vershy versh
Well-known member
The cover's awful.
Tarkovsky
- Thread starter Woebot
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IdleRich
IdleRich
The film is noteworthy for being kinda crazy - the Wachowskis had lost all their pull after the Matrix sequels and had to do a kickstarter to raise money for the film basically. It's really an odd film with loads of people playing several roles in different times, many of them totally inappropriate, such as Hugh Grant as a post-apocalyptic dreadlocked warrior, Benedict Cumberbatch as a Korean(!) and Tom Hanks as an Irish mob guy (I think that's right). I wouldn't exactly say the film is high art.
Someone needs to photoshop in a speech bubble saying "Er, um, I, I say"
Someone needs to photoshop in a speech bubble saying "Er, um, I, I say"
IdleRich
IdleRich
But David Mitchell wrote all these books which do have odd and recurring themes... and then suddenly in the Bone Clocks he basically explains that there is a kind of massive battle between two groups of immortals, one good and one evil, and that loads of the characters in the other books are incarnations or avatars of these people. It's very odd cos it doesn't contradict anything in the original books (and they do all have hints of magic realism or immortality or whatever) but it makes you see them all in a different light. And you think, did he always have that planned, or did he just very cleverly retcon it now or what? It's a really unusual move unlike anything else I've read.
I really recommend this one if you want to start somewhere, it feels different from others and it's a truly enjoyable book
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en.wikipedia.org
I really recommend this one if you want to start somewhere, it feels different from others and it's a truly enjoyable book
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - Wikipedia
Russian prisons in general are known as ‘the zone’ i think eg
Theres a book i had a while ago about russian prison tattoos that mentioned it
fuel-design.com
Zone - Prison in Russia Documentary Photography Project
We have created an additional closed World in Russia - it is a Prison. We don't want to know anything about these people, they are closing in gray and cruel areas and we just want to forget about them.
your-photography.com
Theres a book i had a while ago about russian prison tattoos that mentioned it
Photographs | FUEL
fuel-design.com
vershy versh
Well-known member
Was going to rewatch Stalker last night, opted for Mandy instead as it was a bit shorter then heard from my brother he watched Stalker for the first time last night. Weird.
IdleRich
IdleRich
A couple of days ago we finally got around to watching Long Day's Journey Into Night - the 2020 film not the adaptation of the play. It was a frustrating experience cos we kept being interrupted and had problems with the link, plus it's annoying to know that the final hour long dream sequence is supposed to be three dimensional and you can't help but feel as though you're missing out.
Anyway, I mention it here because the director Bi Gan has this quote on his wikipedia page
But in this film there is a scene where the main guy and this girl he's looking for (or is it the girl who is helping him look - or even possibly his mother, and are they the same person anyway?) are sitting on a train staring at a table and as it goes along the table judders and slowly this glass slides across the table - with both characters just sort of staring at it expressionlessly as everyone does all the time - until finally it slides to the edge, topples for a sec, and then falls.
Although in this case the glass moves sort of diagonally instead relatives to the camera instead of straight towards it, it must be a homage to this scene you would think?
Anyway, I mention it here because the director Bi Gan has this quote on his wikipedia page
Actually the end bit makes sense cos his films are filled with characters who never seem to do anything.
But in this film there is a scene where the main guy and this girl he's looking for (or is it the girl who is helping him look - or even possibly his mother, and are they the same person anyway?) are sitting on a train staring at a table and as it goes along the table judders and slowly this glass slides across the table - with both characters just sort of staring at it expressionlessly as everyone does all the time - until finally it slides to the edge, topples for a sec, and then falls.
Although in this case the glass moves sort of diagonally instead relatives to the camera instead of straight towards it, it must be a homage to this scene you would think?
vershy versh
Well-known member
Watched Annihilation last night. Thought it was a bit slow in places, but still thinking about it. Love the soundtrack, particularly when Portman confronts the alien. And it looks stunning; all the mutating flora and fauna, the colours of "The Shimmer".
I liked that they didn't explain too much. You're told it's refracting everything, including human DNA, and that it's just changing things. It isn't necessarily peaceful or hostile. Once it shifted to a humanoid form I was a little disappointed as I liked how it initially appeared as that strange ball of energy, totally alien.
I couldn't get a decent look at the book Portman was reading in one of the flashbacks, so looked it up and it's a book on a woman called Henrietta Lacks whose cancer cells were kept without her permission and which are now an immortalized human cell line.
(Apparently Adam Curtis' The Way of All Flesh is about her, so I'll have to bump it up the watch list.)
en.wikipedia.org
That all that's left of her's her cancer's similar to the woman's cries for help coming from the bear that killed her. One of the characters says something about imagining that's all you leave behind, your cries of pain, fear etc. Henrietta Lacks is dead except for the thing that killed and retains some part of her.
Cancer seems to be a huge part of the film in general. The alien's warping and mutating everything around it, the psychologist is terminal, one of the other women lost her daughter to leukemia. The team's made up of specialists who cover various areas that can be mapped to it too: psychology, biology, physics etc. Also, they all respond differently to it. One of the women's just taken away and killed, one lashes out at the others, one just accepts it and peacefully turns into some sort of plant, one confronts it head on and lets it take her and one fights it and survives, albeit changed. There's clearly another layer where the whole thing's a metaphor for grief, personal growth etc too.
I'm not fussed about reading the books as they sound drastically different to the film, but I'll probably watch the film again.
