Comments | assassinofjoy: Spring just can't get here fast enough, yo.

assassinofjoy

Spring just can't get here fast enough, yo.

Feb 27, 2007 12:29

Seriously, it's been alternating between sunny, rainy, windy, rainy AND windy, and it was even snowing for about a nano-second before it started raining again. Sigh.

Saw Pan's Labyrinth this week and loved it ... though Spanish movies seem to have a knack for depressing the hell out of you while making you ooo and aah over the pretty pretty ( Read more... )

movies

Comments 6

halfdutch February 28 2007, 00:01:27 UTC

Hey, good to see you around again.

And y'know, every Spanish film I've ever seen had an unexpected, downbeat ending. Even the romances. I used to see a lot of Spanish film (early Almodovar, stuff with Javier Bardem, etc.) when I would go to the film festivals in the '90s or so. I think sometimes it's that strong surreal streak.

assassinofjoy February 28 2007, 03:32:35 UTC

That's true about Spanish films often being a tad (or WAAAAY) on the surreal side -- hell, that's true for a lot of European cinema. I think that what really separates American film from the rest is that as a society, we're big fans of the "happy ending." Yes, the hero/heroine might run into problems or peril, but in the end all is well and all is good, and justice is (almost) always served.

On the other hand with European films, even with comedies and romances, they tend to tackle topics on a more realistic level while keeping it playful and dream-like (Amelie's a good one on that front), and when comic devices or special effects are used, they (usually) enhance the mood the film is trying to convey. Another film by Del Toro, The Devil's Backbone, is a good example. It's more a ghost story than a horror film, and in a very metaphoric/sybolic way shows how lonely, sad, and even frightening being a kid can be. In The Devil's Backbone, a young boy is confronted with the ghost of a murdered child (representing repressed guilt, a hidden ( ... )

halfdutch February 28 2007, 03:49:49 UTC

Americans do love their happy endings. You could have hours worth of the patented "jumping and down while hugging" ending. Or the "main couple kisses while everyone else applauds" ending, like Titanic or Speed. I don't mind an unhappy or ambiguous ending but sometimes those seem kind of slapped on too. The first movie I remember having an unhappy ending was The Third Man and it stung. I was just so used to seeing everything eventually go the hero's way. One of the best movie endings, ever I think ( ... )

ACK! Sorry, all fixed! *blush* assassinofjoy February 28 2007, 04:25:10 UTC

ACK! Sorry, all fixed!

The Third Man is an excellent film, and I think it's some of Orson Welles best work (he's often so hammy I get annoyed, but this was a good one).

I remember the first time I was shocked by a film's ending -- Spoorloos (the original Vanishing) when I was about 12. God, it depressed me at first, because I was expecting for the hero to triumph in some way, and the ending really threw me for a loop. It bothered me so much that initially I came away hating it, and now I think it's one of the most ingenius endings ever in film. It was only as I got older and more into film that I realised that even in movies, happy endings don't always happen.

In total agreement on Almodovar. I love his work and while I appreciate his more recent stuff, it's his earlier films that suck me in. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and Woman On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are still some of my favorite movies, just so uniquely weird and oddball-y ( ... )

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