in a series of dispatches from Momus, 'Films I am seeing instead of 'Kill Bill'.)

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

oh yeh i thk i read somewhere ppl talking abt this post-apocalypse as some sort of analogue third-world. i didn't take anything like that from the film.

i wish i cd think of a way for the polack stuff to be more than just general abuse to 'foreigners'.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

So do I. They didn't seem to be talking Polish.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

meep! i lied because the best french film i've seen this year is l'atalante which i guess technically, on tht wording, still counts.

― David. (Cozen), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, we don't know what's going on. So the scenario might be thought of as temporary, so the racism that you already have in europe against easterners (cf 'code unknown' -- Romanians, mebbe these were too?) wd still exist. It still would anyway.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Well that is what I was reading. It had a "what if this happened tomorrow" kind of viewpoint (cf the car at the beginning). It just seemed that it was just the heightened extrapolation of bog standard asylum seeker prejudice in Europe at the moment.

I do have a few problems with some of the logistical timescales in the piece - but since we do not know what has happened, it was just a niggle.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 3 November 2003 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Also a (mentioned b4) excellent nu Chinese film (from DP of 'Platform' and 'Unkown Pleasures') 'All Tomorrow's Parties'

what is with new chinese films having english titles derived from canonical rock tunes? maybe it's just their western distributors.

david's comments incline me to try and see this film but although i admire some of haneke's skill i found the two films of his i've seen to be aggressively unpleasant....

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 3 November 2003 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't think this film worked at all - i couldnt engage with it other than in the last 10 minutes or so but the scene with the boy about to hurl himself into the fire was interesting. Haneke has made three excellent films in a row before this - Code:Unknown is one of my favourite films of the last decade, its really incredible - but this is a complete failure i think. An admirable one though. I'd rather see one of his failures than almost anything else.

― jed (jed_e_3), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

the crack you were on ws laced with insanity

i am goin to see this again tomorrow night (third time! woohoo?) but i don't really want too that much but i want to die alone even less. < /cryptic?>

― David. (Cozen), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

the scene where they are looking for the lost boy in the pitch black is great. I didn't find the whole thing convincing though. i mean i realise it was a parable and not meant to be REAL but i could only stretch the limits of my beiief in the situation so far. the whole thing was meant to have taken place over a few days in total and i wondered how that kind of descent into depravity was possible in that time scale. i found it too dis-connected, obviously the point, but didnt quite work here.

― jed (jed_e_3), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

...possibly the whole thing chimed with your current "BURN IT DOWN" mindset...?

― jed (jed_e_3), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Jed, I found 'Wolf' far more 'effective' or whatever than 'Code: Unknown' - which I also enjoyed, it just seemed like the most self-consciously Euro-Arty of the four Haneke flicks I've seen - C:U reminded me a lot of Godard (circa his early 80s 'return to narrative' period), Rivette (the stage play inside the film), and Kieslowski (...not just 'cos of Juliette Binoche.) I think Pete is 100% right abt Haneke being "surprisingly firm on his storytelling commitments" in 'Wolf' - there were so many plot points to discuss w/ my friends afterwards, we totally skipped over the 'meaning' phew phew. Again, 'Wolf' reminded me of Godard a lot - esp. 'Weekend', duh. I liked all the weeping in this movie, the endless misery (rape, murder, suicide, the shooting of a horse), the way that Huppert's face almost seems to RIPPLE w/ thought + emotion + angst - here's to the cinema of agressive unplesantness!

My fave film of the year. No. 2 - 'Kill Bill'!

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

here's to it indeed - my film of the year is irreversible! (no.2. punch drunk love (!))

― jed (jed_e_3), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

...possibly the whole thing chimed with your current "BURN IT DOWN" mindset...?

haha! i don't thk i feel like tht really. i just had to draw a line under old stupidity. plus i don't thk the film wd square with such an outlook. it's a film about building! and about the creaking sounds of old structures settling. and some of them's inability to re-settle. the only desolate act of destruction we're not really allowed to see (apocalypse not shown because ppl can be too concerned w. the 'meaning' of events rather than their aftermaths, shifting important focus away frm the important locus?) [ok, not 'oui, vraiment' cs thr's murder's an stuff too BUT YOU WILL CONVENIENTLY FORGET THEM YOU WILL.]

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

i couldnt engage with it

I have similar tastes to jed, but I don't think you're meant to engage with it, that's part of the game. You can't engage because it's so alien to you -- it's guesswork.

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

au contraire :(

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:37 (twenty-one years ago)

sigh... yeah, alright then

will report back this eve

― prima fassy (bob), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Out with it Dave... wha?

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:45 (twenty-one years ago)

er haha i will see this and then michael gira live!

― prima fassy (bob), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:45 (twenty-one years ago)

well i tht it ws a lot engaging (whtever tht means). i don't thk i cd identify with it. well, i cdn't identify w. the situation bt i cd identify with the emotions obv. i guess i don't really kno wht 'engage' means in yr sense and in my sense i felt i had engaged with it lots (ie danced).

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

but she stepped on my TOES!

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Fair point... but I didn't feel I 'engaged' as much as is standard in movies.

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

...which is interesting in itself, of course. I'm not down on it, i just dont think its rigorous enough.

― jed (jed_e_3), Thursday, 6 November 2003 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

i like the way huppert is kinda eventually almost dissolved. the other 'lesser' actors stealing wht is, in essence, her film out from under her. haneke is wily?

― korsgaard (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 12:00 (twenty-one years ago)

No-one is special after the apocalypse. I like the transition from close family to 'extended' community/family, nicely handled.

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 6 November 2003 12:04 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm going to see dogville on sunday which im sure will make an interesting comparison. you going korsgaard?

― jed (jed_e_3), Thursday, 6 November 2003 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

oooh yes i am. or i hope to. reminds me i shd book my tickets tonight fr that, 'northville', something else, and some french film festival film about travellers who live off the scraps of reaped fields.

― korsgaard (Cozen), Thursday, 6 November 2003 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

i still have to book too. my mate says that The five obstructions is better though. Was offered a freebie for nerd tonight but am not going = i am clearly insane. off the sunject i know!

― jed (jed_e_3), Thursday, 6 November 2003 12:35 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

the crack you were on ws laced with insanity

!!! haha!

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

god i feel old.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

why do you say that?

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

well, i'm thinking about the passage of time between late 1993 and early 1996, and... feel sad.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

1993 and 1996? What happened then?

― CLassic or Dadaismus? (Dada), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:12 (nineteen years ago)

my voice dropped.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:14 (nineteen years ago)

britpop was kicking off. 'four weddings' had just come out. it was mental.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:14 (nineteen years ago)

Just your voice? (xpost)

― CLassic or Dadaismus? (Dada), Friday, 6 January 2006 12:14 (nineteen years ago)

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