Fame as a by-product of the commoditization of the creative artistic endeavour that makes it subservient to the whim of the audience, something that dehumanises in a double sense because it proposes a false identity to seek and follow while in the one it uses as a model of this subtracts meaning, purpose and identity, turning him from a subject of admiration into an object of obsession, the perversion of innocence, the limit experiences as a requisite proof of professionalism status and validation, the distortion of oneself in order to be virtuous, the sensible provoking symptoms in the suprasensible that later materialise in the sensible again. Magnificent how it manages to capture in montage the uncertainty of identity and psychological instability that is in conflict with the suspense of the intrigue of who is who, who you are and who I am, as well as the metaphor of personifying in a second persona the ideal and in a third persona the regret.
Reviews
12 Reviews
Pan's Labyrinth
(2006)
Fantasy to give sense and meaning
18 November 2023
Escapism from deplorable material conditions but these material conditions are so ideologically constitutive that even escapism is perverse looking, neatness in the real evil, dirtiness in the imaginary good, as a good red I can't help but have readings like the doctor who cures and the maid who serves actions with material implications and reflections being in the right side of history while the priest who believes action without material implications and reflections being in the wrong side of history, how powerful the idea of an attempt to give sense in retrospect from the dying moment with fantasy to the meaninglessness of reality, I did notice things that could be seen as flaws but I attribute them to the simplicity of a fable.
Convey magnitudes with subtleties
18 November 2023
Who would have thought that silence could say so much, the subtleties can be so powerful and the mundane can be so aesthetically appealing, revolutionary in many ways, little dialogue and a lot of silence full of intentionality that seeks to transmit enough that makes the contrast, however subtle, very significant, the cotidianity for the woman as something of little freedom dictated by others that generates frustration with attempts to get out of it until the accumulation of them explodes, Sculpting time like Tarkovsky in montage with a masterful use of ellipsis and paralipsis in the cuts, which, when evidently not recorded in a one shot, gives the sensation and appearance of being so, as well as a subtle theatricality in the acting, part of the intentionality that the work seeks to transmit.
Días de otoño
(1963)
Making the imaginary real with hope
12 November 2023
Fascinating representation of mythomania, of how one's own illusions are constituted by the illusions of others, here presented with suggestions of the others that come to life with the character's imagination, the imaginary, being withdrawn and isolation over the real, to expatiate and company, for empathizing and sympathizing to generate a deception that grows and grows to keep up appearances for fear of what others will say, the disillusionment of the deception for who manages to break through the defences and for whom shyness is lost and that deception turned into one's own and resignified, symbolising in the material the overcoming of delirium, shaping the illusion in montage with symbols such as reflections, photos, drawings, shadows and statues, making the reflection of the mirror static with the photo, materialising the imaginary child with the drawing that later is given dimension with statues, the phrase "one day forgetting will end or hope will end" as an aphorism that in order to forget we have to lose hope, but to overcome forgetting is to recover hope, the films that the character makes changing the life of other characters as a metaphor for films changing the life of the spectator, great Gavaldón taking the melodrama to the thriller through Figueroa's precious cinematography.
Going Nuts
(2006)
Nuts literally and figuratively
28 October 2023
Interesting reflection of the fact that the most important thing in cinema is montage and that terror and suspense are mainly sustained on the audio, because of the form of the work it is appreciated with an attitude of a great suspension of disbelief in which easily everything portrayed is plausible despite the lack of neatness in several aspects, especially technical, In addition to using the form of the work as a narrative tool and as an object for comedy and to capture the irony of it as it is in montage or narratively, interesting exercise that gives many liberties in terms of what is wanted and can be portrayed in something that in premise is simple and that is a great motivator to create one's own work that makes you think that there is no excuse to do it.
Thesis
(1996)
Faltering in suspense trying to surprise
28 October 2023
Morbidity comes from fear is to give uncertainty certainty this same uncertainty in narrative and montage is what generates fear and suspense in films but in this case, by an intention to focus on making the outcome unpredictable the next event surprising just to end up falling into the predictable in the conclusion does not build tension properly and several events feel fortuitous, other themes in the film such as the perceptions of others forged by our influences also captured in both narrative and montage here I do find interesting as well as the talk about cinema in cinema the commoditization and commercialization of cinema which takes away substance and makes it pure appearance and situation in which what only incites morbidity as portrayed in this film is feasible just because it is what the audience supposedly asks for which I don't think is really the case.
