extra sense

Why do we seek to understand everything? Fine art, movies, poetry are not necessarily real life. They might be inspired, it's difficult not to be (especially if you believe that everything was already done is some way, shape or form). You don't have to understand everything to enjoy and to experience the art. We all have different ideas of what beauty is, we all perceive things differently and we all react differently to same experience (say you get burned and you scream, when I get burned I bite my lip, someone else might swear and curse- it's natural to have different reactions), so why do we all want to share the same reaction and the same understanding of everything 'arty'? Just like the magic that gets lost when it's explained so does the poem or the film or the painting. Certain things are best kept secret because then each one of us has a different view and it's magical in that sense. It's personal and original. Abstraction brings out a different feeling in us every time we look at it. It keeps it's enigma. It fascinates. And it stays fresh. You wouldn't normally read the same novel twice (especially if it has clear start, middle- with some action, rejection, forgiving and end which can be happy or not so happy), but you would enjoy hearing the same poem again or looking at the same painting. The same applies to movies. Multiple plots (or lack of them all together) brings something new to the viewer each time he sits to watch. But it's an art to get it done right.

Inland Empire (dir. David Lynch)

Slipping between fiction and reality in a land 'where stars make dreams, and dreams make stars'. The last of David Lynch's films 'Inland Empire' this week has come out on DVD. As usual, no directors commentaries, but a little frosting is given by adding few of his interviews including The Guardian interview at NFT. This is his first film on DV camera, as he now swears off using film ('I would die to ever have to go that slow again'). Briefly, the plot of the plot of the film follows actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern, of course) who has landed a movie role in Hollywood. However the film turns out to be cursed remake of a Polish movie. As with his last two films ('Mulholland Drive' and 'Lost Highway') this one doesn't disappoint on many and varied plots, there's even a scene in Polish, and a Rabbit sit-com from Lynch's website. It's also about 160min long. Keep attention and you will see few scenes recurring and the plot playing on itself. Wonderful as ever.

Trailer Magic

Let's talk about the importance of a good trailer. It can either make or break a movie. you show too much and no one needs to see the film- they know what will happen already and no matter how great the cinematography is or how cute the actors- you feel like there's nothing else for you to see there really. And vice versa, show too little and you don't capture the imagination, you don't interest the viewer. It's a very thin line. And it's the most important one. This is your chance to increase the sales. This is your chance to get people talking. And it's such a shame to see a bad trailer.

Sherrybaby (dir. Laurie Collyer)

Director Laurie Collyer, who previously done a documentary 'Nuyorican Dream' about one Puerto Rican family trying to adapt to living in NYC, now wrote and shot a film on a ex drug addict trying to rehabilitate into society after spending three years in prison. Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) returns home to New Jersey where she tries to find a job as a nursery assistant and reestablish a relationship with her daughter. It's a wonderful psychological portrait of a young woman and her struggles.

Truman Capote

I'm not going to try and guess who was better at playing Capote. I don't know enough about the writer to elaborate the subject. Film wise, however, I prefer 'Infamous' it seemed to show more of an internal struggle and I believe it to be better cast (with the exception of Gwyneth Paltrow- who had a pointless role in the movie, and seemed to play the same old self- drama queen. But then, the film has to have an opening at the cinemas, and her name sells.)
Here are few quotes I really liked:
'Punishment is hoping there is someone for you. And after years of hoping you find him and can't have him.'
'America is not the country where the small gesture goes noticed. We're not a country like France, where charm, something light or efflorescent can survive. You own everything you have and you own it as fast as you can turn it out.'
'Writers die a little when the book comes out. What's next? The next thing could be so hard because now you know what it demands.'

If... (dir. Lindsay Anderson)

Continuing on the theme of school kids and aspiring adults.
'If...' recently got re-released on DVD. It's a very imaginative movie from the 1960s. It's based in British Boy School. The whole film is circulating around one very intriguing pupil Mick and his imagination (played by Malcolm McDowell). With the help of his younger friends he goes on to destroy any kind of worm feeling towards these type of schools. It's very rebellious and violent film that goes under the catch phrase, "which side would you be on?". Wonderfully written.

The History Boys (dir. Nicholas Hytner)

'History. It's just one thing after another.'

