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| La belle verte - Movie Club 2018 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 7 2018, 10:20 PM (2,465 Views) | |
| javierquintero | Feb 7 2018, 10:20 PM Post #1 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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La belle verte (1996) Dir: Coline Serreau ![]() This is a film made to reach all audiences. It has also been called a family movie. All actions are over-explained and evident. It does not leave much room to the imagination. However it might be interesting to see it as an exercise of sharing and even seeding progressive slogans, and political and environmental questions within a generic movie form. In any moment of our lives all of us probably have mocked mass media or consumerism or any lack or eco-friendly behaviors. Some situations in the movie can be instantly called “a commonplace criticism”. However the virtue of La belle verte is to have an inventory of plenty of such elucidations even when some of them are more significant than others. I chose it for this movie club because it deals with issues that go beyond countries and require us to take a stance in regards this planet’s future. Some reflections and thoughts on the reception process are needed. The reason why I consider it to be interesting is that through it we can have the opportunity to re-think categories and probably go beyond taste or our own academic film formation. Some movies can be labeled as “good”, “bad”, “necessary”, “unnecessary”. Some others can also be informative and/or “propagandistic” in spite of being fables. In my opinion this movie fits in the latter by trying to convince and persuade us to “do” something with it. In my case, here I am sharing it with you in the first opportunity I found. As someone said, if not for this movie club, maybe you would not stumble across this film. ![]() If we all can agree that every film displays some particular politics of representation and ideology, with this specific movie I believe we can also identify a genre and a tone; there is also a series of (indirect or direct) statements, given-for-granted facts or normalized behaviours that are subverted by questions, witty dialogues, visual comedic gags and weird gestures or situations of estrangement (like the simple act of walking around a city and its institutions as if this were the first time we do it). The movie invites us to compare between a planet called The Beautiful Green that functions as a perfect and self-sustainable eco village (utopia) and Planet Earth (dystopia). But more than planet Earth, it openly questions the economic and political system by which western society is conceived and ruled. Rumor has it that this movie is banned across the European Union because of its clear stance of indignation towards politicians and institutions. Could a movie like this have the potential to become an hymn or spark for non-conformists to demonstrate or to furiously rally in the streets against politicians and bankers who have turned citizens into automata? Could a movie convince you that your country has a perfect democracy and is a paradise for Human Rights with 0% poverty? What would a hungry average unemployed Joe from a country in default and excluded from international financial markets think about this movie? ![]() As a matter of fact this film was recommended to me by a friend who actually lived in a few eco-villages and specially mentioned one called Auroville that is located in India. Maybe some of you already know it. According to him, eco-villages are ruled by similar fundamental precepts as the utopian society portrayed in the movie. As such projects of new societies really exist in our planet, this movie can also be interpreted as a manifest and a declaration of principles as an example on how our civilization should be rethought in infinite ways. ![]() ![]() In my personal experience I took the movie as a fable to question what we already know and take for granted. It does not mean that I would like to become a farmer overnight or to go to live at an eco-village or a commune. No, but I do want to keep wondering about different types of societies and organizational systems if we artists keep researching and creating experiences of form/contents. I would like to pose some open questions just in case someone is interested in sharing some thoughts Do you think this movie is more a call for action and awareness than just a story? Do you find any connections between this movie and others with a similar spirit whose findings could be as interesting or maybe more than this one? As an open community whose members have also discussed movies with a heavy ideological and formal weight (For example some by George Cosmatos), what do you think about the content/form representations of ideologies in “La belle verte”? Edited by javierquintero, Feb 8 2018, 04:37 AM.