Cascabel
(1977)
Where actual and fake documentary become the same
19 October 2023
It is astonishing to use fiction as a Trojan horse to document the situation and voice of the people in the context of a government of repression and censorship, a portrayed situation that would provide the material conditions for the emergence of the revolutionary movement of the EZLN twenty years later in the nineties with the free trade agreement with the US, While the media and cinema manufacture consent in the society of spectacle with a simulation of reality, this film uses the same as a tool to do the opposite, to give voice and raise awareness, while making meta-commentary on doing so and the way it is done, without disregarding the fiction to also make implicit commentary there like how nature can generate what is necessary so that the one who could help those in vulnerable situations ends up being the one who needs help.
El bulto
(1992)
We must give time to time comrades
18 October 2023
Interesting the jump from the period of the dirty war to the free trade agreement with the US as if that subjugation in the 90s was a consequence of the repression of socialism in the 70s, how there is no possibility or place for socialism in the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall as Fukunaga mentions in "The End of History and the Last Man" as well as the protagonist seems to have no possibility or place in the world in which he wakes up, that he is in a mindset of his twenties with an older body infers the falas perspective that revolutionary thinking is a thing of youth or immaturity that with the passage of time that impetus is lost and everyone ends up subjugating themselves to hegemonic power but with the conclusion that in every historical moment there is reason for the fight to go on and there is something to be said for it.
Redes
(1936)
Explicit but profound film
18 October 2023
The beautiful class consciousness and struggle for workers' rights related to the sea and what it produces captured in the Mexican cinema of the golden age, which occurs in other films of the same context in a similar way as in La Perla by Emilio "El indio" Fernández, which I find fascinating and with an implicit intention in both plot and montage, This use of the sea I interpret as a symbol of freedom, realities of the time of the film still relevant today with the powerful message that unity is strength, brief in footage but powerful and precise, the photo is of some superb shooting that are illustrations worthy of being framed and exhibited in a museum.
The Pearl
(1947)
Great cinematographic adaptation
18 October 2023
Apparently this piece is uncomfortable for people who simplify into moralism its complexity and forcefulness in what it has to say both explicitly and implicitly, aspirationism for wealth and the discord and greed it provokes, bourgeois class robbery of the working class, colonialist extractionism, whiteness as a jewel that gives privilege, all this as true then as it still is, set in a melodrama full of anguish, plus of course a beautiful montage in which the photography and the masterful underwater sequences stand out, marvellous at the time and which stand the test of time with great neatness.
Napoleon
(1927)
Maybe to long but "There is nothing we can do"
18 October 2023
A great historical epic of the beautiful silent cinema that is of a tremendous exaggeration with shaded eyes and performances of much gestus, a magnificent staging that makes epic even the most banal, a montage of camera set-up with a superb photo but where the editing stands out not for nothing it cemented many technical innovations in this aspect, although it is a black and white film it has footage in different colours at times with much semiological sense but at times also as without reason of being, more surprising with more power and intentionality seems to me the triple screen more than in accordance with the epic and that predicts the greater horizontality of the format in the future, so formidable is the piece that I almost don't notice how immaculate and solemn neatness with it portrays Napoleon more mythological and idealised than realistic and the nationalist and imperialist perspective that it has.
Borat
(2006)
Hilarious comedy at the expense of the US
16 October 2023
This film makes me think that while the media and the society of spectacle aestheticize politics one must politicize aesthetics and what better way to do so than the mockumentary, comedy as a vehicle to address uncomfortable issues and such deplorable perspectives that Sacha Baron Cohen evidences seem so right to me, the US own invented perspective that they are the best country in the world contrasted with the US idea that everything outside the first world is precarious decadent backwards, the cordiality, ways and mannerisms of a small town where there is more closeness are uncomfortable and out of place in the city, with an insane bit engagement in which he doesn't get out of character, of the things that make me laugh the most no matter how much I watch them ad makes clear that there is no comedy without victims and you can't do comedy without making enemies.
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