The WHF Film Club

[expat_mike]

Just watch it for what it is Mike, a black comedy set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

Every time that you mention that, I get reminded of your joke about JD and Bradford.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Just watch it for what it is Mike, a black comedy set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

Every time that you mention that, I get reminded of your joke about JD and Bradford.

I'm not sure he's forgiven me for that. It wasn't a joke anyway, Bradford is like that.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

I'd say an interesting comparison could be made between this and Visitor Q, as per our earlier discussion of whether that was a surrealist / fantasy film. In fact Delicatessen has a significantly more stylised look in all regards (exterior, interior, costume, makeup) but both still in some sense retain that 'real world situation' whilst presenting a hyperbolic, grotesque vision of reality.

I actually don't agree about Visitor Q being a surrealist/fanatsy piece. I think it's roots are very much in the reality of modern Japan, yes it's maybe exaggerated, but still rooted in that reality.

 

[BenLaw]

Given the discussion strapped and I have been having, your comments Mike on suspension of disbelief are interesting.

My mind keeps being drawn back to the fact that the last two films that I have watched, Pans Labyrinth and Delicatessen both require an element of suspension of disbelief, in order to enjoy them. And yet I have found Pans Labyrinth to be the most enjoyable film that I have watched for a long time, but in contrast I am feeling the need to be critical of certain aspects of Delicatessen . I am genuinely curious as to why I should feel so differently, about the two films. I feel the need to understand my mind - so I think that I shall have to watch Delicatessen again, to see if I get clues.

I know exactly what you mean: strapped was also seeing if I was able to rationalise my differing feelings for different stylised films and I made a pretty poor job. Sometimes a film just grabs you or it doesn't, and it's difficult to rationalise. Still, if you do rewatch it and get any further insight I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear it.

 

[BenLaw]

:O Whatever you do, watch it first! It helps to love the music, and it can take a few watches, but I think it's a brilliant film. Well worth watching just for the surreal animation, which is where the things who look the sewer underground men come in.

it's finishing in about 15 mins.

Cool, though I'm not sure you should be distracting yourself by posting here! The recommended method of viewing The Wall is through self-induced hallucinatory stupor.

 

[BenLaw]

I'd say an interesting comparison could be made between this and Visitor Q, as per our earlier discussion of whether that was a surrealist / fantasy film. In fact Delicatessen has a significantly more stylised look in all regards (exterior, interior, costume, makeup) but both still in some sense retain that 'real world situation' whilst presenting a hyperbolic, grotesque vision of reality.

I actually don't agree about Visitor Q being a surrealist/fanatsy piece. I think it's roots are very much in the reality of modern Japan, yes it's maybe exaggerated, but still rooted in that reality.

As per our discussion, I absolutely agree its roots are in reality. It's why I used the word hyperbolic, as it exaggerates these elements, sometimes to fairly extreme levels, sometimes to comic levels (the domestic violence springs to mind), but hyperbole nonetheless. My knowledge of French culture is similarly lacking as with Japanese (is this where Mike lives?) but I'm pretty sure there will be some there will be roots in real French culture, with hyperbole applied. The butcher is clearly a grotesque stereotype, and I'm guessing some commentary is being passed with the murderous postman. Pretty much all apocalypse scenarios are some sort of commentary on the ills of the pre-apocalyptic society, even something like Terminator, often in a much more obvious way than Delicatessen.

 

[BenLaw]

I'd say an interesting comparison could be made between this and Visitor Q, as per our earlier discussion of whether that was a surrealist / fantasy film. In fact Delicatessen has a significantly more stylised look in all regards (exterior, interior, costume, makeup) but both still in some sense retain that 'real world situation' whilst presenting a hyperbolic, grotesque vision of reality.

From what I have read about Visitor Q, it is possible that there is an element of surrealism to it.

In complete contrast Delicatessen is missing a key element of surrealism, the gaudy colours - all I can remember is shades of brown.

I wait in trepidation, in case BL and BBB are able to easily point out large sections of colour in the film, which I have forgotten.

No large sections of colour, but what is it that makes you say a surrealist film has to have gaudy colours?

 

[BenLaw]

Just watch it for what it is Mike, a black comedy set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

Every time that you mention that, I get reminded of your joke about JD and Bradford.

I'm not sure he's forgiven me for that. It wasn't a joke anyway, Bradford is like that.

Apart from the fact that it is very, very real. . . .

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

:O Whatever you do, watch it first! It helps to love the music, and it can take a few watches, but I think it's a brilliant film. Well worth watching just for the surreal animation, which is where the things who look the sewer underground men come in.

it's finishing in about 15 mins.

Cool, though I'm not sure you should be distracting yourself by posting here! The recommended method of viewing The Wall is through self-induced hallucinatory stupor.

Sorry Ben, I meant my eBay listing was ending in 15 mins. It's now sold.

 

[BenLaw]

:O Whatever you do, watch it first! It helps to love the music, and it can take a few watches, but I think it's a brilliant film. Well worth watching just for the surreal animation, which is where the things who look the sewer underground men come in.

it's finishing in about 15 mins.

Cool, though I'm not sure you should be distracting yourself by posting here! The recommended method of viewing The Wall is through self-induced hallucinatory stupor.

Sorry Ben, I meant my eBay listing was ending in 15 mins. It's now sold.

D'oh! Stick it on tonight before you post it in the morning.

How much does a copy go for these days?

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

As per our discussion, I absolutely agree its roots are in reality. It's why I used the word hyperbolic

I'm not playing the Joey Essex card, I genuinely didn't know what it meant. I do now.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

:O Whatever you do, watch it first! It helps to love the music, and it can take a few watches, but I think it's a brilliant film. Well worth watching just for the surreal animation, which is where the things who look the sewer underground men come in.

it's finishing in about 15 mins.

Cool, though I'm not sure you should be distracting yourself by posting here! The recommended method of viewing The Wall is through self-induced hallucinatory stupor.

Sorry Ben, I meant my eBay listing was ending in 15 mins. It's now sold.

D'oh! Stick it on tonight before you post it in the morning.

How much does a copy go for these days?

£5.75

It has 4 art cards included, I'm not sure if that is standard.

 

[expat_mike]

My knowledge of French culture is similarly lacking as with Japanese (is this where Mike lives?) but I'm pretty sure there will be some there will be roots in real French culture, with hyperbole applied. The butcher is clearly a grotesque stereotype, and I'm guessing some commentary is being passed with the murderous postman. Pretty much all apocalypse scenarios are some sort of commentary on the ills of the pre-apocalyptic society, even something like Terminator, often in a much more obvious way than Delicatessen.

Excellent - I can discuss this tomorrow, with my colleague who likes Delicatessen, during our first visit to the cafe machine.

(is this where Mike lives?)

Yes Toulouse.

Unfortunately I don't know French culture well enough, to recognise the characters. I think that there is the additional difficulty, that the film is almost 25 years old. It is almost like asking a modern British person, if they recognise the character stereotypes in the 1970s sitcom Rising Damp.

 

[expat_mike]

No large sections of colour, but what is it that makes you say a surrealist film has to have gaudy colours?

I seem to remember SFC saying that elements of bright color, were a common element.

Think back to our first club film - that had a lot of bright colour schemes within some of the sections.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Red Cliff is on Film4 tonight at 11.35. I have the blu ray, though I've not yet watched it, but it is supposed to be very good indeed.

 

[strapped for cash]

I find that argument more instantly attractive. It doesn't seem entirely consistent with the greater / more obvious artifice argument, as it would be possible to have a great deal of artifice whilst being varied in style.

It would.

My point, really, was that early expressionist, montage, and surreal cinemas were very consciously about a foregrounding of style, while "realists" across different "movements" and industries have sought fundamentally to disguise or eradicate style. For realists, nonmediation is an ideal.