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| kanafani | Feb 7 2018, 11:38 PM Post #2 |
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Javier, nice introduction, and I really respect your efforts in making this movie club discussion thing more intellectually stimulating. I'll try to expand on how I felt about this movie later on when others have chimed in, but I have to say that I found its self-satisfied banality positively insufferable. Pollution is not nice, babies are nice, consumerism is not nice, trees are nice, etc etc, for 90 minutes. The whole thing served with the most obnoxious, unquestioning ethnocentrism (white dudes feeling one with nature by dancing with some bushmen, poor Bosnian woman raped by evil Serbs... was there some dumb joke about Muslims or Arabs related to money that I forgot?). Such superficial hippyism... At its core is a depressingly conventional ideology really. And it's not even remotely funny. I'm sorry but that was absolutely awful. And I don't buy this banning story for a second. Why would this be banned? Does anyone really believe this kind of nonsense challenges the status quo? |
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| javierquintero | Feb 8 2018, 02:30 AM Post #3 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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Kanafani thanks for your comment. When I chose the movie I knew it was going to get mostly negative responses. Clearly I won't defend the movie in terms of shots, compositions, montage, etc, because there is absolutely nothing remarkable there. I am aware that the portrayed situations are totally literal and apparently explicit. But I did not want to choose a film like... for example, Kurosawa's Dreams, that deals with similar environmental issues from a very high poetical and surreal approach. That one is of course more challenging, but what encouraged me to choose La belle verte was the experiment in itself of getting to know other people's thoughts and the phenomenon of "reception" precisely about this obviousness and redundancy... but from whose point of view? well from ours, cinephiles or relatively educated people who are looking for more and more demanding art works. We believe in our criteria to choose or to judge films from everywhere and if someone asks for further explanation, we can even write it down, break down every important aspect and defend a thesis on why we believe every item is irreplaceable. Today I am defending obviousness and what you mention is a good example. When you said: "Pollution is not nice, babies are nice, consumerism is not nice, trees are nice, etc etc," somehow taking them for banal direct or indirect statements within the movie, I can think of three contexts for consideration: 1) What pollution, babies, consumerism, trees, etc, mean in the green planet. 2) What they mean in "Earth" (well, Paris in the movie). 3) What they mean in my (the viewer's own) village or city. By being located in this "Paris" could label the approach as ethnocentric as you mention but I don't quite agree, since if Mila goes for example to a place in the third world or to a Zen Buddhist territory in Asia or if she cites some historical non-western figures or from different races the movie itself wouldn't work. I think it works well because she goes to a western urban core. In my opinion she should have gone into a much more neoliberal and predatory city by then. By mentioning that, my point or theory is that the reception of this movie varies depending on how normalized the items you described are, of course, also depending on where the viewer is located. I for one, live in a so-called "shithole" and the air around is totally polluted because some people's decisions have tended to privilege transnational companies' businesses; babies die because some politicians diverted the course of the only river that brings water to a whole community in order to extract coal; consumerism is not even possible because salaries are very very low; and trees are cut on a daily basis within the city or around it to build apartment buildings. Unfortunately, La belle verte does not explore the different dimensions of power and it seems it only takes a glimpse on common people and some of their routines. For ultra capitalist/neoliberalist politicians, gurus and their representatives from mass media, banks and corporations, pollution, babies, consumerism and trees, are/are not nice, only depending on the contexts of getting votes and making profit at any cost, by any means. So as I said, I sort of defend obviousness in this fable... and I should add similarly as I wrote in the main text, as long as we can question, or feel invited to question, what we already know and take for granted. Just like you, I don't think it is banned. Maybe it's just a rumor. And about the potential for a work of art to make people demonstrate or boycott brands or rally in the streets, I guess none of us can foresee the potential or effect that a work can have at least in a different culture. There is that well known example of Sixto Rodríguez and the presumed effect of his music during South African Apartheid. Two nights ago, Neil Blomkamp twited "What's going on with Chappie in Brazil?", because that movie was broadcasted on TV supposedly for the first time and it seemed it was a huge success and many Brazilians asked him to do a sequel because they felt identified or somehow touched. I know those are silly examples, but no one knows what can be suddenly triggered or where in the world. Edited by javierquintero, Feb 8 2018, 02:45 AM.
