National Gallery; Frederick Wiseman, 2014
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Magic in the Moonlight. Woody Allen, 2014
Silliness under the Moon:
It is a matter of fact that the latest works of Woody Allen offer two possibilities: the tragic on the one hand and the trivial on the other.
I don't blame him, he's got his style: he's been industriously working every year for more that thirty which is actually an amazing way of earning a life!
Roughly speaking, since the audience is free from choosing, let me say that I pick up the tragic, pessimistic and philosophic versions of his thoughts better than those stupid divertimentos that we all have been used to in the last decades.
Magic in the Moonlight is about beauty, about love, about illusion and delusion, about superficiality and fraud. Is the story of a storyteller who tries to unmask another. It revolves on the necessity of being loved but sadly, on nothing else.
The moment we find the elegant Colin Firth and the sweet Emma Stone located at the most beautiful landscapes from the South of France on 1928, we realise that there's nothing else needed. That time when somebody is focused on the yellow silk of the skirt of an actress and just delighted by the colourful flowers on her hat, nothing else matters. Woody Allen could make an elephant disappear and the effect on the audience should not be different. Just let it be, Woody - should we say- we're ready to believe in you and we enjoy it.
I dare say that for those who still believe in "los Reyes Magos" or Santa Claus, this is going to be a nice Christmas film: dolce far niente and beautiful dresses for everybody!. The idea that all you need is love, particularly if it comes from the person who has first rejected you (by means of a traditional Mr. Darcy style) coupled with the vision of amazing cliffs and streams, the wind blowing in the face and a suitable hinged dome whenever may be needed.
All the rest is magic.
Nevertheless: I keep on claiming for some murders and remorses.
Begin Again. John Carney, 2014
Popland:
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's film? No, please: don't let me considering you as an entertainment piece for boring people, you are more lovely and more temperate... and forgetting all about Shakespeare's sonnets, I can tell you this film is a serious thing. It worth. Whenever I think about music and what do we need it in our lives, I conclude it is just something we add, like salt and pepper in the food or sugar in the coffee. Nothing important. After watching Begin Again (John Carney, 2013) I felt almost the opposite, but not because I discovered anything new about composers, singers and writers, but because I realised we create music to keep on living and it makes us the way easier. As we read to collect our thoughts and better understand each other, we listen to music not to feel alone. A song is the best mate to a lonely walk by the city.
Luckily for those who create songs, the music can also communicate a feeling. Like a writer with a book, a composer tells the world how he or she feels by means other that speaking. Luckily... because everyone wins.
The main characters of Begin Again not only communicate themselves with music (they actually are composer and producer) but also theorize, discuss and explain their own ideas about it: why do we use headphones? Why do we need to listen to our favourite song sometimes? Why does it feel so good when we see the "common things" while we listen to a special song? We need to add a "soundtrack" to our daily routine. It feels better, specially when it is a pop music soundtrack. If there is something that catches our attention in this film about music and musicians, is that it only deals with pop music, commercial-easy-positive-sensible music for the people. Popular music. I guess we all agree: there is so much music out there that trying to summarize it on a single genre is ridiculous.
But let us pretending the world goes according to a pop sense and everything will fit. This film also. At least for a while.
Popland:
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's film? No, please: don't let me considering you as an entertainment piece for boring people, you are more lovely and more temperate... and forgetting all about Shakespeare's sonnets, I can tell you this film is a serious thing. It worth. Whenever I think about music and what do we need it in our lives, I conclude it is just something we add, like salt and pepper in the food or sugar in the coffee. Nothing important. After watching Begin Again (John Carney, 2013) I felt almost the opposite, but not because I discovered anything new about composers, singers and writers, but because I realised we create music to keep on living and it makes us the way easier. As we read to collect our thoughts and better understand each other, we listen to music not to feel alone. A song is the best mate to a lonely walk by the city.
Luckily for those who create songs, the music can also communicate a feeling. Like a writer with a book, a composer tells the world how he or she feels by means other that speaking. Luckily... because everyone wins.