Obviously one can make arguments for or against any realist of formalist technique. I happened to make an argument that was commensurate with my tastes, but as I said, might be complicated in a number of ways. In this sense I completely acknowledge my own subjectivity.

I own but haven't seen October, but the film that sprang to mind when I read your post was Man with a Movie Camera. Presumably that would also qualify as pure montage? (Although also rather surreal!)

No problem whatsoever with that example.

I picked October because montage is perhaps most commonly associated with Eisenstein, and October is arguably "a bit more montage" (for want of a better way of putting it) than Battleship Potemkin.

While Vertov is of course associated with montage, he also influenced what was later known as direct cinema or cinema verite.

I was wondering whether there had been any academic attempts to define 'pure cinema'? Perhaps as you say any such attempts are merely masquerading expressions of subjective taste.

To my knowledge, not really, or at least not in such direct terms.

Andre Bazin discussed the photographic image along such lines. Bazin described photography and cinematography as distinct from painting and sculpture. (He basically argued that the camera was able to capture and preserve reality in a way that bypassed human interference.)

However, Bazin was writing for the French magazine Cahiers du Cinema (later home to French New Wave filmmakers) and he probably didn't expect academics to be critiquing his essays decades after he wrote them, and indeed decades after his early death.

This is a compliment to Bazin's writing, since he opened several avenues of debate that now define films studies as an academic discipline. If many of Bazin's theories have since been debunked, he was nonetheless an influential writer.

 

[BenLaw]

Red Cliff is on Film4 tonight at 11.35. I have the blu ray, though I've not yet watched it, but it is supposed to be very good indeed.

It is very good indeed.

 

[strapped for cash]

I seem to remember SFC saying that elements of bright color, were a common element.

Think back to our first club film - that had a lot of bright colour schemes within some of the sections.

While certain surrealist films contain vivd colours (colour is an important component of Mulholland Drive, for instance), colour isn't typically associated with definitions of surrealist cinema.

The only thing surrealist filmmakers must do, by definition, is seek to represent dreams and the unconscious. In other words, to understand surrealist cinema, you need to gen up on Freudian theory.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Just watched The Descendants. Brilliant.

That at is all.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Sorry. Just come back to the thread with well over 30 posts, and feeling lost.

 

[richardw42]

Sorry. Just come back to the thread with well over 30 posts, and feeling lost.

You're not alone

 

[BenLaw]

I seem to remember SFC saying that elements of bright color, were a common element.

Think back to our first club film - that had a lot of bright colour schemes within some of the sections.

While certain surrealist films contain vivd colours (colour is an important component of Mulholland Drive, for instance), colour isn't typically associated with definitions of surrealist cinema.

The only thing surrealist filmmakers must do, by definition, is seek to represent dreams and the unconscious. In other words, to understand surrealist cinema, you need to gen up on Freudian theory.

Ok, I've probably been misusing the word then.

 

[strapped for cash]

Out of interest, how were you defining surrealism before?

Again, that probably sounds a bit confrontational, which isn't my intention. I'm interested to know how you previously understood the term; and just as interested to know if the above definition feels useful with regard to earlier film club discussion.

 

[strapped for cash]

Sorry. Just come back to the thread with well over 30 posts, and feeling lost.

You're not alone

I think you both missed analysis of Survive Style 5+ and Mulholland Drive. Both films were discussed in terms of surrealism.

As BBB may rightly point out, I shouldn't really be contributing to this thread. At least I was a film club member when we discussed the above two films.

 

[expat_mike]

My knowledge of French culture is similarly lacking as with Japanese (is this where Mike lives?) but I'm pretty sure there will be some there will be roots in real French culture, with hyperbole applied. The butcher is clearly a grotesque stereotype, and I'm guessing some commentary is being passed with the murderous postman.

I have researched this topic today, and there could be something in your suggestion. It seems that the butcher has the face of the typical French butcher, and is the spitting image of a butcher that my colleague remembers from his childhood. Regarding the postman, my colleague was less definate regarding the stereotype, but did not reject it out of hand.