Rough as a triplet from Belleville…

Finally got round to watching Sylvain Chomet’s Les Triplettes de Belleville/ The Triplets of Belleville last night. And I must say: if you’re in for an extraordinary car chase, then this is the movie to watch! >:D First, it has three of my favourite things in it: trains, wicked old ladies and nightmares. Then, it’s a (mostly) silent movie, making it a feat of extraordinary animation and expressive, carricature-style characters parading on-screen for your entertainment.

I noticed that people who talk about it on-line tend to say that the movie is incredibly good despite the lack of dialogue. Well, it probably won’t come as a surprise when I say that I belive it’s a fantastic film because of the lack of dialogue. It just goes to prove that emotional language (via gestures, facial expressions and, in animation, colours and shapes) is universal. If anything, dialogue would have destroyed the expressivity of carefully constructed animation. Belleville is a film that works strictly through character and in it character is constructed through well-defined particularities.

What’s most interesting is that the character I liked best is the fat dog, Bruno. Mad about trains (he just can’t abstain from barking at them), this lazy dog conceals a complicated and revealing psyche (his black and white nightmares are, really, uncanny projections of reality, once you shake off the grotesque first impression and start focusing on dream imagery as a symbol). He is also the most sympathetic character – to me, at least – since he is clearly the most used and abused (albeit lovingly). Throughout the film, I’ve often felt, in fact, that I was being pushed/discreetly guided into sharing Bruno’s point of view. (Which must be why I felt that he was the most humane character, whilst everyone else was a bittersweet parody of humanity. Or maybe not.)

In any case, the film was excellent: exquisite soundtrack, exciting array of characters and amazing mixture of carricature, film noir, sugar, spice, everything nice and everything nasty too! There are a lot of unexpected twists that’ll keep you swinging between ill-concealed sniggers and misty eyes. This is a definite must watch. (Don’t take my word for it, though; go and see it, then you can judge for yourselves. :3)

Okay, I’ll be off watching Chomet’s La Vieille Dame et les Pigeons/ The Old Lady and the Pigeons now. I may let myself be tricked into reviewing that later.

“Death is the only path that leads to birth”

I ended up purging quite a few of my older posts from 1-2 years ago. I guess this tends to happen when I’m about to leave a piece of my life behind: I prefer to erase all incriminating evidence. Well, the stuff I deleted was mostly debris anyway, so I don’t suppose the on-line multiverse’ll miss it.

Well, here I am then, finally able to update and – generally – take a break from all the complcations of dealing with life. I received my copy of The Weird Fiction Review – Number 1 in the post recently, and I’m over the moon about it (how come I didn’t find out about this little gem sooner? shame on me!). I’ve only flicked through it so far, but it appears to be more than fascinating, so expect a review of the Review sometime soon.

More interestingly, though, I’ve been to see Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec/ The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, a most delighful movie from director Luc Besson, based on the comic books of Jacques Tardi, which I have not, however, had the pleasure to read. Here’s my preferred trailer (French and no subtitles, I’m afraid):

Again, I can’t really compare the film to the original comics, since I haven’t read them, but then again, I doubt that would be fair play anyway. As far as my amateurish opinion goes, it was a gorgeous, baroque feast of doubles and doubleness – from twins to arch-enemies to the timeless life/death motif – all wrought together in a string of absurd and savoury adventures. The plot is set in pre-WWI Paris (mostly) and Egypt (or the stereotypically-spooky entrails of an Egyptian pyramid, to be more precise). The main character, Adèle Blanc-Sec (played by Louise Bourgoin) is a tomboyish (for lack of a better attribute) young journalist/novelist/adventurer looking for a three-millennia-old mummy whose knowledge would enable it to cure Adèle’s twin sister, Agathe (and I will not spoil for you what it is that Agathe needs to be cured of, but a word of caution for the faint of heart: it’s a gruesome little detail). As main characters go, Adèle is quite remarkable through her unbreacheable loyalty to gimendous hats and the cool indifference she exhibits towards sneezing mummies and pterodactyls with a taste for ostrich feather shawls. Her reactions are sometimes predictable perhaps, typical of the “reckless adventuress”, but in 97% of the cases, Adèle is simply charming (and I’m afraid I’ve also taken a dangerous liking to her “museum of curiosities” bedecked flat).

