Week 12 Film: Stalker

I loved Stalker. I feel a little guilty liking more than anything in an avant-garde film class because it had the most engaging narrative of anything we’ve watched.  The fact that it was a journey of sorts held my curiosity because I knew there was an end goal, almost like a structuralist film. But I think the narrative being so intriguing helps to keep our attention for the two and a half hours so we can appreciate all the artistic choices that Tarkovsky makes.

His use of perspective was very creative. The contrast between the extreme wide shots and extreme close ups was always surprising—at the beginning I became used to seeing the three characters from afar and allowing them to blend together. But then we got lingering close-ups and I could see the distinct character in each of their faces. These extremes almost felt like I was playing a computer games with set views. But I don’t mean to diminish these choices by saying that. It leant itself well the adventuresome quest feel of the film.

I actually found this to be one of the more transcendental films we’ve seen in several ways. The sequence where the camera moves up a sepia-tone stream, only to end up on the same character we departed from, was extremely meditative. It felt like a separate part of the film in that I fell into a trance while watching it and forgot the larger narrative that it was a part of. It was also mind blowing to end up where we started after traveling in one non-circular direction.

It also had a very transcendental ending. I felt at first that it could’ve ended when the three men were still in the zone, but because we see the stalker rejoin his family and have almost a normal familial experience (when they roamed the beach), it seemed like he was content with the bleakness of his life.

Week 11 Films

For some reason, I found it difficult to pinpoint my reaction to La Jette. While I was watching it, I felt pretty neutral towards it. It's possible that with its sparse imagery and narration I was lulled into a calm, hypnotic state. The story was engaging but a little confusing to me. The ending certainly had an impact though – I think because that kind of a twist appealed to my comfort with mainstream narrative films.

I really enjoyed the portion of the film where the couple goes to the museum with the stuffed animals. Many of those shots were stunning – particularly one where their bodies were obscured behind a screen and a bird hung overhead.

I had a more vivid reaction to Sans Soleil. The filming felt both very intimate and very distant. Marker really captured the Lost in Translation feeling of being a Westerner abroad. The filmmaker was in awe of the culture, in the midst of it and yet wholly separate.

The film takes on a very melancholy feeling, which is appropriate for its name. I think part of the reason for this is that we as an audience seem to be floating through the cultures without an anchor – it feels very lonely. Marker also focused on some of the disturbing yet banal features of a large city – the superficial ads that go abandoned and unnoticed.

Also, more than any other documentary I’ve seen, I genuinely wondered about the lives of the people on camera. I think since I couldn’t assume what their lives were like outside of when they were being filmed, I became very curious about their everyday.

Week 10 Film

To The Wonder - Terrence Malick

I really enjoyed being able to watch a narrative avant-garde film this week. Sometimes with the non-narrative films it's hard for me to even understand what to analyze. I found it helpful to have the narrative structure to bolster my viewing experience and allow me to relish the deviations from this narration.

However, at times I think I was so distracted by the beauty and feel of the filmmaking that I missed clear narrative plot points that other classmates picked up on.  For instance, I didn't read it as being chronologically sound because I enjoyed floating through it.

While I was watching, I admired Malick's ability to obscure much of what was going on, and for me to wholeheartedly accept that I was going to be a little confused for much of the film. Maybe I was a little more confused than I was supposed to be.

I loved the grand, sweeping quality of the film. It felt very spiritual the way Malick played with light and constantly revolving shots. After our class discussion I understand a little better that the film is about something higher, rather than being grounded in the characters themselves.

But I did enjoy Malick's shots that visually expressed the feelings of the characters. The distance between Neil and Marina (using their names brings them down to earth a little too easily) was conveyed beautifully in shots where we could see them on different levels of their house but they couldn't see each other, and walked off the screen unsatisfied.

It was interesting when Marina briefly held the power after coming clean to Neil and she was much larger in the foreground, dominating his small figure in the background.
I was also stunned by the dark, dollhouse feeling of Rachel McAdam's character wandering through her empty house after Neil leaves her.

Malick was notably very effective in conveying the paradise of love, by allowing us to watch the couple in their tender moments (in Paris especially) and feel like we were a part of the experience due to the unconventional way they were framed. Allowing us to see their arms embracing rather than their faces captured what we would be observing were we actually in their situation.

Week 9 Films

I found Fogline to have the biggest effect on me as a transcendental film. I felt it made the best use of timing to evoke a certain mood. When it began, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to view it. Since there was no moving along of footage to follow, it was much like standing in front of a painting for an extended period of time. When you endure a certain amount of time, the subtleties of the piece start to stand out. By the end of the film I felt very tranquil, so it was successful as a meditative film.

While I was in awe of many of the shots from New York Portrait #3 for their use of scale, contrast, and composition, I didn't feel an overall effect of the film by the end of it. It seems like it was transcendental less for its impact on the viewer and more for revealing the stunning in the mundane.

I felt somewhat similarly about the films of Dorsky. His manner of abstracting nature and city life was incredible. I especially liked Compline's use of obscurity and darkness. Though the three were fairly similar, the later two films felt more focused than Arbor Vitae. For some reasons I found it off-putting when Dorsky mixed shots of nature with those of people in the city in Arbor Vitae, but it was successful in Winter because he maintained a similar tone throughout. But, though I appreciated all the visuals individually, by the end of all three films, I didn't feel differently from how I felt before I watched them.

Mother and Son had more of a complete, sweeping effect. The colors were gorgeous and I liked that it was difficult to distinguish at times the real from what looked painted. The opening shot looked so much like a still photograph, due in part to the figures not moving much. I enjoyed the gentleness and slowness of the actions and voices of the characters. It matched the tone of the whole piece.