The main characters of Begin Again not only communicate themselves with music (they actually are composer and producer) but also theorize, discuss and explain their own ideas about it: why do we use headphones? Why do we need to listen to our favourite song sometimes? Why does it feel so good when we see the "common things" while we listen to a special song? We need to add a "soundtrack" to our daily routine. It feels better, specially when it is a pop music soundtrack. If there is something that catches our attention in this film about music and musicians, is that it only deals with pop music, commercial-easy-positive-sensible music for the people. Popular music. I guess we all agree: there is so much music out there that trying to summarize it on a single genre is ridiculous.
But let us pretending the world goes according to a pop sense and everything will fit. This film also. At least for a while.
SHAME. Steve McQueen, 2011
What to expect when you're expecting:
Someone is trying to tell you a story: you are just sitting on your sofa and while the dvd is turned on, a series of astonishing images allow you to understand that somebody somewhere wants you to know his history. The problem is you don't know what is it exactly, because you cannot see everything. You just see what is usually hidden for you. Ironic. Weird, doesn't it?.
Well: That is what happened to me the moment I watched SHAME. I felt as if I had let that person down, someway, somehow.
An attractive man in his thirties is addicted to sex. I get it. He is well positioned, he has a good job and a luxurious flat of his own in New York, upper side, better side.
He has a sister. I get it. He is constantly receiving calls from her and she is constantly leaving messages that he is not answering.
Avoiding the family, seeking a family, fucking all the time, being obsessed, feeling shame.
But the crisis comes when this character, the attractive/addicted man is forced to face her sister as a problem, not because of him but because of some previous reasons the spectator does not really know and therefore, does not really understand. There is always a past meine liebe, and we all know you cannot get rid of it.
Too many gaps for me, I guess. I like when a story helps you to think further, to go onwards with its characters and to fill in the blanks of your own troubles, but here it is not possible, at least not for me.
SHAME is a film that keeps you waiting and waiting for a solution that is never given, that is not fair: we suffer with the characters and this is why we should be helped with clues. We should know something more, just a little bit, just for saving up those terrible feelings by which you inevitably will.
You will want to look at the other side of the room, the moment the protagonist developes his routine. You will not want to see him naked, full frontal at your face the whole film. Belive me: you will not.
You will see lovely Carey Mulligan begging for attention, not only in the plot, I mean in the movie. She will be stealing glances, even singing as a fake plastic Marilyn, so sad you will never forget.
I am still waiting: I deserve some explanation. I think I've got it.
What to expect when you're expecting:
Someone is trying to tell you a story: you are just sitting on your sofa and while the dvd is turned on, a series of astonishing images allow you to understand that somebody somewhere wants you to know his history. The problem is you don't know what is it exactly, because you cannot see everything. You just see what is usually hidden for you. Ironic. Weird, doesn't it?.
Well: That is what happened to me the moment I watched SHAME. I felt as if I had let that person down, someway, somehow.
An attractive man in his thirties is addicted to sex. I get it. He is well positioned, he has a good job and a luxurious flat of his own in New York, upper side, better side.
He has a sister. I get it. He is constantly receiving calls from her and she is constantly leaving messages that he is not answering.
Avoiding the family, seeking a family, fucking all the time, being obsessed, feeling shame.
But the crisis comes when this character, the attractive/addicted man is forced to face her sister as a problem, not because of him but because of some previous reasons the spectator does not really know and therefore, does not really understand. There is always a past meine liebe, and we all know you cannot get rid of it.
Too many gaps for me, I guess. I like when a story helps you to think further, to go onwards with its characters and to fill in the blanks of your own troubles, but here it is not possible, at least not for me.
SHAME is a film that keeps you waiting and waiting for a solution that is never given, that is not fair: we suffer with the characters and this is why we should be helped with clues. We should know something more, just a little bit, just for saving up those terrible feelings by which you inevitably will.
You will want to look at the other side of the room, the moment the protagonist developes his routine. You will not want to see him naked, full frontal at your face the whole film. Belive me: you will not.
You will see lovely Carey Mulligan begging for attention, not only in the plot, I mean in the movie. She will be stealing glances, even singing as a fake plastic Marilyn, so sad you will never forget.
I am still waiting: I deserve some explanation. I think I've got it.
The Conversation. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974
Hidden charms:
Throughout the last decades, it has been said a lot about this movie and its timely coincidences with the "Watergate" case. There is so little to add to this subject, that the next lines will not mention a word of political matter. It is over and it is not my field.
