Antonioni

[vershy versh]

 

[vershy versh]

I changed the subject to you watching Story of a Love Affair which is a far superior film.

"Paola is a young, beautiful woman married to a wealthy entrepreneur. She meets her former lover Guido after seven years, but their relationship is marked by tragic events."

Riveting.

 

[vershy versh]

And it's in black and white! No beautiful colours! Follow your eyes indeed.

 

[...]

"Paola is a young, beautiful woman married to a wealthy entrepreneur. She meets her former lover Guido after seven years, but their relationship is marked by tragic events."

Riveting.

 

[...]

Ignoramus.

 

[...]

Antonioni films are like a slower Made in Chelsea

 

[vershy versh]

I've never actually seen Made in Chelsea. I know you're a big fan though.

 

[...]

Yeah, although I'm more of a fan of Selling Sunset now

 

[...]

I also have a soft spot for The Real Housewives of Potomac

 

[vershy versh]

I remember you singing the praises of Deteriorating Housewives of the Costa del Sol.

 

[...]

You could probably do a worthwhile anthropological survey comparing the tribal behaviors of all the various Real Housewives series.

By far the most repulsive was Cheshire.

 

[vershy versh]

 

[vershy versh]

Seen Red Desert?

I have now.

 

[sus]

Watched the first hour or so of The Passenger last night; sat there halfway between bored and intrigued and time seemed to both lag and fly by.

It's been years since I saw Blowup and I can't remember whether it had the same effect, but it's clearly deliberate. There's so much space between the dialogue, so little sound and music, so many shots of the desert. It reminds me of DeLillo's Point Omega. There's a thread running through that book about what slowing things down does to your perception of them and how the desert can do exactly that.

Been rewatching Lawrence of Arabia and the effect is the same

 

[Murphy]

Yes, sand

as much as I love Passenger it lacks the huge swathes of sand vistas LoA managed to install in the mind

 

[sus]

I think Red Desert and L'Avventura are my favorite, and then Blow-Up and L'Eclisse and La Notte, but I think you probably prefer whichever of the L' trilogy you see first. Zabriskie Point has grown on me a lot, I love the fly-over scene where he's in the plane and she's in the car below. @version what did you think of the quail eggs scene? I thought the pier/fog/shack with the ghostly ship appearing was gorgeous

 

[sus]

Yes, sand

as much as I love Passenger it lacks the huge swathes of sand vistas LoA managed to install in the mind

The best is when a rider appears on the distance and for a few seconds you're not sure if it's a mirage, it can take a full minute to transform into a clear figure.

 

[sus]

 

[vershy versh]

I think Red Desert and L'Avventura are my favorite, and then Blow-Up and L'Eclisse and La Notte, but I think you probably prefer whichever of the L' trilogy you see first. Zabriskie Point has grown on me a lot, I love the fly-over scene where he's in the plane and she's in the car below. @version what did you think of the quail eggs scene? I thought the pier/fog/shack with the ghostly ship appearing was gorgeous

Haven't seen the trilogy, just L'Avventura. Of the others, I've seen Blowup, The Passenger and Red Desert. Red Desert's been my favourite, then The Passenger, then L'Avventura, then Blowup, which I wasn't really keen on apart from the ending.

That scene on the pier reminded me of Dracula / Nosferatu and the Count's unmanned ship ghosting into port. The other ship sequences were haunting too. They're always sliding past that rectangular window in Vitti's house, and one even seems to pass through a forest when she sees it on the other side of some trees.

I rewatched Blue Collar the other night and the two made for a decent thematic pairing. That Bresson I watched a week or two ago, The Devil, Probably, came to mind too. All three films have their characters wrestling with industrialisation and what it does to a person, mentally and physically. The Bresson had more of a focus on pollution, but the other two are in the belly of the beast. Clanking machinery, billowing smoke. People being ground up and spat out by the new environment.

The factory scenes at the start of the Antonioni also reminded me of the way Herzog's shot some of his documentaries. They share this alien framing of people, factory workers become mysterious figures on another planet doing strange things with strange tools.

 

[woops]

the way Herzog's shot some of his documentaries.

The best is when a rider appears on the distance and for a few seconds you're not sure if it's a mirage, it can take a full minute to transform into a clear figure.

in herzog's fata morgana he sets out explicitly to film mirages. this is one of his strangest films