LACONIA, or: Thinking Through Film

LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (cover) / CINEMA sign in Cluj

I'm a gusher, which makes it difficult for me to sit down and write a coherent, cohesive text about the things I love or to even present at length the reasons for which I love that certain book, film, etc. I suppose that's perfectly evident from my latest text for Projectorhead. (Many thanks to Anuj Malhotra.)

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I have read LACONIA twice and could read it many times more as I know that with each read there will be smth new to enthuse over, a new connection to be made. Masha Tupitsyn's writing is so insightful and powerful and addictive. Yes, addictive. Thanks to her blog, her writing is now part of my daily reading. Also: I cannot wait for her next book. Meanwhile, I got Beauty Talk & Monsters, which is a collection of stories told through movies. I'll just have to finish a bunch of others books before I can give it my undivided attention.

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"Thinking through film." I cannot imagine any other way of thinking. I don't know any other way of thinking. Part of why I love LACONIA so much is that it validates this thinking through film.

+ MT's twitter: @lifeasweshowit
+ MT's blog: Love Dog

London 1948

Walk Tall (short) (Kate Sullivan, 2011)
- watch it at The Space -

July 30

Le réalisateur Chris Marker est mort aujourd'hui, le 30 juillet, à l'âge de 91 ans.

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Antonioni and Bergman also passed away on July 30, both in 2007.

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My TIFF: La Fée

La Fée (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon & Bruno Romy, 2011)

Out of the nine films I've seen so far (see my Twitter), plus a Méliès retrospective, plus a short, La Fée is the one I've enjoyed the most.

La Fée beares similarities with Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre (2011) (La Fée is also set in Le Havre, but of course, the similarities don't stop there). The comparisons to Tati are not far-fetched either. Speaking of Tati, at the beginning of the film one might think Fiona's magic is the type of magic that Sylvain Chomet's illusionniste has. That illusion is soon dispersed (see what I did there?) by a flying man, and later on by the sudden pregnancy. That left me somewhat disappointed. I wish they had stuck to Fiona's false fairy dust, yet genuine Amélie-like magic.

The next and final screening of La Fée is on June 9, at 8:15 PM, at Odeon Cineplex - 6.

Let's dance! #6

Paul (Romain Duris) sad-dances to Kim Wilde's Cambodia in Dans Paris (Christophe Honoré, 2006)

Îngheţată asortată #8

Higher Ground (Vera Farmiga, 2011)

Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, 2006)

Ashes

Ashes (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2012)

{ Ashes (20 min.) is playing at MUBI.com. }

Know Your History of Cannes

It's that time of the year when I feel like I should be posting sth on Cannes. Here's the thing though: except for the closing ceremony, which I do try to watch live every year, I don't really follow the reports and the reviews from Cannes because I can't stand getting all excited about a film and then having to wait a year, or maybe even more, to finally see it.

However, I do like watching the occasional archival video. And right now, ina.fr has sth even better: a game. At which I suck. Télé Top Chrono tests your knowledge of the history of the Cannes Film Festival. You're basically shown six videos and you have to guess the year they aired as fast as possible. Now, I'm really bad at this, and it's not just that I don't know the history of Cannes. I mean, I don't even remember in what years Mungiu and Porumboiu won their awards, and those were years when I paid extra-attention to this festival. Anyways, the reason why you might want to play this game is that it's a fun way of discovering videos that tell the story of Cannes.

I've already played two rounds, and failed miserably. At first, I randomly guessed one correct year, but then I actually knew the correct year for a video. The video mentioned André Malraux, so I told myself it had to be 1959, the start of la Nouvelle Vague.

Later edit: Speaking of the history of Cannes: A Brief History of Women Nominated for Cannes' Palme d'Or. Emphasis on "brief".

Wes Anderson on Mondo Monda

From Wikipedia:

Monda's interviews for La Repubblica have gained a status all their own; he is known for asking deeply profound questions in a very direct manner, such as "Comment on Dostoyevsky’s assertion that 'If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted'." This style caught the attention of director Wes Anderson, who cast Monda as himself in the film The Life Aquatic and included a parody—a DVD extra called "Mondo Monda" in which Monda asks such questions of Anderson and his associate, co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach, to befuddled reactions.

Catching the Big Fish with David Lynch

The sixth issue of Projectorhead.

In which I awkwardly (and poorly) try to explain why I love Kartina Richardson's video essays.

Also: I try my hand at reviewing a film book again. The victim is: David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish: Consciousness, Meditation, Creativity.

Many thanks to Anuj Malhotra.