Life as a Nunnery

I am aware it looks like I’ve been lured “to the other side”, also known as “the great and frightful RL”. Sadly – or happily, depends which way you look or squint at it -, however, I am still here, somewhere, stalking better updated blogs and other such online haunts. But yes, I have been busy and still am and still will be for a while, so, dear internet void, do expect scarce updates and please do not hold a grudge against me because of that… The good thing is that I am slightly more active on tumblr, where I can rapidly post (or, more likely, reblog from keener fellow tumbleloggers) an exciting picture or two and then run back to my ever mounting piles of work.

Have I been up to fun things, as well? Why, yes, bits and pieces, here and there, I’d say, mainly in the few breaks I’ve had from trying to escape the bone-crushing jaws of the educational system. For one, I’ve purchased the wonderful volume two of Kaori Yuki’s latest manga, Grand Guignol Orchestra. Some might remember that I reviewed the first volume here… Well, the second volume was just as good as the first one and definitely worth every penny, since Yuki remains not only an amazing and imaginative storyteller, but also a most talented and entrancing visual artist.

In vol 2, some of the mysteries surrounding the main characters start to get cleared up, only to have more secrets and mysteries jump at you from behind the next manga frame. All of this is most satisfying to me as a reader, as I’m usually not happy with a book/comic/film/anything with a storyline unless it keeps me guessing right until the very end. So yes, go buy this manga or any of Kaori Yuki’s works, RIGHT NOW! None of her mangas has disappointed me so far… (Gods, they should be paying me for all the free advertising, right? But I simply can’t help it. xD)

For another thing, I’ve been watching… well, stuff. A lot of Jan Svankmajer, of course, but I’m not going to give in to the temptation to rant about all his wonderful short films. Instead, I’m going to embed a nifty little video that pretty much speaks for itself. It’s “a trailer for a non-existent Jan Svankmajer Collection consisting of many short clips from five of his full-length films”, as its maker describes it, and it’s the best “promotional vid” for Czech Surrealism I’ve seen so far:

There are too many of Svankmajer’s shorts that I’d recommend, but, quite unfortunately, not many of them can be found on-line. “The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope” is one of the rare exceptions, and so I’m embedding it too. Note: I would have embedded it full-length, but LiveJournal won’t let me, since it apparently thinks my vodpod&viddler permalinks are unsafe. Therefore, I have provided a YouTube link at the end of this wonderful paragraph. Dx There’s a bit of text that features in the film, and there are no subtitles for it, but it’s not that big of a deal, since that’s just a quotation (translated into Czech, of course) from E.A. Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”: [...] the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of REVOLUTION, perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. It might be worth mentioning, though, that it is that quotation from Poe that got the film banned in the former Czechoslovakia in 1983. You can watch the film here on YouTube, if you want.

But Svankmajer’s stuff isn’t the only thing I’ve been watching. I’ve also continued my obsessive need for German Expressionism, which I’ve fed with a good dose of uncanny directed by Richard Oswald and featuring surreally gorgeous Conrad Veidt (the picture on Wiki is crap, though – check out this one instead ). I’m talking about the 1919 film Eeerie Tales/ Unheimliche Geschichten, presenting adaptations of five classic horror stories: “The Apparition” by Anselma Heine, “The Hand” by Robert Liebmann, “The Black Cat” by E.A. Poe, “The Suicide Club” by R.L. Stevenson and “The Spook” by Richard Oswald. As always, I was stunned by the impeccable mime-acting required by silent films and always dutifully provided by silent film actors. Oh, and you can watch the movie on YouTube, here.

[screencap from "Eerie Tales", "The Suicide Club" section]

That’s mostly it, I should say. But since I’m such a nice and generous blogger, I won’t leave you just like that, great internet void. Oh, no. I’ll leave you with a nice little animated gif of yours truly running berserk. Literally.