The plot I found well-balanced and tantaizing, combining a decent percentage of supernatural, absurd, humour and drama. From scientists with telekinetic abilities, to Jurassic birds in the middle of Paris, to mummies with a unique sense of aesthetics – “The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec” has it all. But the best part about it is its “film noir” streak, in which no joke is left without a shady or tragic twist. For every life saved there is a life tragically lost or at least placed under severe threat. I would love to expand on this, but I don’t really want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. I leave you with a lovely pic of sisters Adèle and Agathe in the foremath of a truly decisive tennis match:

Of Film & Poetry

Here comes my first post in a while that’s not NaPoWriMo-related. However, it’s still poetry: verse form seems to be virtually stalking me lately. Best for Film have launched a challenge to bloggers: “rather than write hundreds of bloody words describing, assessing and ultimately judging a film, we want you to pour all of your analytical juices into a lovely haiku“, they say, so I’m definitely going for it! I mean, seriously, writing about a film AND making it a haiku? It spells “fun” to me, whether I win or not. Well, what do I have to lose? I’ve decided on Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, because: a)I’ve re-watched it very recently, and b)it’s one of my favourite dramatisations ever. So here it goes:

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
by Kalyiel

When disaster strikes,
Build your sanctuary fast:
You’ll be hit again.

This is an entry for the Best For Film Hollywood Haikus blogging competition. Enter now.

Wish me luck!

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.

“Who Are You?” Said the Caterpillar

Everyone knows that anything is better than doing actual work. But not everyone realizes that watching films by Jan Svankmajer is better than most things in life. Truly, I cannot recommend Svankmajer’s works enough, his films are unbelievable from all points of view, and every stop motion animation enthusiast must watch them! His bizarre, surrealist representations, always with a dusty, vintage flavour and an unsettling atmosphere can keep one on the edge of their virtual toes through their sheer symbolism and astute originality. My favourite so far is (possibly his best known film) “Alice”, a decadent and subversive reinterpretation of – of course – “Alice in Wonderland”. What is most interesting about it is, in my opinion, that in its surrealism it is very realistic through the use of imagistic uncanny (or, as Tzvetan Todorov rightly calls it, “supernatural explained”): the white rabbit is a shabby piece of taxidermy, for example, whilst the caterpillar is a sock on a darning mushroom.

Svankmajer’s Alice

Another one of my favourites is his short piece, “Dimensions of Dialogue”, which I would describe as an expressively pessimistic take on human interrelations.

Dimensions of Dialogue

I keep on dreaming of one day becoming the proud owner of Jan Svakmajer’s full filmographgy in high definition… Well, who knows, maybe if I will it hard enough, I’ll get a surprise delivery! xD

The Peepshow of Georges Méliès

In an attempt to make procrastination sweeter, I’ve been indulging in watching shorts by the great Georges Méliès, who, frankly said, is currently much less known than he would have deserved. His wonderful talent of combining the grotesque and sometimes even macabre with satire, his love for representing the bizarre and the unknown – it is as if Méliès was good-humouredly pointing out that the world can be seen otherwise than just how your eyes perceive it. His films are a little like peepshows: they allow you a glimpse into a world that’s far away and mostly hidden from view, but they don’t just show everything – there’s always a little somthing that’s left to your own imagination.

One of the shorts I particularly enjoyed was ‘Barbe-Bleue/Bluebeard’, Méliès’s adaptation of the classic tale by Charles Perrault. His version, though, is notably more burlesque, featuring a ridiculous Bluebeard, a reluctant bride, an ‘Harlequinian’ Mephistopheles, a ‘Cinderellian’ fairy godmother, as well as an unexpected ending dealt by seven revived wives. It is quite difficult to find the film on-line, but fortunately not impossible, so you can watch it below (background commentary in French):

“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!

Miscellanea

Now, a little treat for those might possibly enjoy the same things as I do.

First, a wonderful poem by Jorge Luis Borges, called “El Golem”:

EL GOLEM

Si (como el griego afirma en el Cratilo)
El nombre es arquetipo de la cosa,
En las letras de rosa está la rosa
Y todo el Nilo en la palabra Nilo.

