BENCH AT THE GREENE 2011aw
SUPER 8 CHICAGO 8PM
A survey of small gauge films from Chicagoans past and present opens our first annual Chicago 8 Small Gauge Film Festival. This show includes work spanning four decades of local filmmakers, from the old guard to current residents. Filmmakers in attendance include Adele…
Bill Morrison - Light Is Calling (2004)
Beautiful and devastating.
The Future, (July, 2011)
How do I feel about this…
Ms. July, I do love your work.
But
This film is about white 30-somethings. Who have cats and apartments and listen to Beach House. Who don’t know what to do with their lives. Who are faced with the massive, terrifying, consuming thought that they may never accomplish anything, that they will grow old and have lived for naught.
How awful! devastating. How pathetic, really? That’s all? That’s the problem? Oh but it is, isn’t it, it’s what you and I think about. It’s what we sit contemplating after a few beers in a dark room listening to Cat Stevens. Right, don’t you do that too? It’s embarrassing and accurate.
I want to hate this film because I don’t want to relate to it.
Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai Ming-liang, 1993)
Saw this early gem at the Siskel this evening. Blown-out fluorescent Taipei, rainy streets and motorbikes, and that roller rink! Reminded me of Wong Kar Wai’s As Tears Go By but with the long takes and Tsai’s sneaky bits of subtle humor.
The only Tsai Ming-liang film I’d seen prior was 2009’s esoteric Visage, which left me spellbound and speechless. The nouvelle-vague-homage featured direct nods to his early work. Lee Kang-sheng, the student spying on the band of outsiders, appears as the director character in 2009’s film (as well as many other of Tsai’s work). Also the flooding kitchen reoccurs, a device I was delighted to see repeated. I wish they’d put Visage on netflix, but alas…
Rebels reaffirmed my love for Tsai Ming-liang, I definitely need to watch the rest of his films (and finally stop getting him confused with Hou Hsiao-hsien)
video: trailer
The Holy Mountain, 1973 (dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
By frwo