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| mesnalty | Feb 8 2018, 02:57 AM Post #4 |
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g legs' flame
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The premise reminds me very much of a segment from Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell. It's a meeting of the Greek gods to decide what to do about the Earth, which has gone horribly wrong; they decide to send some representatives down to try to fix things up (the "descent into Hell" of the title). The novel was part of a phase of her writing that was deeply inspired by Sufi mysticism, and really emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things and whatnot. A lot of people thought that she went off the deep end and were disappointed that she wasn't writing more stuff like The Golden Notebook (which, admittedly, is a monumental work). Anyway, I think it's a great novel, but the difference between it and La belle verte is that that segment of the novel isn't overdetermined by the premise. Whereas for the most part La belle verte goes where you'd expect it to go given the first few minutes. So it's not the obviousness of the message itself that bothers me, but just the obviousness of the execution. If you ask me, humanity's failure on environmental issues is so colossally disastrous that there's practically no such thing as an environmental message that's too obvious. The flip side is that I most appreciated the film in the moments where it gave way to a sort of surrealism, like the scene with the orchestra or the scene with the soccer game. These do connect to the message, I guess, but in a more interesting way, and they can also be enjoyed just as set pieces on their own merits. Actually, I have to go back a bit on something I said earlier. There is something that bothers me about the film's message itself, which is the implication that humanity is somehow uniquely fallen, and that utopianism could flourish in hypothetical alien societies. I'm highly suspicious of that idea, partly because it implies we're sort of a hopeless case - and indeed, the presumable continuation of the film's plot would be that the few people who were deprogrammed by Mila would just be considered off their rockers by the rest of society, just as Mila was, and nothing would change about society as a whole. I get that it's a rhetorical strategy, but you could imagine a film using the same trope in a less all-or-nothing way. (Lessing manages to do that, for example.) Anyway, though I didn't like the film (I don't much like Kurosawa's Dreams either, fwiw), it's very fertile ground for discussion, so I think it's a great movie club pick. |
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| javierquintero | Feb 8 2018, 03:33 AM Post #5 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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Thanks mesnalty. If I understand correctly what you point out is the lack of a big twist or obstacle that stops or modifies Mila's mission, which you consider is overdetermined by the stated information at the very beginning of the movie. In the current way there are no surprises at all. That's interesting. Yes, indeed there is no room for a significant peripeteia (some unexpected reversal or radical twist) or on the contrary, for a digression (apparent non-action or turning aside). I haven't read Lessing's works but according to that presence of Greek Gods that you mention, wouldn't destiny play an important part in that determination of characters and behaviours? On the contrary, as long as I remember, in La belle verte there is an absence of future, foreseeing, prophecies and/or anticipation, and instead the aliens seem to be living in fully awareness in the present. Wouldn't that be more of a 'everyday-we-make-our-own-destiny' statement?
Edited by javierquintero, Feb 8 2018, 04:28 AM.
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| mesnalty | Feb 8 2018, 04:33 AM Post #6 |
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g legs' flame
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In the Lessing novel, there is a sense in which destiny plays a part - there's an implication that the reason things on Earth are so messed up is due to the influence of other planets, in a sort of astrological way. It's not entirely a fair comparison, though, since the whole Greek gods thing is actually only a small (though thematically important) section of the book, which takes place mostly in the imagination of a mentally ill character and goes all over the place. And yeah, there does seem to be something of a make-your-own-destiny statement in La belle verte - though basically it's implied that Mila's planet did so via some sort of thoroughgoing revolution, and that anything less than getting rid of all unnecessary technology isn't going to cut it. Again, that's just a rhetorical strategy - I'm sure Serreau would be happy if the film just made people more conscious of the natural world around them and less beholden to technology, without a complete regress to the state of nature - but still it's very black-and-white. |
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| javierquintero | Feb 8 2018, 05:01 AM Post #7 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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When you say "..without a complete regress to the state of nature", I think of the last episode in Kurosawa's Dreams in which a man visits an eco-sustainable village. It is slightly not as "radical" as Mila's planet, but just as you said, I think it's black-and-white too in the way that discards technologies (or maybe they don't exist at all anymore) that could also support work and production. In that way we could refer to them as societies that also conceive the ideas of future, progress and evolution as totally different from what we can think. In that way, would the over-determination that you previously mention rather become a totally relevant and necessary element to keep the stability and harmony of such societies?
