Anyone ever see these movies?

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I have a list of films here that I have been meaning to see, but they are very hard to find. I was wondering if anyone's ever seen any of them, to let me know if they're worth going out of my way to get. The list is as follows:

Jan Svankmajer's Alice
Murmur of the Heart
If...
Performance
The Taste of Cherry
Cleo From 5 to 7

― Anthony F., Tuesday, 27 May 2003 01:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Alice shouldn't be too hard to find, and is certainly worth seeing. If... too. And why not throw Performance in there while yer at it.

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 03:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Performance and Taste of Cherry are two of my absolute favorites. Performance is wildly decadent death of the 60s brilliance. If your a filmmaker you'll wanna steal from its visuals like crazy.
Taste of Cherry is an exellent introduction to Abbas Kairostami's work. Simple, objective, minimally stylish, a very moving and trancendent piece of work.
Couldn't get into If...Something almost inpenetrably British about it. Do you have to have once attended a fancy pants strict schools from the story to appreciate it?

― theodore fogelsanger, Tuesday, 27 May 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

what does "transcendent" mean tossed off like that? serious question.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Good lord, I've seen all of them except "Cleo...". I always forget how great "If..." is until I see it again and think wow. And I didn't go to a "fancy pants" school. I'm afraid I don't really get the fuss about "Performance" but maybe I should give it another go. "Murmur of the heart" - is that the Louis Malle one about incest? It's sweet. "Alice" is certainly interesting though I got a bit bored with it by the end. "Taste of cherry"'s probably the best Iranian film I've seen.

― Tag (Tag), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd certainly go and see "Alice", "If. . . " and "Performance". "Alice", I've seen once, and want to see again, "If. . ." is just about my favourite film, and I didn't go to no phancy pants publick school, oh no, it was comprehensive => coal mine for me, at least until they closed the coal mine down. "Performance" is seriously great & freaky, but like "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (IMO) it's one of those things that's great the 1st time you see it, but loses a lot thereafter. The end of "Performance", even if you know what's coming, is really freaky & head-twisting. The other films I haven't seen, but I'm now curious abt them, since they're mentioned alongside those three. Is there any connection between them all, since you mention them together?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 27 May 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw a review of Svankmejer's most recent film the other day. I forget the title but it's about a childless couple who "adopt" a tree stump that looks like a baby and it comes to life and starts eating people. It looks pretty disturbing. Anyway, I haven't seen Alice but I really want to: the Carroll book is one of my favorites, and I've never seen it done properly.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 07:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Jan Svankmajer's Alice

I've not seen it, but I've seen his Faust. Which was a lot of fun. So I reckon his Alice would be too.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 13:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Justyn: that's Little Otik.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

-What does "trancendent" mean tossed off like that?-
Whoa, you're right. I confused Taste of Cherry with The Wind Will Carry Us. Having recently read Schrader's book on trancendental cinematic style, I thought the latter of these two films would fit the style since its main character undergoes a kind of spiritual trancendence.
All in all, a sloppy use of an adjective I'm going to blame on extreme sleep deprivation.

― theodore fogelsanger, Wednesday, 28 May 2003 13:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, Alice isn't quite a strict adaptation of Alice in Wonderland but it does use it as a visual and symbolic template. I really liked it but, like most Svankmeyer films, I never have the desire to rewatch it. I'm not sure why this is.

Performance: fun if you've been doing lots of drugs recently and want to watch some other people doing drugs.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't even know what " undergoes a kind of spiritual trancendence" means, but then I haven't read Schrader's book.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

If.... is great and i have a bootleg copy someone dubbed me from a beta tape. it looks terrible though; if you really want it, email me and i will try to make a dub (which would look even worse).

i'd recommend the sequel to If...., a film entitled O Lucky Man! which is in my top 10 of all time.....

― j fail (cenotaph), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

"I don't even know what..."

um...you shouldn't have to have read Schrader's book to concieve a character in a story who has experiences that lead him/her to understand the world on a more significant level, beyond material concerns.

― theodore fogelsanger, Wednesday, 28 May 2003 23:13 (twenty-two years ago)

"Spiritual transcendence"? The guy finds out that life's worth living. "It's a wonderful life" Iranian style.

― Tag (Tag), Thursday, 29 May 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the "spiritual" part that sticks in my craw. Those moments when it occurs to me that life is worth living are decidedly not charged with spiritual revelation. In particular, the coda of Taste of Cherry doesn't seem to lend itself to a spiritual interpretation, in fact the very title of the film seems to mitigate against it.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

"In particular, the coda of Taste of Cherry doesn't seem to lend itself to a spiritual interpretation"
Dude I know. in an earlier post I apologized for confusing Taste of Cherry with The Wind Will Carry Us. However it may be debatable whether the redemption of the main character of The Wind Will Carry Us is tied to any kind of spirituality. in fact Mr. Tag's post made me realize that "spiritual" and "transcendence" are both words perhaps too strong to characterize events in Kairostami's understated films. However, it is wrong I believe to equate these films with Capraesque character revelations. The formalistic approach of Kairostami, with his contemplative pacing and fixation on landscapes implies a connection between man and the natural environment. While the issue of spirituality is arguable, Kairostami's formal language suggests a greater philosophical depth than "It's a Wonderful Life." Plus, I'm not so sure the gentleman in Taste of Cherry decides that life is worth living.

― theodore fogelsanger, Friday, 30 May 2003 19:05 (twenty-two years ago)

**SPOILERS**

**NO REALLY I MEAN IT**

**DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN "TASTE OF CHERRY"**

What does spirituality have to do with the natural environment? Wouldn't that be more of a materialist motif, unless Kiarostami suggests there is some transcendent pattern to it?

Well yes the end of Taste of Cherry is purposely ambiguous in the fashionable arthouse sense--we don't know what happens to the main character. But the title of the film privileges the story recalled by the taxidermist: his attempt at suicide diverted by the revelation of the beauty of the world, rendered in the form of fresh cherries falling from a tree. As for the final coda, I wouldn't pretend to offer a definitive "interpretation" (since much of its impact rests on its being a kind of visual catharsis) but it does seem to reassert that fact of the beauty of the world. I can't really see it as spiritual in any obvious sense.

Every time I see this film I am shocked by that coda.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 30 May 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Jeez. That's the first, and I mean absolutely the first time I've seen someone dismiss Kiarostami as being a tool of the "fashionable arthouse." Please tell me I'm misreading you.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 30 May 2003 23:34 (twenty-two years ago)

At any rate. I'll second theodore's approval of Taste of Cherry and recommend it highly. Of course, my approval of it is probably more transcendental (based merely on personal impressions and not so much my understanding of its themes) than it is empirical.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 30 May 2003 23:42 (twenty-two years ago)

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