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Reviews
Sånger från andra våningen (2000)
It amazes me...
It amazes me that the connection between "Songs...." and TS Elliot's the wasteland has been so overlooked here; they share, a nonlinear structure, similar images and ultimately the same obsession with the spiritual/emotional aridity of the modern world. Like Elliot's poem, this "heap of broken images" only comes into focus once you've actually watched the whole thing. Not here will you find Magnolia's too obvious slogans "you might be through with the past but the past isn't through with you", to guide you neatly through the proceedings.
I know almost nothing of Sweedish history, and it mattered not a jot that the institutions being lampooned are now no more. What we have here is a study of lonliness and regret, an attack on capatalism and "lifestyle" products. Deeply moral, deeply moving.
Kids (1995)
Well, its not genius, but....
Kids is a good interesting film, what it is not is perfect. I'm not convinced that's its a great work of art either.
To debate whether the characters are shallow is to miss the point, we are with them for a day and they are not characters so much as architypes, representarions of how some people do behave. There is no interest in fleshing them out, there doesn't need to be for veracity; some Kids just are like that for a good percentage of the time. Nor is helpful to say that they are unlikable, plenty of great books are filled with unlikable people, it makes them HARD not BAD, this is supposed to be a mirror to reality.
Similarly the dialog is accurate, for a certain type of person. To say its vile is missing the point. A judgement about how we chose to live imposed on a film that aspires to just show reality.
The, sex, drugs violence, again accurate for a certain type of person. To complain on grounds of taste is like complaining about the news showing death.
The absence of plot, well that's just a matter of taste, personally I'm quite happy with no driving nartive.
No what gets me is the lack of desire to explicate the situation. Kids aspires to be a fictionalised documentart and in its quest to show reality it is as if the film can see no further than the sex drugs and violence. The naratorial perspective has no emotional core, its numb, blank if you will. There is no desire to explicate the situation. A lack of desire to actually engage with the subject matter, it is content just to show. As if the artist can and should do not more than represent reality. This seems to me to show a lack of grasp of the artistic position that can be truthful as well as trancendent, beautiful, melancolic etc. Kids fails on all those grounds. At its heart, like so much of American culture, is a large (____________)
Dekalog: Dekalog, dziesiec (1989)
human all too human
Do not covet thy neighbours oxen (or whatever the material good specified in the commandment happens to be), in Kielowski's hands becomes a master work of human observation. The petty jealousies of two brothers are perfectly captured, in this wry Satirical film. Less unremitingly bleak than Three Colours White (the director's other attack on greed), Dekalog dziesiec gently exposes the folloy of human desires. The satire is more Jane Austin than Jonathan Swift, but remains laugh out loud funny.
It goes with out saying that the acting, photography, script, score, editing etc. are all stunning. The only question is why don't we get stuff like this on T.V. in the west?
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Overrated does not even begin...
Why this film is so popular is beyond me, first and foremost because it is not really funny (yes the no fighting in the war room remains a great gag as does riding the bomb, but the rest of it....) the satire is about as subtle as an oil tanker and to be honest misfires. The camera work is average, acting average, but the use of music is good. Ultimately it is a film locked into time and place - and that is quite damning enough.
Yi yi (2000)
Think "Magnolia" but better
Similar in theme and length to P. T. Anderson's "Magnolia", "yi yi" really shows up the defects in Anderson's film. The construction is tighter, the characters more real and the sentiment less overblown. The result is a truly enthralling portrate of a middle class family trying to get on with their lives.