Watched on Netflix Instant

Saw Ben yesterday. Good comments, a good person to provide perspective.

Dropped off version 65 with Dan today.

Comic Book Diaries: incredible that this film got distribution. Random script and direction. Nothing makes sense and runs into the chronological structure/no POV problem I wrote about earlier. Filmed on DV.

The Rambler: David Lynch inspired film that reminds me of noise film. Oddly shot with what looks like super 8 and DV. A guy hitchhikes, ends up in a weird guy's house and then goes back on the road.

Death to the Tin Man: Fake documentary done Guy Maddin style.

Dust Devil = Noise Film

Moody still life from Dust Devil. Noise film starts with one.


Crazy person's room from Dust Devil.


Another crazy person's room in Dust Devil.


Like noise film, the crazy person's room burns. Only they have enough money to actually show it.


Who set the room on fire? One thing noise film doesn't have is film student symbolism.


The green wall of this bar is exactly the same color as our green room. If I thought of it, I would have carved graffiti into ours too.


This looks a lot like the previz shot of Ben walking toward the bloody window of his pickup truck (see below).


The red stuff is supposed to be blood on the car window.


From noise film: a scraggly joshua tree centered in frame in the desert.


From Dust Devil. The same shot + money + time + skill+ someone to pick up the trash before shooting.

Customers who bought this item also bought....

I found two films that remind me of noise film. The Deep is a short film that played at Sundance curiously under the drama category. It was made by a film student at the University of Utah. Typical low-budget film--no sound, shot DV, no real plot, just a day in the life of someone who lives underground tending to various machines. It's reasonably interesting for its 8 minute running time but by 8 minutes in noise film, we're halfway out to the desert. There's a lot of story in noise film. The Deep is set in that ubiquitous ambiguous future/past universe of which noise film is a part. The one difference is that noise film tends to be more of an electronic-hobby universe. We usually see industrial/steam punk worlds. I saw it on instant play at Netflix so if you don't have Windows you'll have to find it somewhere else.

I also watched part of Moonlight by the Sea. When I get a chance I think I'll watch the whole thing. This one is beautifully shot on what looks like b/w film. Low-fi sets, probably made of cardboard. The story is a bit too allegorical for my liking, but there's definitely a sense of artistry at work. Good acting too, better than what you'd expect. Another ambiguous future/past universe, but this one, like Automatons, seems to draw more from the vocabulary of 50's B-movies.

Automatons

I loved this film. Writer/director James Felix McKenney based this b/w Super-8 project on a faulty childhood memory and it screens like a dreamy low budget Pi channeled through the Twilight Zone by way of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Filled with mid-century gadgets, men-in-suit robots and robot puppets, Automatons is a parable about a lonely, heavily-mediated future. Going the standard low-budget route (mostly one set, a few actors, shot silent), McKenney turns his budget into an asset. The slightly-off but trying-hard lip sync and cheap but earnestly designed sets and costumes make the film come off like a dream of a B-movie yesterday that never was. There's not enough material to fill a feature and by minute 24 I was aching to get out of that one set. But that's OK, you can just fast forward to the end. Great music and sound design too. There's a dry sense of humor at work but it may be too dry for some tastes. Favorite image: the evil leader with a wrist communicator the size of a brick.

Uzumaki: beyond the Japanese school girls

Some films are notable because you like them, others because you think they're good or because they have instructional value. I liked Uzumaki for a totally different reason: it looks like something I'd do. To me, it looks SO me. Which is sort of embarassing since it comes from a director with the nickname Higunchinksy who used to make music videos. Here's what I was responded to—

It never occurs to me to set up complex masters with difficult blocking and lots of camera moves. Instead, the camera gets planted in one place and the actor(s) move in and out of frame as if it were a proscenium. It seems to be a Japanese thing. It happens in Uzumaki a lot and in Harakiri as I've described before. There's a certain kind of formality and stiffness in the presentation.

Similarly, the acting at certain points is extremely stylized. In Uzumaki, it's the drama queen bad girl, or the heroine boo-hooing as a girl. For some reason it doesn't come across as bad acting to me but as purposeful artifice. Plus, there's not a lot of movement within the shots. You may observe that in noise film, you never see Ben sit down in a chair or get up. These movements look awkward to me; a lot of the physical interconnections are implied.

It's interesting how traditional Eisenstein-esque technique nowadays translates as low-budget. Higunchinksy uses a couple of montages to show crashes and other moments. They look a lot like my previzes for the bird attack scene. You don't actually see the crash; the event is implied, Psycho shower scene style. Of course, I could never really make it work. But I do have such a sequence planned for the bridge scene.

Shot selection: straight on centered or odd angles, often shot with wide angle lenses. Spare dialogue. There is just enough to communicate what's going on, but the film is heavily visuals-driven. To top it off, there is a full-fledged research scene in a library PLUS a crazy person's lair (see above)! Lots of video-mediated scenes too, including studying-video scenes. If that isn't enough, the film is shot greenish, although too lacking in contrast for my taste. Even the sense of humor is like mine. None of the reviews I read seems to find it a horror-comedy like I do. Black comedy, obviously, but often cartoonish and probably too dry for most. Mood moments and shock moments, but few (one) emotional moments. The movie is just not about emotion in an American movie sense. You won't laugh and you won't cry. You might smirk and feel a twinge of poignancy. Uzumaki is really not much of a horror movie. It's more of a mood piece with enough narrative to make it watchable. Some key concepts: implied, vs. literal. Static proscenium. Mediation. Obsession. Stylization. Formal. Spare.

Some things I didn't like: it's a little too over the top in places. The snails, for instance (you have to see it to believe it). At least Higunchinksy had the good taste to display the snails via video. And the overuse of what looks like After Effects' twirl filter. Also, it's not the cheapness of the visual effects that disturbs me, it's their presence at all. I would have preferred something less literal.

All in all, a great watch. I think I'll start going by the name Saitolnikoff.