Edited by javierquintero, Feb 8 2018, 05:02 AM.
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 8 2018, 07:34 AM Post #8 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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That word "progress" has become problematic, in the way it conflates two unrelated concepts; technological progress and progress toward a utopian (or improved) society are not the same thing. And now that technological progress in its current form has come to seem entirely unsustainable, it's definitely time to rethink the connection between the two concepts. |
| "The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South." | |
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| kanafani | Feb 8 2018, 12:56 PM Post #9 |
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I wasn't suggesting she should include or cite non-western realities or ways of life. What I was trying to say is that the few tidbits where she acknowledges the world at large show how depressingly clichéd and limited her ideas are, and how non-curious her worldview is. |
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| javierquintero | Feb 8 2018, 04:38 PM Post #10 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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Yes, somehow I agree because in that case the character (I don't know about the filmmaker though) is limited by what she knows. I don't know if there is some kind of measure or possible ratio or odds of knowledge and curiosity in scriptwriting or storytelling about what a recently arrived foreigner from a long distance should wonder or be curious about. It's an interesting question since some of them have a determined or over-determined mission (as mesnalty proposes) or the simple desire of coming back home. In regards to a first arrival in a totally different planet or realm or dimension, I think about such diverse characters like Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or Zed from Zardoz or the Scarlett Johanson character in Under the Skin and the way they start to behave and assume each specific new reality, I must tell you, that's a good point. It's puzzling. So interesting.
Edited by javierquintero, Feb 8 2018, 04:41 PM.
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| josiahmorgan11 | Feb 9 2018, 03:15 AM Post #11 |
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g legs' sweetheart
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"in La belle verte there is an absence of future, foreseeing, prophecies and/or anticipation, and instead the aliens seem to be living in fully awareness in the present." modernist ? |
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| javierquintero | Feb 9 2018, 03:40 AM Post #12 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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And still the same phrase could be used for describing those aliens in Verhoeven's Starship Troopers What do we really expect from aliens in any movie about aliens? |
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 9 2018, 05:26 PM Post #13 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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It's actually quite common for filmmakers to load social/political commentary into genre films designed for a mass audience; if this were horror or he-man adventure, it wouldn't even occur to us to question her choices. |
| "The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South." | |
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| kanafani | Feb 9 2018, 05:45 PM Post #14 |
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I think the difference maker here is the breathtaking pretentiousness, and the extreme moralizing and grandstanding paired with utter vapid new-age superficiality. Nothing uncommon about "a message" in a middlebrow movie, but when it is done so badly, the results are disastrous. I found a little blurb Coline Serreau wrote to go with a DVD boxset. My rough translation below. I am speechless.
Edited by kanafani, Feb 9 2018, 05:54 PM.
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| Holymanm | Feb 9 2018, 06:15 PM Post #15 |
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moats n groats
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Oh man... |
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 9 2018, 08:33 PM Post #16 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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I was specifically addressing Javier's comments about "the film not having been made for us" and Colline's supposed strategy of pitching it at the level of a lumpen audience in order to give her precious ideas broader exposure. Not such an oddity, if you step back from the particulars of this movie. As a matter of fact, I'm planning to post a low-budget Venezuelan martial arts movie from the 80s that critiques Reaganeo-colonialism when my turn comes. After that breathtaking manifesto you translated for us, I don't think there's any line of argument available that can defend La B V or Ms. Colline. Thanks for that. PS: Oh, I did like the quote from Renoir, using basically the same spaceship as Notes Sur Un Air De Charleston. Edited by Lencho of the Apes, Feb 9 2018, 08:35 PM.
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| "The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South." | |
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| josiahmorgan11 | Feb 9 2018, 09:07 PM Post #17 |
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g legs' sweetheart
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When I think of the great Modernist writers, they all define themselves and their place within the language of genre but without the happenings of genre. They were giants because they didn't question the small beginnings. Serreau wants this legacy without the basic foundational groundwork that means an encompassing and holistic understanding of the craft. O k. |
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| javierquintero | Feb 10 2018, 04:21 AM Post #18 |
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock. - Walter Benjamin
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@kanafani Although interviews or written statements by Coline Serrau can be brought to the discussion anytime (no matter the year they were made), when I said "the character (I don't know about the filmmaker though) is limited by what she knows" what I meant was simply that no one should ever assume that the character and the author are the same person above all when you stated something like: "..the few tidbits where she acknowledges the world at large show how depressingly clichéd and limited her ideas are, and how non-curious her worldview is". In the text you are quoting she says she received an unexpected response outside of France from sites and groups that showed a totally different reception from the film, giving it a status of cult movie (Just what I had stated with other examples). Thanks for bringing the text here. However I would like to call the attention on the risks of giving the object of study (the film itself) and author-related material (interviews, statements, biography) the same status. A filmmaker can always underestimate o overestimate his/her own work; or give a totalitarian and selfish explanation/meaning to images when the viewers thought they were before an open work or viceversa. Do those statements actually modify the movie? In case you guys find out if Coline Serreau is a real hippy or what she eats or if she harassed teenagers while making the movie, believe me, for non-hypocrites the movie will still be the movie. By the same token I don't care if Made Aren is a neoliberal or a communist or if she had problems with her real father or if she thought she was making the best or the worst movie. @ Lencho "I was specifically addressing Javier's comments about "the film not having been made for us" and Colline's supposed strategy of pitching it at the level of a lumpen audience in order to give her precious ideas broader exposure." What you are saying is false. When did I say these two things? I demand some respect @Josiah This is a fragment of the text translated by Kanafani: "..After a theoretical study that occupied me for a long time, after having filled entire notebooks with thoughts, scenes, reflections, and aborted attempts... After asking myself so many questions that I no longer expected any answers.." According to this text, I would think that she did have some basic foundational groundwork, at least in her own way. What do you exactly mean by "..Serreau wants this legacy without the basic foundational groundwork that means an encompassing and holistic understanding of the craft."?? What are those small beginnings that a modernist should not question? |
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 10 2018, 05:11 AM Post #19 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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I'll grant that I should have inserted a "(paraphrase)" in there to make it clear that I wasn't quoting you directly. I didn't think it was necessary, I thought the fact that I was offering a summary of your comments was self-evident. If that was your only objection to my post, I'll concede the point to you. I made a rhetorical mistake there. (I understand "comments about" as being distinct from "comments that"...) If, however, you're taking exception to the way I understand your comments on the movie, I'll highlight these excerpts from your intro paragraphs:
Will you, then, be explaining how I misrepresented your ideas? You seem to be getting emotionally attached to your arguments; I'm sensing hostility, defensiveness, etc, in the way you're replying to K and myself. Maybe a quick half-hour to meditate is in order. Edited by Lencho of the Apes, Feb 10 2018, 05:25 AM.
