WEEK 21

21. HEAVEN CAN WAIT, dir. WARREN BEATTY & BUCK HENRY, 1978

----
happy 72nd birthday, warren beatty.

**very, very disappointingly: netflix is still listing a "short wait" for satan's brew, and my lonely & single local video store was no help at all. they had various satan-related titles, but, alas, not this one, not even close. i hope to be able to watch the film this week, and belatedly post my response. the first time this has happened, and hopefully the last!

WEEK 20

20. SATANSBRATEN, dir. RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER, 1976

when a woman ascends the stairs featured two japanese actors i've realized i like a lot: tatsuya nakadai (also seen in the face of another) and ganjiro nakamura (also seen in an autumn afternoon). i love these men. also, there was something in the way this film was edited--these abrupt transitions to conversations already taking place--that i enjoyed throughout. a good film.

i will admit to mining a certain other blogger's aesthetic in selecting this week's movie, satansbraten, though i am also generally curious to see more fassbinder (and especially a fassbinder comedy). let's watch.

WEEK 19

19. WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS, dir. MIKIO NARUSE, 1960

-------
when one fights nature
one fights
himself
make the sand work for you, not against you
when the earth moves
it moves us
as well
when we fight blindly
the desires of dirt, water, sand and fire
we fight eachother and
ourselves
as well.
you can't fight it!
when you work with it
you learn who you are and
you become
more than you were before
and this world of dust is elevated,
too;
when you fight it
you make it evil
and you are reduced to nothing more than a bug
pinned to paper or
confined to a jar.
woman in the dunes
blew blew blew me
away.
i am still lost in just the visuals,
from the breathtaking opening credits of
black lines and black lines, through to the end,
let alone the music, things said,
and everything everything everything else.
if i was a gymnast
i would do somersaults and backflips
to see this movie
again
and again
and again.
--
living here is like building a house
on water when a boat
makes more sense...
it has to be a house or nothing
at all...
--
when i rented woman in the dunes from the video store
when a woman ascends the stairs was sitting
beside it on the shelf
and caught my eye.
similar titles.
this time the city
will be the star,
and how will it be different
from the sand?

WEEK 18

18. WOMAN IN THE DUNES, dir. HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA, 1964
_____

i've been meaning to see this film for a long time.

WEEK 17

17. SUSANA, dir. LUIS BUNUEL, 1951

_____

mondo cane made me feel like i was reading a
painfully outdated anthropology text
full of absurd exoticization
that makes you roll your eyes
feel sick
and want to cover yourself
in horror and shame.
i hated it.
ridiculous scenes of "crazed natives"
juxtaposed with the absurd but harmlessly painted
customs of white people in "civil society" --
the drunk germans didn't look their best,
but they were also not
breastfeeding pigs, missing limbs, or torturing whales.
it is one thing to show things as they are, without interruption or judgement, another to articulate this as the intention like a disclaimer to then be circumvented in order to shock and awe.
the turtle dying on the beach while the camera idly recorded was probably the only time this dual goal was actually accomplished, and probably the only moment i felt i was watching something perhaps worth my time, even as i wanted to sheild my eyes.
it's often painful to watch the truth,
but even more painful to watch the truth be manipulated
into disgusting lies.
this movie did nothing
for me.

i have high hopes, however, for susana.