Film Journal Entries

For my work in SOS: Media I will be keeping a film journal, detailing reactions and notes and impressions of films that I watch during the quarter. Following is all that I’ve written and watched so far. Please keep in mind that these have not been re-written and cleaned up, and thus consider the text as messy notes written while watching these films.

2006-10-11
Тайна третьей планеты, “Tayna tretey planety” (1981)
Film, Color, Animation, anime-style handdrawn animation, 48 minutes
Language: Russian, w/ English Subtitles
Acquired from http://www.secret-cinema.com/

very very interesting …
the animation style is very much precognitive of early and mid-era Japanese science fiction ‘anime’ (e.g., Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, etc). There are few if any examples of this type of animation from Russia during modern times that I know of; I wonder how it came to be that this was produced then in 1981, and what effect the economic conditions of the time had in bringing this about… if any?

there is a slow, matter of fact way of introducing the world and characters in this futuristic science fiction animation. They are not sensationalizing the fact that the technology and sociological and conditions they present are fantastical, they are presenting it as fact. This seems to go over particularly well because it seems plausible, like good science fiction should be. (and they use the word parsecs!)

the subtitling is not very good, containing improper grammar and english language constructions… but it doesn’t negatively impact the story as much as having inauthentic hollywood voice-replacement adr would…

the elongated forms of the characters are typical of japanese anime also.

the sounds of the spacecraft are rather brilliantly composed, if slightly 70s scifi in stylings. The music is also exceptionally good.

they are questing after new and interesting “strange animals” for the zoo at moscow! on other planets! it is rather exceedingly bizarre…. but awesome! becaues awesome is the most descriptive and meaningful word ever… you should work on creating concrete statements without ambiguous phrases implying you think they are interesting without reason. yey metacognition!

the “chatterer”‘s voice is ring modulated! the sound effects and processing are rather innovative and at times truly remarkable.

Is the whole animation an allegory of the conflict between USA and Russia?

2006-10-12
Hard Candy (2005) – feature length narrative film

This film is about a 14 year old girl who meets a guy on the internet. I think it could easily go in the direction of sensationalizing the dangers of meeting people on the internet and how all of them are bad! just like dateline NBC! blah! but so far, it seems to be taking at least a somewhat matter-of-fact approach to it. On the other hand, it is taking place in a complete fantasy-land. Is it realistic what is happening? doubtful! maybe.

There is a predominance of close-up shots. Only rarely when there is a scene change is there a wide shot, and rarely is it repeated, reprised, or lengthy. The movie has a “hip” editing style that reminds me of 21 grams. There have been a couple of almost experimental moments, like the pixilation shot of the trees moving when they get to his house.

I know nothing about her family! or where she is coming from! or anything! bah!.

hehe, who is taking advantage of whom?? this appears to be the dialectical question this film makes a point of constantly probing. This is reinforced now (22:04) with the scene after he wakes up from passing out being tied up in a chair (apparently by the girl… whose name I don’t know).
oo! playtime is over!
ahh! the truth is revealed. The girl actually hates goldfrapp! amazing. Okay, you should stop making stupid observations and type something intelligent in this film journal! it is, like… student originated studies, right? yah.

woah! (30:16) there is a ton of experimentation with coloring going on! Color temperature shifting with the mood of the characters! That is a very interesting experimental tactic in narrative film which I have not seen (or noticed) before.

Le Dernier Combat (1983) – Luc Besson

The beginning is an interesting way of introducing the somewhat dytopian world of the film: the main character having sex with a blowup doll. We soon discover that the world is a giant sand-dune, and the few survivors (of course having old broken down cars) struggle for water, and consist entirely of members of the gender Male.

There is no semantic dialogue, though the film is full of and relies on diegetic sounds. This is an interesting tactic, and fits well with the exploratory, solitary, procedural actions that the characters follow to lead out the story.

It’s interesting how when there is no dialogue, the ambiguity of the interactions of characters lends poignancy and increased engagement with what is going on, because the viewer is wondering what things mean, and trying to find answers to these questions by postulation in his/her own mind.

The doctor character is keeping a woman locked up, probably more kept safe than imprisoned. the reason (i would wager) he is feeding and being somewhat kind to the main character guy is that he is going to try to use him for breeding material, which implies that it is common for males to be sterile in addition to being unable to speak.

This really bothers me. One moment in this movie there is glorious ambient thundering boom sounds coming from the sky beautifully saturating the scene with ominiousness and a sense of intense dystopian otherworldliness, and then suddenly there’s a chase or fight scene between the main character and his arch-nemesis guy, and 80′s style bass-jazz funk starts playing, and it completely destroys the atmosphere. Good lord, pay attention to the use of music in your film and if its appropriate or not. i must admit this film has subtlety though. alot of subtlety. (always gloved hand, cut off finger of boss guy in white suite, final event = revenge and cutting off finger and throwing it to worker people. )

Avalon (2001) – Mamoru Oshii

This is a live action film by the director and writer (?) of the first Ghost in the Shell anime movie. I am very interested to see how his style carries over into the realm of live action, and how he directs a film of similar, but interestingly unique subject matter. The thematic material is reminiscent of The Matrix and ExistenZ (Cronenburg), and yet has its own unique little twist on things. The visual style reminds me of Mirror Mask, but is a precursor, and thus is quite remarkable for the time it was made, though obviously has seen no wide release nor recognized popularity; I had to resort to the eDonkey network to find an XviD copy of it ripped and distributed from a PAL DVD with French-dubbed audio. Onward:

Interesting sound design: on the first sequence introductory of the game world with conventional (though exceedingly sepia-toned!) battle scenes intermixed with entirely unconventional death and destruction scenes containing disintigrating “digital aesthetic” bodies and machinery, there is a constant droning though musical synth-like undertone. This may be being used to introduce this all in a way that seems more fantastical or awe-inspiring, or perhaps just to blend the whole game-intro montage together in a way that is less abrupt. I’m not sure. The “otherworldliness” of the game environment is also reinforced periodically by the complete lack of environmental sound. Often there is just gunfire and shouts, and then a scene with just the music (which has altered into classical instrumentation now), and just silence, no birds chirping, or wind blowing to establish a sense of place.

LOG OFF:
in the real world, there is a predomiinance of the color green, as in the game world there was a predominance of orange-ish color. The style of the image actually consists of chroma-blurring, I think, because the shape of the forms of objects in the frame (their edge lines) remain distinct, and yet there is a halo of the color of the object surrounding the edge line in a blurry transparent fuzz. This looks really neat, and makes (even the images of “reality”) look synthetic and alien, yet smoothly blurred and sexy.

There is an Interesting alteration in sound environment the moment reality hits us: the first sound we notice is the humming of machinery pervasively intruding through the walls. When the main character Ash gets up, the sounds of her movements are very subdued compared to this environmental sound — a harsh contrast to the previous environment, where environmental sounds were suppressed, and the character sounds were amplified to an extreme!

The retro-tech characteristics of the film are interesting in this case because they seem to provide the implication that all other technology in the reality of the world are unimportant compared to the reality of the game.

The character that plays “Ash” is really well-cast I think, because she is a complete bad-ass in Avalon-reality, yet when she comes back into the real world, and makes stew for her beloved dog, she has a timid aura about her, almost fragile.

The end makes a statement about what the true reality is. I’m not sure I understand exactly what the statement says yet. There are 3 levels – the reality that Ash lives in as a regular person, the level of “Avalon” regular game play, and the level of “Avalon” “Reality”, where the “unreturned” game players, whose physical bodies remain in the base reality, live in glorious true-life color. Intriguing.