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| "The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South." | |
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| kanafani | Feb 10 2018, 01:05 PM Post #20 |
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The passage I highlighted is written by the writer-director, and deals with the movie we are discussing here. It does not replace the text of the movie, but it sure enforces the impressions I got from it. What’s “hypocritical” about that? It’s not like I found a piece where she endorses the war on Iraq or something. While watching the movie, I felt it was made by a smug, shallow person way out of her depth, and what she wrote about it only confirmed it. There is no daylight here between the author and the character in my opinion. They seem on the same intellectual level to me. |
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 10 2018, 03:45 PM Post #21 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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To judge by the reviews at imdb, this movie does reach a lot of people, giving them something they haven't seen elsewhere that they find beneficial. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115650/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt My question about the movie and its audience, then, becomes "... and is it guiding them toward concrete action of any kind?" I don't know of any way to document the answer to that question... but it's only my hyper-educated skepticism that tells me that it isn't giving them anything more than five minutes of liberal-piety gemuchtlikeit. I suppose we'll never know. |
| "The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South." | |
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| Mario Gaborovic | Feb 10 2018, 03:45 PM Post #22 |
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g legs' wife's lover
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I just didn't find it funny and that's all. Also the fact that environmentalism isn't what concerns me surely didn't help either. But if you talk about "obviousness", I might say that we do take many things for granted albeit in the case of Sierraleoneans (or the likes) the only reasonable act is (as painless as possible) suicide, for such life makes no sense at all. (I'm referring to 'taking stuff for granted') |
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| josiahmorgan11 | Feb 11 2018, 02:32 AM Post #23 |
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g legs' sweetheart
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javier, i have to say, i just reread my comment and it reads as absolute gibberish to me. it made sense at the time. what i can gather and still feel is that the film impedes itself by producing too many twigs from one branch, too many branches from one tree, and doesn't get the time to focus on any of these in any interesting matter - which doesn't help when the tree is far less interesting than the branches and we're left only to look at the trunk. |
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| meg | Feb 11 2018, 03:34 AM Post #24 |
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This thread is full of appraisal, assessment and judgement. This is not what this project is supposed to be about. I went to some pains to clarify this at the outset as I foresaw exactly what would happen, it has already and it is only February. People seem to struggle to get their head around the difference between being a curious observer and a subjective judger. This is a departure yes, from how we normally view films. But this is not supposed to be about what I like, what I don’t like. It’s supposed to be a collaborative coming together with a sense of wonder at life and possibilities, to share what someone thought was worth committing to screen, and what a club member thought was worth sharing with the group. Trying to take a step back and not letting the noise of our world-view-clash with an artist get in the way of observations and shared thoughts is a challenge, but this is an ideal opportunity to think about how to move out of that punitive headspace. Lencho the way you spoke to Javier here is totally unacceptable. You are supposed to be the leader here and you have mirrored behaviour you are objecting to (emotional defensive) then upped the ante by personalising it. Maybe it is you who needs to do a meditation. This was supposed to be a casual casual easy thing, FUN, remember? Well Javier’s not having any fun at all right now I can guarantee you that. Edit: And if you want films presented that will stand up to robust critique and garner serious respect, if that is what this thing is about, then convey that expectation to curators. Can’t have it both ways. Edited by meg, Feb 11 2018, 04:22 AM.
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 11 2018, 05:29 AM Post #25 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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Meg -- You've formed an idea of what this game is supposed to be/do that I can't endorse. I don't know where your idea came from, or exactly what it is, but there's nothing in the game-plan that suggests that the discussion inspired by any given movie is automatically going to be positive and uncritical. This came up in comments you posted earlier, and I took the line of least resistance by not addressing it, mostly because I was just baffled by the things you were saying. Let's posit that the tone of the discussions this game has engendered is the same as the tone of discussions that have taken place during any of the preceding cups. Do you agree that it is the same? Some people like/dislike some movies and express their positive or negative reactions. That's what was intended, and that's what I see as happening; your (never quite articulated) ideas of some amorphous positive-strokes blobosphere of unconditional love and support for every possible movie was never any part of my intention, and I don't think it's any part of what anyone else (but yourself) wanted for the game, though I imagine you formed your expectations based on something(s) WBA said about his own critical position. I reject the idea that I'm a discussion leader; my role is only to facilitate scheduling and keep movies rolling out in a timely fashion.(EDIT: see postscript). If you want to criticize my "aggressive" rhetorical strategies and feel it unnecessary to address Javier's previously demanding "respect" where none was lacking and labeling unspecified people as "hypocrites," then your selective outrage is a behavior I choose not to engage with. I'm sorry Javier isn't having fun, but I am not the one who painted him into that corner. PS: A large part of my agenda in structuring this activity was to do away with the need for leadership of any kind, specifically referring to the design of the cups that required a behind-the-scenes person to keep score and articulate an evolving schedule. If you go back and reread I'm confident you'll see that. Edited by Lencho of the Apes, Feb 11 2018, 05:41 AM.