I liked that they didn't explain too much. You're told it's refracting everything, including human DNA, and that it's just changing things. It isn't necessarily peaceful or hostile. Once it shifted to a humanoid form I was a little disappointed as I liked how it initially appeared as that strange ball of energy, totally alien.
I couldn't get a decent look at the book Portman was reading in one of the flashbacks, so looked it up and it's a book on a woman called Henrietta Lacks whose cancer cells were kept without her permission and which are now an immortalized human cell line.
(Apparently Adam Curtis' The Way of All Flesh is about her, so I'll have to bump it up the watch list.)
Henrietta Lacks - Wikipedia
That all that's left of her's her cancer's similar to the woman's cries for help coming from the bear that killed her. One of the characters says something about imagining that's all you leave behind, your cries of pain, fear etc. Henrietta Lacks is dead except for the thing that killed and retains some part of her.
Cancer seems to be a huge part of the film in general. The alien's warping and mutating everything around it, the psychologist is terminal, one of the other women lost her daughter to leukemia. The team's made up of specialists who cover various areas that can be mapped to it too: psychology, biology, physics etc. Also, they all respond differently to it. One of the women's just taken away and killed, one lashes out at the others, one just accepts it and peacefully turns into some sort of plant, one confronts it head on and lets it take her and one fights it and survives, albeit changed. There's clearly another layer where the whole thing's a metaphor for grief, personal growth etc too.
I'm not fussed about reading the books as they sound drastically different to the film, but I'll probably watch the film again.
vershy versh
Well-known member
That bit where they watch the footage of Oscar Isaac gutting one of his men and his organs or some sort of giant worm swimming around inside him was absolutely fucked. Way more unsettling than the bear that people seem to fixate on.
Murphy
cat malogen
Watched Annihilation last night. Thought it was a bit slow in places, but still thinking about it. Love the soundtrack, particularly when Portman confronts the alien. And it looks stunning; all the mutating flora and fauna, the colours of "The Shimmer".
I liked that they didn't explain too much. You're told it's refracting everything, including human DNA, and that it's just changing things. It isn't necessarily peaceful or hostile. Once it shifted to a humanoid form I was a little disappointed as I liked how it initially appeared as that strange ball of energy, totally alien.
I couldn't get a decent look at the book Portman was reading in one of the flashbacks, so looked it up and it's a book on a woman called Henrietta Lacks whose cancer cells were kept without her permission and which are now an immortalized human cell line.
(Apparently Adam Curtis' The Way of All Flesh is about her, so I'll have to bump it up the watch list.)
Henrietta Lacks - Wikipedia
That all that's left of her's her cancer's similar to the woman's cries for help coming from the bear that killed her. One of the characters says something about imagining that's all you leave behind, your cries of pain, fear etc. Henrietta Lacks is dead except for the thing that killed and retains some part of her.
Cancer seems to be a huge part of the film in general. The alien's warping and mutating everything around it, the psychologist is terminal, one of the other women lost her daughter to leukemia. The team's made up of specialists who cover various areas that can be mapped to it too: psychology, biology, physics etc. Also, they all respond differently to it. One of the women's just taken away and killed, one lashes out at the others, one just accepts it and peacefully turns into some sort of plant, one confronts it head on and lets it take her and one fights it and survives, albeit changed. There's clearly another layer where the whole thing's a metaphor for grief, personal growth etc too.
I'm not fussed about reading the books as they sound drastically different to the film, but I'll probably watch the film again.
Don't know if i fully agree with every point below, but, drum-roll......
novelist and critic Elvia Wilk sketches a theory of the “New Weird,” a genre of fiction that’s not quite sci-fi, not quite fantasy. Based on the notion of “weird” offered by Mark Fisher in his book The Weird and the Eerie, Wilk’s theory concerns fiction that uses unexplained events and strange occurrences to de-naturalize our sense of reality. These events suggest that there is far more to reality than we can explain or comprehend. To explore this alienating effect, Wilk traces a common motif that appears in multiple New Weird stories: “The fantasy of woman-becoming-plant.” Check out an excerpt below.
An inversion of Blodeuwedd
Blodeuedd | Fairy Queen, Goddess, Enchantress | Britannica
Blodeuedd, in the Welsh collection of stories called the Mabinogion, a beautiful girl fashioned from flowers as a wife for Lleu Llaw Gyffes (see Lugus). Lleu’s mother had put a curse on him that he would have no wife, and Blodeuedd was created to subvert the curse; she was unfaithful, however, and
www.britannica.com
entertainment
Well-known member
Solaris has some great bits as well but Stalker is the best of his no doubt.
In his book he talks about people writing him scornful letters after seeing Mirror, calling him a bad communist and all these things. I recommend reading his thoughts on art and cinema. He's a tender, thoughtful, curious person.
In his book he talks about people writing him scornful letters after seeing Mirror, calling him a bad communist and all these things. I recommend reading his thoughts on art and cinema. He's a tender, thoughtful, curious person.
entertainment
Well-known member
What is it about Stalker, though, what makes it enamate intensity like it does? It's beautiful and philosophical and all that but that doesn't begin to cover it does it?
Watching it feels like taking a point of no return step forwards in human consciousness.
Watching it feels like taking a point of no return step forwards in human consciousness.
entertainment
Well-known member
I got nothing from Mirror. Have to re-watch in a more receptive state.