Ever been struck by lightning while watching a movie?
That is to say, can you remember an occasion when a particular moment in a movie changed the way you watch movies?
Was there a foreign film that opened the door to an appreciation of subtitled movies? Or a sequence that made you interested in something other than just The Story?
In the last pages of Through a Screen Darkly, I wrote about Mike Hertenstein, the guy behind the Cornerstone festival’s excellent film program Flickerings. I haven’t seen Mike since my visit to Cornerstone in 2003, and that bothers me. I really admire his passion to introduce unsuspecting audiences to celebrated international cinema. He can’t make lightning strike, but he knows how to create conditions in which such revelations are likely.
So I’m delighted that he’s blogging now at Filmwell.
We are happy to announce the release of Filmwell (www.filmwell.org), a new website that will be updated daily with essays, film and DVD reviews, and news on cinema off the beaten track. Founding Filmwell contributors include widely published authors and critics, as well as film festival programmers and educators. Filmwell content is dictated by the whims of its contributors, who frequent national festivals, scour DVD catalogs and screening schedules, and are otherwise always on the hunt for those films that make this great conversation so worthwhile. Yet another film blog? Maybe. But our collective audiences are hungry for an entry point to thoughtful criticism on films they haven’t heard about yet.
Please put us on your rss feeder for a while. If we aren’t already on your publicity lists, let us know. We look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions.
I recently listened to an archived interview by Terry Gross with author Maurice Sendak. It brought back memories of the strange emotions I felt as a child whenever I read Where the Wild Things Are. That I feel those same feelings watching this trailer is very promising indeed. If I feel them as I watch the film itself, it will be something truly wonderful. And Spike Jonze might be just the man to make that happen.
I also think this is my all-time favorite match of a song and a trailer. Tears. We’re talking tears. That song has become one of my favorites anyway. Such beautiful, heartbreaking lyrics. I’ve been at the front of an Arcade Fire crowd and sung along with them, and it has the same kind of power over me that only a few songs ever have. To pair it with this trailer sets off an atomic bomb of emotion.
What is it about wild things? And Totoros?
Are you fond of the book? Why? What is it that you love about Max and his Wild Things?
[The link above has been revised with Apple's HD trailer.]
For a short while, Majid Majidi was my favorite Iranian filmmaker.
But then again, for a while, he was the only Iranian filmmaker that I could name.
I’m still a beginner when it comes to international cinema, but while I’ve found other Iranian artists whose work is more exciting for me, I’m still eager to check out anything this director does. I suspect that if any Iranian filmmaker is likely to win a big following in America, it’s Majidi. And his new film is winning some persuasively enthusiastic reviews. [link repaired]
How about this: A few months ago, my friend John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) asked me if I’d seen it yet. He was enthusiastic about it. Today, when I checked in with him about it, he wrote back:
Yes, our oldest daughter, Anna, and I saw The Song of Sparrows at the Chicago film festival last fall. It’s one of the finest films I’ve seen in the last decade. What’s special about it? So many opposites held in tension. It’s a film of surpassing visual splendor, yet so self-effacing as to seem artless. The story unfolds with the formality of a sonnet, but its materials are the humble stuff of everyday life, with family and work at the center. It is a parable with a clear lesson to impart, and an enigma as mysterious as the human heart.
And then there is the piety that runs through Majidi’s films in an unselfconscious way we almost never encounter in films from America or Europe. I don’t know what he believes or doesn’t believe. But his central characters believe, they pray, they cry out to God. His films are always grounded in the quotidian, but they always have a sense of “more.”
I loathe the routine hype that infects so much of our talk about writers and filmmakers and songwriters and painters. But some art really is great—it demands to be recognized as such, not to create a cult of personality but “objectively,” you might say. I think Majidi is one of the great artists of our time.
Personally, I found Majidi’s Children of Heaven and The Color of Paradise to be vivid, moving stories — Iranian tales with emotional flourishes I’m inclined to call “Spielbergian” — I’m very, very curious about Sparrows.
I have a favorite t-shirt. It’s from the Flickerings film festival. It’s bright red, and on the back it says “So many subtitles, so little time.”
I have friends who groan when they learn a movie is subtitled, and some of them lose interest entirely when they learn a film is in a foreign language. Me, if I charted my rate of enjoyment, I’d probably find that I enjoy films from outside of America far more often than enjoy films made in America. Subtitles don’t bother me at all. In fact, lately I’ve been watching American films with the subtitles turned on, just because I tend to appreciate the dialogue more when I don’t miss key lines in the crowd noise or the actor’s mumbling.
But have you ever watched a foreign-language film on DVD with the subtitles turned off?
I recently watched Karen Shakhnazarov’s film Day of the Full Moon without the benefit of English subtitles. Imagine watching Crash or Magnolia but not understanding a word they’re saying, and you’ll have some idea of my experience. It was fascinating, and it liberated me from the “tyranny of the narrative” so that I could examine interesting juxtapositions, settings, and tones. I do hope to see Day of the Full Moon again with English subtitles, but that’s currently unavailable on Region 1, so… here’s hoping.
I’ve been thinking about subtitles today, though, and how I often wonder whether what I’m reading is really what they people are saying to each other.
But that review inspired backlash too. Here are a few of my favorite lines from the comments of CT Movies readers:
“Although there are some shorts which may show a little cleavage, it’s never done sexually…”
Shorts which show cleavage? I’ve gotta see this movie!
“The fowl language is brief and very infrequent.”
Is it sparrow language, or seagull language? Personally, I find myself most commonly offended by waterfowl language.
“Don’t look for a biblically based movie.”
I wouldn’t normally expect a “biblically based movie” from mainstream entertainers composing a work of science fiction about the future. But frankly, even though the Bible is a lamp to my feet and light for my path, I tend to find that “biblically based movies” are usually very preachy and poorly made. I normally find more profound inspiration in films from artists who never intended to make a “biblically based movie,” but who made something that reflected the truth through beauty and excellence nevertheless.
“…the last 15 minutes of the film turn out to be what I would label as blasphemy against our Creator.”
Must we label it as “blasphemy” if a work of science fiction, created by non-Christians, falls short of reflecting our worldview? Must we be so swift and severe in “labeling” things and condemning worldly people for being, well, worldly? Or might we instead be encouraged to find “rumors of glory” and evidence of “eternity in their hearts” when we find glimmers of truth in worldly entertainment?
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You'll notice the letter grades. They're not judgments of the films. They're personal notes, tenuous measurements of my enthusiasm for the film after that particular viewing. They do not concern whether or not I'd recommend the film; I'd recommend different films to different people. Nor are they an assessment of its artistry. I explain my reservations about star-systems and grade-scales in this rant at Filmwell.
