No movie tonight, though I did try to watch one called "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night"(2015). It was recommended to me in a library search for horror films, and is the story of a young female vampire who happens to be Persian. One immediate draw of the film that hooked me right away was the ultra sharp black and white photography, which gives the film a noirish quality. I guess this is digital b&w, though I didn't know there was such a thing, and it really looks great, with black tones like coal, soft textured whites and silvery grey shades in between. The female director Ana Lily Amanpour really knows what she is doing with the camera and her use of sound. She creates nighttime atmosphere, dark and dangerous. Though this is a Persian film, I got the sense right away that it wasn't shot in Iran. The locations looked like California Boondocks, and sure enough, when I IMDB'ed the movie I saw the location was Bakersfield. So this is not a movie from Iran, but one that is made by second generation Persians from England and California.
The 30 minutes I watched had Atmosphere Galore and a hypnotic pace. There was a lot going for it, including a menacing pimp/drug dealer character that, as an American, you wouldn't think to associate with Iranian culture. Here in America, we are given the impression that the cultures of the Middle East are ascetic, but then if you've seen the animated movie "Persepolis" from a few years ago, the female protagonist wears a hajib by day but blasts Iron Maiden in her headphones by night, at home in her bedroom. So go figure.
In "Girl Walks Home" the female characters do worse than listen to heavy metal. I only watched the first 30 minutes, in which the main characters on screen before the appearance of the vampire are the pimp/drug dealer, his prostitute, and a middle aged heroin addict who owes the dealer a lot of money.
The problem with the movie, for me, wasn't the culture shock, but - the Usual Suspect once again - the lack of story. This is a technically stunning film, with competent acting and style in spades.
Unfortunately, not much seemed to be happening after 30 minutes, and so I bailed out.
I need more than style. I need story, first and foremost. I watch too many classic films that do have story to force myself to sit through one that does not, no matter how good it looks. I may give the film another chance in a few days. I've got it checked out from the Libe til next Wednesday. Don't hold me to any promises, however.
After I pulled the movie, I watched Episode 11 of "Twin Peaks". Man, are things ever getting weird now. At eleven hours in, I think it is safe to say that the 2017 "Twin Peaks" is a horror story, full of violence and very unusual science fiction that has to do - seemingly - with the Dirty and Frightening Homeless Man character type that Lynch created for "Mulholland Drive". The sequences in which these characters (several of them) appear are so strange that only Lynch could explain their meaning, though in "Mulholland Drive" a large part of the function of the Homeless Man character seems to be the anxiety he generates in anyone who would unwittingly discover him behind his dumpster.
But in "Twin Peaks" (2017), the similar Homeless Characters are far less benign.
It is a scary show, full of criminals and dopers and maniacs and people on edge, and all the supernatural stuff I've been mentioning. It is NOT your father's Twin Peaks, which was folksy even in it's weirdness and modified violence.
We live in strange times, and I guess that David Lynch - a great artist and man of intelligence - is making a comment on modern life with his abrupt change in narrative, to focus on the crude, psychotic and brutal.
Strange times indeed, and can't believe that I am going to see "Judas Priest" (quote unquote) in two nights, and I'm not very excited about it. I'm gonna go, and I like the new album, but there comes a time in life when things have to Stand For Something.
I must ask : what is a band? Is it it's members, or is it it's music? Or some crazy in between combination of both?
I know that in classical music, nothing is played in concert by Beethoven, or Bach or Mozart. That's because those guys have been dead for a long time, and also their music was written for ensembles or orchestras to begin with. They weren't "guys in bands".
So then : how many members of any given band are vital to that band being That Band?
I guess it varies, depending on the band and the point of view of the fan who is answering the question.
Judas Priest, from what I am recently seeing online, has a lot of newbie fans who know nothing of Glenn Tipton and KK Downing, two legends of rock music. The newcomers only know The Metal God Rob Halford, and while I love Rob too (who doesn't), he was, and is, not the entirety of what made Judas Priest so great.
A band is A Band because of the chemistry of the members who initially made it great.
Band members can sometimes be changed with no ill effect, but most often they cannot, no matter how competent the musicians doing the replacing.
Otherwise, why not have four shredders form a new version of The Beatles?
"Hell Yeah"! say The Newbies. Fans with no concept of a band's history.
Well, I will go on Sunday night, cause I already paid big bucks for my ticket before the Glenn Tipton announcement was made. I promise I won't be a curmudgeon, even though I won't be seeing the real Judas Priest.
All I ask, and hope for in the future, is that somebody out there will care about authenticity, and if something isn't authentic anymore, just shut it down.
Don't fake stuff.
Don't substitute style for story.
Tell the truth in life, or at least try to.
God Bless Judas Priest. /////
My Cinematheque movie recommendation for tonight comes from our second retrospective in Spring 2010, when we watched the films of Federico Fellini. One of my favorites of his is a film called "Nights Of Cabiria", starring the incredible Giulietta Masina, who was Fellini's wife.
Check it out if you are feeling adventurous. It's a tremendous movie.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment