Posted on: November 16, 2011
Melancholia, by Lars Von Trier
Melancholia is Lars Von Trier’s conflicted ode to German Romanticism, Wagner, Depression and life itself. It starts off with one of the most beautiful openings of any movie I’ve seen in recent times, with Wagner’s prelude to Tristan and Isolde merging with stunning, slow motion images. They look like paintings come to life, moving incredibly slowly, awakening to new shocks, new horrors.
The beginning prefigures the end beyond the usual trajectory of Hollywood films. It in fact gives away that ending in the first few minutes. But we don’t care. Because the journey is everything, and we don’t even mind that this is a cliché. Coming full circle seems poetic and right, and circles dominate the night and day skies.…
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Posted on: July 11, 2011
The Lacemaker, by Jan Vermeer. 1671
“Made in Dagenham” is an inspirational film, based upon real events in England in 1968. It depicts the struggles of Labor in its quest to achieve decent, living wages and some modicum of respect and dignity. At the center of the story is the plight of female sewing machinists in a Ford factory, who had been classified as unskilled in order to keep corporate costs down. They bravely went on strike, and helped change the face of labor laws for all British women in the process.
Sally Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady, a working class woman who takes on a leadership role among the sewing machinists, and helps spearhead the strike and an eventual meeting with Secretary of State Barbara Castle, played by Miranda Richardson.…
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Posted on: July 4, 2011
The Sower, by Van Gogh. 1888
Three recent film viewings merge and amplify basic truths made visual in each. Three recent viewings of British films make clear an ironic dynamic: The British have long had a class-based society, but understood that and worked to reduce its effects. America has always had one as well, a class-based society for the wealthy, but has great difficulty admitting this, and will be forever trapped inside it if it does not see that trap for what it is.
“Made in Dagenham”, “Gosford Park” and “Never Let me go” make up the trinity in question. All three movies shine a light on the fundamental absurdity of our system. The accident of birth is paramount. Far more than any amount of “hard work” or “merit” or “virtue” or intelligence, it is the prime determinant of our social and economic status at the end of the day.…
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