Hunger

Hunger (2008)

It has taken me a surprising amount of time to bring myself to the point of writing about this film. I feel like I still have to give it time to settle, that speaking about it now might not reach the full extent of my silent rebellion pushed up by the content like a reluctant spring after a long winter. 

The only thing I can bring myself to write about thus far, was one of the opening scenes. I feel like this scene made the most impact, though not the most disturbing or heavy, it set a tone that was far from expected. Having never heard of the subject the film was based on or hearing about the atrocities committed at the time, there was a sad quiet mixture of horrible beauty that put this film at a distance, and almost pushed it too far away to take in.

The scene that really punched me in the gut, that stirred emotion almost as strong as (pardon the conpairison) when I first read "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was when the criminal was in the room with the guards of the prison. Dressed in normal attire, scared and defiant, he wishes to keep his clothes, and is marked somewhat as uncooperative. That's when I was hit with a wave of nausea, while he was forced without words or orders, to strip. I can not say if it was the way it was filmed I could almost say was boarderline genius, or Purly the acting in general, but suddenly I was in this world, and it was terrible.

The slow agony of each button comming undone, was like watching a tragedy that you couldn't look away from. It was like being dragged into a world that you wonder if it would have been better to be ignorant of. The silence was deafening, the surrender of layer after layer was painful. 

And finally when he stood bare before the guards I wanted to weep for what he been lost, without even the smallest inclining why, or warning of. He was alone in a room full of people, immediately debased, no longer human, but a prisoner, just that fast. 

He was now a subject. I felt their gaze as If they were staring at a science experiment with such extreme indifference and thinly veiled disgust that it becomes tangible. 

The art of film in a Music Video

I feel like this is a great example of what we touched on briefly in class the other day. This is one of my favorite music videos (if not my favorite) when it comes to telling a story.


Video directed by J.A. Bayona and Sergio Sánc
Music by Keane on the album Strangeland
"disconnected"


http://vimeo.com/42554729

I wish I could accurately put words to the first time I viewed this video. It created an unexpected narrative that, though unexpected, was a story you were connected to almost immediately through the implied relationship. the combination of music and the art of film is more obvious through the "scary movie feel" and that is exciting to me. 
Tell me what you think.

The list

1. Streets of fire 

2. Princess mononoke

3. Hackers

4. The usual suspects 

5. Moulin Rouge

6. Trainspotting

7. Equilibrium 

8. Girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish version)

9. Hellboy 2 the golden army

10. Amelie

11. LOTR return of the king

12. The matrix

13. Sunshine

14. Pans labyrinth 

15. The last samurai

16. The shadow

17. tombstone

18. no country for old men 

19. Basic

20. The Crow

The Film Journal

I want to preface this journal with the admission that, by no means, am I a critic.
I am an empty vessel, and rarely have much to say about anything.
The challenge for me in this assignment, is honestly going to be to develop an opinion and vocabulary larger than "I like this because..."

Fight club

On the topic of Fight Club, I am always pleased. From the soundtrack to the scene sequence, it truly is a revolutionary film. I guess the only downside i find is all of the people saying that they "know what it means" they truly can see the millions of elements that mean so much to society. And the argument begins.

In this, i guess I'm going to speak on the elements of the film that i truly enjoyed. Not what I think they mean, or a profound cosmic realization. Just what I thought was interesting.

First, I want to start by saying this was not my first time viewing Fight Club, which makes the differences that you are content not to question in the first viewing, a little more obvious.
The first thing that I have to admire is the almost immediate relationship that is developed with our narrator. Through internal and external dialogue, I felt drawn in; I wanted to know what exactly was going on. Questions were erected that were easy to ignore, but picked at my mind. The screen shots of shadowed figures, maybe Tyler, maybe Marla.
I enjoyed his dialogue, somewhat dark, powerful, and cynical.
"Every night I died." It’s an emotional dilemma and addiction that he is content to have.
His priorities are confusing; you don't know outside of his consumer lifestyle what his purpose is. Then with the introduction of Tyler and fight club, I found myself excited if not only because there is a sense of direction for his life.

The part of this movie that I can't even begin to comprehend but somehow always draws me back in a doubled way is the fight scene between jared leto and our narrator. Mainly because the rules are broken. He taps out but is ignored; the narrator beats a man out of a jealousy he cannot yet comprehend as being jealous of the boy's tie to Tyler.
But is it only that, can we trust the narrator’s viewpoint enough to assume what we have seen is correct? Did he truly have no recollection of him being Tyler when Tyler knew the whole time that he was the narrator as well? Or did he?

This movie leaves me with questions that, I feel like if were answered, would take away the glamour of what I see. The mystery of fight club is what impacted me the most. At the end, there is more you don't know than when you began.