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New York, 6:30 AM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/15/09
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09/15/09
His female protagonists are complex and multi-layered, and I always got the sense that his loyalty lies with them, not with the men who surrounded them. It's a bit counterintuitive and I won't get too film theory-geeky about it, but I find Ms. Gainsbourg read on it correct.
However, I will say this much: There's this book of interviews called "Trier on Von Trier," in which he talks at length about each movie he made, his upbringing, philosophy, etc. There is a riveting chapter describing his relationship with his mother. She was apparently a very dominating presence and he says he felt very stifled by her personality and her ideas. When his mother passed away (not before letting him know, on the death bed, that "Oh, by the way, your dad was not your ACTUAL dad. It was some other guy!"), he moved back into her house--the house where he grew up in.
And the first thing he did was grab a vase that had been his mother's favorite keepsake and smashed it to bits. He said in the book, "It felt really good when I did that." It gave me chills to read about this episode--but I think I understand the emotion.
09/15/09
Which is a shame because The Kingdom is some of the best and freakiest (in a good way) TV I have ever seen!!
09/15/09
And yeah, "The Kingdom" is a complete fucking masterpiece. Stephen King is such a fan that he tried to remake it as TV series in the US--it bombed, I think.
09/17/09
Stephen King remade the Kingdom - oh good lord. Was it terrible?
09/14/09
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09/14/09
Plus, seriously, I think ANYONE could make a horror film. It takes NO creativity. I bet each of us could come up with some really awful scenarios right now... make a film out of it... and then some son of a bitch would beat is meat to it and think it was some profound artsy thing when it is really just pornography.
Violence is fine if it has a point (Hotel Rwanda, Schindler's List, etc), but violence to make us 'feel' is wrong.
09/15/09
09/14/09
Somewhere over the rainbow ~ There's another rainbow ~
09/14/09
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09/14/09
He abstracts violence into little fairy tales about women with disorders bordering on developmental problems. I feel like putting each and everyone of his female protagonists under specialist care. Watching their struggles, I feel like I'm witnessing violence and sexual abuse of minors -- the women don't seem mentally mature for their bodies (the plots don't seem mentally mature for presentation).
In that way, I feel, von Trier belittles actual violence and suggests that there is something underneath it that is more worthy of the viewer's attention. "Evil itself"?
Well, he loses me when I feel that the acts of violence are being discarded for the benefit of a murky and shallow "symbolic core." It misses the point every time.
And his key scene is Dancer in the Dark is snatched from Kieslowski's A Short Film about Killing. Only Kieslowski's movie doesn't distort the execution into caricature.
09/14/09
I find this director pretentious & always trying too hard. "Ooh next up, I'll bring Home Depot into the boudoir, make the audience sick & call it deep"
Everytime I see Charlotte Gainsbourg I think it's Patti Smith w/ an English accent. I kept waiting for her to belt out "Because the Night" in this trailer but no dice.
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09/14/09
Dammit.
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09/14/09
Catherine Breillat does it best as an existential feminist film maker. She's my favorite of all time. She's in a league of her own. Brilliant!
09/14/09
The Male - the therapist - is passive aggressive and forces his thoughts and ideas on SHE. HE, further uses mental violence on SHE. And SHE, with the chaos of the forest and her own mind, go after HE with physical violence to counteract HE's mental.
It's a woman who is grieving. Isn't allowed to grieve. Works in a field about the history of Female Gynocide (I can't remember the word, if it's not that). And her husband, HE, is at the center of it. It's just a touch empowering within the whole morass of misgony that she goes after the passive aggressive asshole. Because he stole her right to grieve her own way.
09/14/09
Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot. I feel so very respected.
09/14/09
Or is that it's ok as long as it's funny? Domestic violence is the new pie in the face.