...also, not to look at EVERY movie through the lens of the pandemic, but the opening line is: “Isolation in a chamber that must be sealed off from the outside world because it’s full of deadly gas, a chamber in which one must wear a mask to survive, strongly evokes the conditions under which the modern man lives.” Yikes.
Ferreri takes Italian cinema’s favorite man-grappling-with-existential-angst trope, strips away most of the dialogue, then filters the mundanity through a colorful style that verges on the psychedelic at times. His “hero,” a disaffected gas mask maker, prowls around his house looking to break the tedium. Finding an old revolver, he dunks it in bright red paint, disassembling and reassembling it while half-watching home movies projected against his walls, vacation shots and abstract footage of two hands performing elaborate finger choreography. His pent-up, erratic behavior becomes increasingly absurd and childlike, and while I cannot pretend to have any idea what point Ferrari is trying to make about society, the cumulative effect of his images is hypnotic.
...also, not to look at EVERY movie through the lens of the pandemic, but the opening line is: “Isolation in a chamber that must be sealed off from the outside world because it’s full of deadly gas, a chamber in which one must wear a mask to survive, strongly evokes the conditions under which the modern man lives.” Yikes.
0 Comments
A mad criminal genius continues to wage his campaign of terror on Berlin from beyond the grave. Declared a menace to public safety by the Nazi’s Ministry of Propaganda, Lang’s film shows that once men create a culture of fear and lies, they can then weaponize it to keep an entire people in their thrall.
Thank you to everyone who insisted I see Miranda July’s story of a bunch of lonely people cheerfully–and frantically–trying to reach across enormous voids to make contact with another human. I was most moved by their relationship to time. They go through life trying to speed it up or slow it down, lying about their ages or lamenting wasted years, but sometimes when everything aligns, they can create a little pocket of time to fill with feeling.
Miloš is excited to carry on the family tradition of doing as little work as possible in his first job as a train dispatcher in his little German-occupied Czech town. But unpredictable hormones and partisan brigades threaten his leisurely routine. The movie also features a scene which deploys rubber stamps to memorably nefarious use.
|
The Bri-terion CollectionI’m loving the Criterion Channel streaming service, so every week I’m going to share my favorite new find. Archive
September 2022
|