"There's plenty of bears in hell. But there aren't any bears here."
The Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente is in full swing; this weekend I went to three movies, and hopefully I'll be seeing more.
The first movie, La belle endormie, I thought was exactly half good. (French.) It was sort of a "modern" retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but they had her prick her hand at 6, sleep for 100 years, and wake up aged 16. The good half of the movie was about her dreams while she was asleep for the hundred years, it had a lovely fairy-tale quality to it, although there was something about it that was always just a little bit off. The second half was about what happens when she wakes up, and I thought that was interesting (although not exactly good)-- it explored her relationship with her "Prince Charming" and how, because she was sleeping for 100 years and never really had an adolescence or even the second half of her childhood, she didn't really know what a healthy relationship was, and didn't know how to handle herself. Interesting; half-good.
The second movie, Meek's Cutoff, was an American western I really enjoyed. Michelle Williams was in it, and she was pretty badass; the guy who played the brother from Little Miss Sunshine was in it; and so was the girl who played Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The acting was phenomenal; the plot, while slightly aimless at times, was fairly well done throughout; a very enjoyable movie. One of my particular favorite things was that one of the characters had this figure of speech where he'd say "There's plenty of [insert noun here] in hell" when he wanted to say "There's lots of [insert noun here] in the world." I was amused. At one point I laughed for five minutes straight. It wasn't actually that funny, but it seemed funny to me.
The third movie was called Dharma Guns. It was the single strangest and worst piece of cinema I have ever seen in my entire life. And I've seen a fair amount of bad movies. It was convoluted to the point where I'm not even entirely sure what was going on. It was in French, subtitled in Spanish and English, but as all three of these languages are languages I speak (to varying degrees) I'm sure I can't blame my lack of comprehension on the language. It was about... zombies. Maybe. But you don't ever see any zombies. It was about pharmaceutical companies. Maybe. But you don't really see those either; you do, however, see lots of drugs, which they keep in a place called a supermarket, but seeing as the supermarket only stocks drugs, I'm not sure if one should properly name it as such. It was about this woman, Délie, who may be the main character's lover... or his adopted sister... or she may be trying to kill him. And we just don't know. It was about time travel... maybe. Supposedly the main character is writing a "script" (like for a play?) about time travel, which ought to have been dictated to him by Professor Starkov, his late father-figure, who is dead... or they might all be dead, because throughout the movie people keep telling other people, "YOU ARE DEAD," but everyone appears to be plenty alive. Until this guy who bears a striking resemblance to Hitler shoots this one guy out of frame, and all you see is someone with his hands up falling into the sea, and the main character is like, "What the hell, man!" and Hitler-guy just says, "What? That's one zombie who won't get you."
The highlight of that movie, for me, was the Hitler-lookalike pulling the car over to the side of the road and dragging the main character out, to say something about how there are zombies in the forests. And then he spend the next ten minutes, I swear it's ten full minutes, emulating a vicious wild animal and hissing, "Chasse! Foret!"-- "Hunt! Forest!" while running all around the main character, sometimes getting up in his personal space, sometimes just running around the back of the shot, growling and snapping and yelling "Chasse! Foret!" while the main character just acts like nothing is even happening. I'm not sure if that was meant to be comedy, but I laughed.
The first movie, La belle endormie, I thought was exactly half good. (French.) It was sort of a "modern" retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but they had her prick her hand at 6, sleep for 100 years, and wake up aged 16. The good half of the movie was about her dreams while she was asleep for the hundred years, it had a lovely fairy-tale quality to it, although there was something about it that was always just a little bit off. The second half was about what happens when she wakes up, and I thought that was interesting (although not exactly good)-- it explored her relationship with her "Prince Charming" and how, because she was sleeping for 100 years and never really had an adolescence or even the second half of her childhood, she didn't really know what a healthy relationship was, and didn't know how to handle herself. Interesting; half-good.
The second movie, Meek's Cutoff, was an American western I really enjoyed. Michelle Williams was in it, and she was pretty badass; the guy who played the brother from Little Miss Sunshine was in it; and so was the girl who played Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The acting was phenomenal; the plot, while slightly aimless at times, was fairly well done throughout; a very enjoyable movie. One of my particular favorite things was that one of the characters had this figure of speech where he'd say "There's plenty of [insert noun here] in hell" when he wanted to say "There's lots of [insert noun here] in the world." I was amused. At one point I laughed for five minutes straight. It wasn't actually that funny, but it seemed funny to me.
The third movie was called Dharma Guns. It was the single strangest and worst piece of cinema I have ever seen in my entire life. And I've seen a fair amount of bad movies. It was convoluted to the point where I'm not even entirely sure what was going on. It was in French, subtitled in Spanish and English, but as all three of these languages are languages I speak (to varying degrees) I'm sure I can't blame my lack of comprehension on the language. It was about... zombies. Maybe. But you don't ever see any zombies. It was about pharmaceutical companies. Maybe. But you don't really see those either; you do, however, see lots of drugs, which they keep in a place called a supermarket, but seeing as the supermarket only stocks drugs, I'm not sure if one should properly name it as such. It was about this woman, Délie, who may be the main character's lover... or his adopted sister... or she may be trying to kill him. And we just don't know. It was about time travel... maybe. Supposedly the main character is writing a "script" (like for a play?) about time travel, which ought to have been dictated to him by Professor Starkov, his late father-figure, who is dead... or they might all be dead, because throughout the movie people keep telling other people, "YOU ARE DEAD," but everyone appears to be plenty alive. Until this guy who bears a striking resemblance to Hitler shoots this one guy out of frame, and all you see is someone with his hands up falling into the sea, and the main character is like, "What the hell, man!" and Hitler-guy just says, "What? That's one zombie who won't get you."
The highlight of that movie, for me, was the Hitler-lookalike pulling the car over to the side of the road and dragging the main character out, to say something about how there are zombies in the forests. And then he spend the next ten minutes, I swear it's ten full minutes, emulating a vicious wild animal and hissing, "Chasse! Foret!"-- "Hunt! Forest!" while running all around the main character, sometimes getting up in his personal space, sometimes just running around the back of the shot, growling and snapping and yelling "Chasse! Foret!" while the main character just acts like nothing is even happening. I'm not sure if that was meant to be comedy, but I laughed.