On the other hand, let us have a look on this story depicted by the synthetic sounds heard by Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) during his professional wiretapping activities, as a private listener.
The movie opens with an amazing landscape from the Union Square in San Francisco, which is progressively moving from the air to ground level. The eye sets a target when the ear identifies the correct sound of a conversation emerging between a young lady and his partner. This is what the protagonist is working on: the recording of a private speech, a case of marital infidelity. He has been hired for doing that and is good at it.
Ironically, it seems to be nothing more upsetting for Harry Caul than the simple fact of having a meddler landlady. He arrives at home and notices that somebody has been there before, just to leave him a happy birthday card at the table. He does not have the only copy of the keys and feels kind of being under control of somebody.
During the major part of the film, we have Harry Caul dwelling upon what he does not want to be known for, as the saying goes everybody is the owner of what he silents and a slave of what he tells, he seems to follow it to the letter. Harry's private life is kept away even from his lover. The moment he goes to see her in the middle of the night, we notice that she wants to know more about that man she eventually sleeps with. She wants to know his secrets but he hasn't: he lives for the others' secrets and keeps no one for himself. He is as empty as his apartment.
In the same way the recent The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, 2006) did, the story deals with the problem of not having feelings to share with those who are in the surroundings. The protagonists of both films only think by others' minds, of those they hear, spy and work for. By denying any sort of emotional implication on what they do, they loose their identity and end up mentally annihilated.
Thus, it may be noticed that there is a deeper sense of introspection in the plot than what it could be supposed at first sight. Not only politics but also psyche and emotion.
By using the central character's mental block, the viewer understands he feels guilty and responsible for what is probably going to happen. Because of his strong Catholic beliefs, instead of run away, he worries and tries to help.
In dreams, Harry has the chance to talk to the adulteress lady and to prevent her for the danger, but he only speaks about his childhood; for the first time, his familiar privacy gets exposed, although it happens in dreams.
The stunning scene in the outcome reveals the true nature of this peculiar listener character: the aim for a childish state which is irreversibly miscarried.
Hidden charms:
Throughout the last decades, it has been said a lot about this movie and its timely coincidences with the "Watergate" case. There is so little to add to this subject, that the next lines will not mention a word of political matter. It is over and it is not my field.
On the other hand, let us have a look on this story depicted by the synthetic sounds heard by Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) during his professional wiretapping activities, as a private listener.
The movie opens with an amazing landscape from the Union Square in San Francisco, which is progressively moving from the air to ground level. The eye sets a target when the ear identifies the correct sound of a conversation emerging between a young lady and his partner. This is what the protagonist is working on: the recording of a private speech, a case of marital infidelity. He has been hired for doing that and is good at it.
Ironically, it seems to be nothing more upsetting for Harry Caul than the simple fact of having a meddler landlady. He arrives at home and notices that somebody has been there before, just to leave him a happy birthday card at the table. He does not have the only copy of the keys and feels kind of being under control of somebody.
During the major part of the film, we have Harry Caul dwelling upon what he does not want to be known for, as the saying goes everybody is the owner of what he silents and a slave of what he tells, he seems to follow it to the letter. Harry's private life is kept away even from his lover. The moment he goes to see her in the middle of the night, we notice that she wants to know more about that man she eventually sleeps with. She wants to know his secrets but he hasn't: he lives for the others' secrets and keeps no one for himself. He is as empty as his apartment.
In the same way the recent The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, 2006) did, the story deals with the problem of not having feelings to share with those who are in the surroundings. The protagonists of both films only think by others' minds, of those they hear, spy and work for. By denying any sort of emotional implication on what they do, they loose their identity and end up mentally annihilated.
Thus, it may be noticed that there is a deeper sense of introspection in the plot than what it could be supposed at first sight. Not only politics but also psyche and emotion.
By using the central character's mental block, the viewer understands he feels guilty and responsible for what is probably going to happen. Because of his strong Catholic beliefs, instead of run away, he worries and tries to help.
In dreams, Harry has the chance to talk to the adulteress lady and to prevent her for the danger, but he only speaks about his childhood; for the first time, his familiar privacy gets exposed, although it happens in dreams.
The stunning scene in the outcome reveals the true nature of this peculiar listener character: the aim for a childish state which is irreversibly miscarried.