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| meg | Feb 11 2018, 06:29 AM Post #26 |
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It was very straight forward so am not sure why you were baffled. The discussion was around, what are we doing here with this Club. People said this and that, and the idea was floated by wba that quality should not a requirement, and that if he was playing he would even show things he had not seen. My eyebrows went up at that, because of the clear implication that there was no responsibility to present good films as in a cup, which are trying to catch votes, with that approach. I simply asked if everyone was ok with that. It appeared everyone was so I said, then I hope people will not get into a “this is a really crap film” response - putting choice makers through the ringer – with what comes along and lose interest. because people here do not like watching whatever stuff. The feeling in the air was therefore that this was going to be a softer place to land for choices, (for people's hidden gems, guilty pleasures etc) than in a competition where people are presenting films for critical deliberation. Is that what we are doing here, presenting films for critical deliberation? Or just having fun, because there is a difference and I think whatever the collective understanding is, flavours and informs engagement. And no I don't think it's the same deal as discussion in a DC. Personally I think it’s quite a limiting approach doing the dissing thing as a means of response, didn’t like it, wasn’t funny, it was clichéd, it was pretentious etc. but not to suggest either that everything must fly off a whoopee cushion of positivity. Every film though no matter how "bad" it is deemed to be, has opportunities to bring thought quite outside of and apart from critical assessment. I thought that would be the purpose, first and foremost, of this project going from repeated comments around sharing, casual, easy going etc Perhaps I got that WRONG “Aggressive" Why is this in inverted commas, quoting things people did not say can get you into trouble. Javier misunderstood (or something...somehow some wires got crossed) but he did not deserve to be dismissed and patronised, he had been patient with the faults found and tried to validate POVs shared, and express himself. I take back what I said about leadership, and understand you do not want to be cast in that role and it isn't relevant anyway. And mercifully that is last I will say on this subject.
Edited by meg, Feb 11 2018, 07:27 AM.
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 11 2018, 07:58 AM Post #27 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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I just went back and reread a bunch of the earlier threads where we were hashing out the shape of things. I think WBA's message #18 in the "preliminary discussion" thread is the one Meg is referencing. "If the quality is terrible, so what?" But I understood that as referring to print quality, HD 4K restoration versus crap-looking VHS rips. We had already discussed how people prefer one to the other, and WBA was reminding us that that consideration shouldn't be an absolute, just the same way as no other consideration should be. In context, I think WBA's "I might even schedule movies I haven't watched" has to be understood as "I might even schedule movies I haven't watched and if people hate them and rake them over the coals it doesn't matter because ZEN." |
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| Tendulkar | Feb 11 2018, 01:26 PM Post #28 |
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g legs' no. 1 fan
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haha you guys are going hard at this film. I have to watch this now |
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| Lencho of the Apes | Feb 11 2018, 01:43 PM Post #29 |
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Let's go do some crimes
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Rereading your post one more time in search of greater clarity, and this phrase jumped out at me.
I'm pretty sure nobody ever said that, and that you forming that idea came frrom your own misreadings of what was onscreen. I understand that you derived that idea from WBA's comments, but I don't understand how you were able to parse his comments out in just that way. I wouldn't even bother participating in a game where curators were sharing movies irrespective of quality; "watch this indifferent or bad movie on my say-so" holds zero appeal for me. Edited by Lencho of the Apes, Feb 11 2018, 01:56 PM.
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| Holymanm | Feb 11 2018, 01:44 PM Post #30 |
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moats n groats
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i liked this movie much less than other people here did... and while i don't mind at all if people criticise or hate my picks (except insofar as i want to pick movies they'll like and i'll feel bad if the movies are hated), i don't really want to respond to picks here with long diatribes about how much i hated them and how much they offended me. so i'll leave that review for letterboxd! anyway, to sum up my review, marion cotillard = beautiful, movie = nooo Edited by Holymanm, Feb 11 2018, 02:26 PM.
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Javier misunderstood (or something...somehow some wires got crossed) but he did not deserve to be dismissed and patronised, he had been patient with the faults found and tried to validate POVs shared, and express himself.

12:42 AM Jul 11