Y, hecho de consonantes y vocales,
Habrá un terrible Nombre, que la esencia
Cifre de Dios y que la Omnipotencia
Guarde en letras y sílabas cabales.

Adán y las estrellas lo supieron
En el Jardín. La herrumbre del pecado
(Dicen los cabalistas) lo ha borrado
Y las generaciones lo perdieron.

Los artificios y el candor del hombre
No tienen fin. Sabemos que hubo un día
En que el pueblo de Dios buscaba el Nombre
En las vigilias de la judería.

No a la manera de otras que una vaga
Sombra insinúan en la vaga historia,
Aún está verde y viva la memoria
De Judá León, que era rabino en Praga.

Sediento de saber lo que Dios sabe,
Judá León se dio a permutaciones
de letras y a complejas variaciones
Y al fin pronunció el Nombre que es la Clave.

La Puerta, el Eco, el Huésped y el Palacio,
Sobre un muñeco que con torpes manos
labró, para enseñarle los arcanos
De las Letras, del Tiempo y del Espacio.

El simulacro alzó los soñolientos
Párpados y vio formas y colores
Que no entendió, perdidos en rumores
Y ensayó temerosos movimientos.

Gradualmente se vio (como nosotros)
Aprisionado en esta red sonora
de Antes, Después, Ayer, Mientras, Ahora,
Derecha, Izquierda, Yo, Tú, Aquellos, Otros.

(El cabalista que ofició de numen
A la vasta criatura apodó Golem;
Estas verdades las refiere Scholem
En un docto lugar de su volumen.)

El rabí le explicaba el universo
“Esto es mi pie; esto el tuyo; esto la soga.”
Y logró, al cabo de años, que el perverso
Barriera bien o mal la sinagoga.

Tal vez hubo un error en la grafía
O en la articulación del Sacro Nombre;
A pesar de tan alta hechicería,
No aprendió a hablar el aprendiz de hombre,

Sus ojos, menos de hombre que de perro
Y harto menos de perro que de cosa,
Seguían al rabí por la dudosa
penumbra de las piezas del encierro.

Algo anormal y tosco hubo en el Golem,
Ya que a su paso el gato del rabino
Se escondía. (Ese gato no está en Scholem
Pero, a través del tiempo, lo adivino.)

Elevando a su Dios manos filiales,
Las devociones de su Dios copiaba
O, estúpido y sonriente, se ahuecaba
En cóncavas zalemas orientales.

El rabí lo miraba con ternura
Y con algún horror. ¿Cómo (se dijo)
Pude engendrar este penoso hijo
Y la inacción dejé, que es la cordura?

¿Por qué di en agregar a la infinita
Serie un símbolo más? ¿Por qué a la vana
Madeja que en lo eterno se devana,
Di otra causa, otro efecto y otra cuita?

En la hora de angustia y de luz vaga,
En su Golem los ojos detenía.
¿Quién nos dirá las cosas que sentía
Dios, al mirar a su rabino en Praga?

And a link to TheMotionBrigades on youtube, which is, and I shall quote the generous uploaders: “Dedicated to showcasing stop motion animation from the masters of the genre, with focus on rare and hard to find titles.”

And here are some short animations which I’d highly recommend, in no specific order:
Ebenezer Morgan’s Photography Emporium
The Little Thief
The Cathedral
Cirque de Machinima

Panem et Circenses – Fellini’s (Petronius’s) ‘Satyricon’

Long live harmless perversity! I think Petronius would have been more than happy with Fellini’s interpretation of his novel – so demented and ironic. It is true, nonetheless, that the Roman arbiter elegantiarum was less morbid in his writing. Fellini, in contrast with Petronius, turns the humour of ‘Satyricon’ into the dementia of a wild bacchanalia

In other words – the ‘Satyricon’ of Petronius is a work of art — and that of Fellini is a completely different work of art. I somehow believe those two artists would have made a nice pair, they would have completed each other. xD

But the movie isn’t something I would be willing to watch twice! Once is more than enough for me (and those weak of heart)!

Ah, I just remembered! Fellini seems to be drawing some of his inspiration from the German Expressionists – queer environments (like the city – of Rome, presumably) and colours which create a sort of unease. It could, of course, be just my imagination, the result of my having watched too many 1920s movies, but I don’t believe so. [Maybe that's why I liked Fellini's production so much. ]