56.
WHITE DOG, dir. SAMUEL FULLER, 1982
these films fill you with thought.
i've started where i should end.
begin again.
i've caught up (almost), have fi-na-lly watched
the spirit of the beehive
and
the seventh continent
(yes, i was
that behind).
if it is a choice between dinner + the spirit of the beehive,
take a break from technically edible food
a n d w a t c h,
this film nourishes you so much
you'll forget you forgot to eat.
it is one to own,
i could watch it a billion times more.
i've yet to see a haneke film i dislike,
something about the way he tells
the stories he tells
fills something in me
that wants stories to be told to me in that way.
quiet and loud,
things are told and other things are held back,
the right things given and the right things kept hush.
something about this one was not as precise feeling as other films of his
that i have seen
but there were so many moments
and ideas --
still it holds so much and unfolds more and more
once the screen is shut off.
these are quite different films
but for me they are the same here,
perhaps this is an effect of having seen them pretty much back to back:
they both,
like probably any film one could claim to like or to love,
tell us something
about who we are.
(i am having deja vu, i think i have been here before, sat at this keyboard before, said this before).
yes:
they tell us somehting about who we are.
well, they half tell it.
it is not spoken loud,
it is whispered,
or not really even that:
it is spoken to us in a language we don't quite know
but we can decipher a few words
and the words we can extract
are thrilling words, new worlds in words.
they are intriguing words or fragments and we want to get the rest,
so we pay close close rapt attention
hoping to get it in full
even if we never can
because some things can never fully be translated or understood,
like life and things that happen,
and this is something that is uncomfortable but also something we want to feel.
or i do, i should say.
they are both concrete and vague
the way things really are
the way things happen and aren't understood when they happen
and maybe never are.
sometimes movies try to explain so much
when all you remembered at the time
was the color of the curtains
and that you had a nose bleed.
end at the end:
these are films that fill you with thoughts.
they are too, too, too good for this little blurb.
(looking forward to white dog, still need to re-watch withnail + i)
p.s. yo! have we been doing film orgy for over a year?!