“M” Is for “Murderer”

M is for Metropolis, but also for Murderer. And the reason I know this is because I’ve watched another one of Fritz Lang’s wonderful films: “M”. You can, of course, access the wonderful wiki page for the plot summary and other goodies, or you can read my (much shorter) one:

The whole film revolves around criminal Hans Beckert, who is obsessed with killing very young girls. Under the pressure of general social dissatisfaction, the police, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, under the pressure of repeated police raids, the mafia, decide, each on their own, to go “all out” and catch the serial killer at all costs. Those who find him first are the mafia, with the help of the “Beggars’ Association”, and especially that of one particular blind beggar, who recognizes Hans Beckert after the tune he obsessively whistles. However, the mafia, who initially decide to kill Beckert, is busted by the police in the midst of Beckert’s “trial”. The film ends in a very striking ang expressive way, with an abrupt scene in which one of the murdered children’s mother addresses the viewer directly, to the effect of: “Is this [i.e. the trial] enough? Our children are gone forever! This isn’t enough! We should take more care! The one who should take more care is YOU!”

The film is very interestingly shot, I thought, since the stories are conveyed more through series of images, rather than through spoken words. Also, the sense of the trapping city, the symbolic “witch trials” (people blindly accusing each other out of fear and uncertainty), the characters’ “masks” and “social roles” – they’re all wonderfully conveyed through uncommon shooting angles, expressive (though not overly-dramaticised) acting and always a suggestive décor.

It’s a really good film, so go and watch it!

Nosferatu and Metropolis – of Plagues and Dystopian Worlds

Since I’ve been sick and condemned to lack of activity (or cursed with lack of energy, whichever), I’ve been trying to keep myself alive with German Expressionist films. I’ve been meaning to watch “Nosferatu” and “Metropolis” for a while now, so I guess I might as well thank “the nameless gods of the wood” (© George R.R. Martin) for the – albeit unasked for – opportunity.

Shall we proceed, then?

Nosferatu (original title, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens; directed by F.W. Murnau, released in 1922)

☻ for plot summary and other nifty details, please visit the wiki page, since I’m lazy like that

I must say that, childish as it may sound, I was genuinely scared by Count Orlok. Max Schreck did a damned good job of playing him, and the additional “shadow play” made the horror effects quite amazing (considering the time’s lack of technology). The ending, however, was a bit disappointing, due to its sudden dramatism. I was sort of expecting a happy ending, and although in general it did deliver, on a smaller, more particular scale, it did not. But again, the characters were quite forceful, notably so Count Orlok and his minion, devilish Knock (who is, I believe, the epitomy of grotesqueness). I also admired Murnau’s almost foolish courage to take on the project of a film that was so blatantly based on “Dracula”, when Mrs Stoker had not given her assent for him to use her late husband’s idea as such.

Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang, released in 1927)

☻ please refer to the wiki page

Whilst watching the film, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the world we live in is precisely the same kind of distopic world pictured in “Metropolis”: a gruesome, gothic fiction world masked by the appearance of cold civilisation. That kind of thing. And although, sadly, I couldn’t, as Aenne Willkomm (the outfit designer for “Metropolis”) would have wished, “see the film Metropolis from the year 1926, and be amazed with what does coincide with this fantasy” from a couture point of view, I was, nonetheless, impressed by how unwittngly veridical the whole situation seemed to be.

As for themes and motifs, this particular production was full of them. To enumerate a few:
• the man-eating machine
&
• the revolt gone disastrously bad
=> these two, as they were presented in the film, were very reminiscent of the situation in Zola’s “Germinal” (yes, yes, school haunts me, I just had to notice this )
• the angelic woman/Madonna figure vs the devilish woman/whore of Babylon figure (ah, Gilbert and Gubar, did you watch this before publishing “The Madwoman in the Attic”? if so, then I do sympathise), as well as the doppelgänger motif
• the humanoid robot as a source of destruction/Golem figure
• the mad scientist/Faust figure
• (ooops, I almost left this one out xD) the “Moses” situation, i.e. the young, untainted generation is saved, in order to found a new world, untouched by the biased principles of their parents

So yeah, if you haven’t watched “Metropolis”, WATCH IT NOW!

Waxworks – Madame Tussaud’s: the Scary Version

When reading week starts, I go back to my German Expressionism obsession. xD Yesterday night was ‘Waxworks’ night for me! (I love you, Warwick library!!! <333)