Originally The History Boys was written for the theater and it was a huge success there. It played in West End and Broadway, where it received numerous awards. I must admit, I never made it to the theater to see it. And I do regret it. A lot. Because I enjoyed the movie.
This comic drama is centered on a group of students trying to get into Oxbridge University. Alan Bennett wrote about history in a remarkably witty way. Had I been taught this way in high school I might have picked some stuff up too. However, not everyone's so lucky. There's a wast pool of knowledge in this film. With wonderful quotations from Shakespeare, Larkin and Hardy. There's even an entire scene in French. The teachers in the film deal with topics like, how to apply the knowledge to life? how to interpret history? how to use the knowledge you have to your best advantage? It's all very relevant and very well put together. It's a charming movie. Wonderfully English, and witty in the best sense of the word.

Stephen Campbell Moore

The one to watch. A primary stage actor who used to perform with The Royal Shakespeare Company. He played Irwin in the original West End stage production of History Boys and in the film version of the play. He made his on-sceen acting debut in Stephen Fry's 'Bright Young Things', where he played Adam, a struggling writer. He is a great character actor and a very wonderful young thing indeed.

Bright Young Things (dir. Stephen Fry)

A directorial debut from actor/writer Stephen Fry. And what a wonderful director he makes. This movie is an absolute pleasure to watch. Well casted, acted (Emily Mortimer, Steven Campbell Moore, Dan Aykroyd, James McAvoy, David Tennant, Peter O'Toole to mention just few) and shot. And a very involving story too. Very witty and very British. Based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh 'Vile Bodies'. It's a story about young, wild, fun, party loving people. They embrace all that is new and try to establish themselves in the world of somewhat classic and standard generation, who get shaken by their avant-garde ways and call them Bright Young Things.



4 (chetyre) dir. Ilya Khrzhanovsky

Probably the most bizarre movie I have ever seen. At least, it's the one film that is still playing on the back of my mind. It's a weird tale from Russian playwright Vladimir Sorokin. According to the movie descriptions it all starts in a Moscow bar where two men and a woman meet. But to me it all starts minutes before, with the title sequence and four dogs perched in the middl e of a street. from there on every sequence in the movie has 4 characters, at least for the first part of the film. The movie seems to be divided into two parts, that are incredibly different from each other. In fact they are so different, that taken apart and shown separately, they would make just as much sense, or maybe more (as i spend quite a while trying to figure out what has happened). i can't think of anything similar to compare the movie to. it certainly is a one off experience. Not bad. Not good. But plain bizarre. And kind of entertaining. Someone said that it's the kind of movie that won't translate well to the audience this side of Volga, well, I come from the north of Europe, and understand Russian language quite well, but even I was struggling to make sense of majority of the scenes. The most funny thing that I remember from the film is the strange tales that two male and a female customers tell each other at the bar (the fourth character is a bartender). The woman is a prostitute, who tells she works in advertising. And follows it up by inventing a strange product to eliminate smells from the house that she's supposedly advertising. Each story everyone tells has something to do with number four, even though in itself the number doesn't seem to have any real significance. However once you get used to hearing this crazy tales, the movie changes it's course completely, as if all of a sudden it's a different film. There're no more tales involving number four, no more scenes with four characters, it's a new tale. The only thing that keeps it kind of together is the same woman traveling out of Moscow and into a countryside. Where she seems to illegally sneak through some fence and run past some stray dogs into a small village (?), populated entirely by old women who chew bread then spit it out and glue breaded-dolls together. Those dolls are supposedly later sold in markets to children. Well, those children must really think that 'Chucky' doll is a Barbie in comparison!

Big Fish

This post is about creativity. And finding the big ideas. It's quite abstract and not related to any one film in particular. But, this is the way I like things to be. Routines can be quite tiring at times.


'Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they are very beautiful.
I look for a certain kind of fish that is important to me, one that can translate to cinema. But there are all kinds of fish swimming down there. There are fish for business, fish for sports. There are fish for everything.
Everything, anything that is a thing, comes up from the deepest level. Modern physics call that level the Unified Field. The more your consciousness- your awareness- is expanded, the deeper you go towards this source, and the bigger the fish you can catch.'
('Catching the Big Fish: meditation, consciousness, and creativity' by David Lynch)

For David Lynch the way to dive deeper in search of 'the big fish' is his Transcendental Meditation practice. For me it's the thirst for knowledge, it's reading, and watching, and talking, and observing. I believe that unless you have a pond full of fish, there's nothing there to be caught. You've got to fill it up full of all kinds of fishes, small and big. And you've got to feed them. Constantly. Only then you can dive in search of the right idea.

This post is for my friend who has gone to pursue new adventures, conquer new hearts and leave fresh footsteps on yet unwalked snow.