Movie mania

I am thinking of watching Mullholand Drive again. Let us see how rewarding that is going to be. Of late, i watched a clutch of movies to while away the time. Some of them French and Italian in a Monica Bellucci collection. I think im gonna be her fan for the time being. Has anyone seen her films? The ones I saw were pretty edgy- Irreversible and Dobermann (both French). One romantic one called Malena. Others such as Suspicion were very Hollywood. Bram Stoker's Dracula was a discovery- directed by Francis Ford Coppola, no less.

Last King of Scotland and Atonement were also engaging.

Irreversible traces back (the flashback technique, without a narrator) the events that lead to the gruesome murder of a man in a bar. So the film starts with the end and is constructed scene-by-scene to move back in time. When friends were telling me about this before I watched it, I was wondering what smallest unit of the cinematic material would the director use to trace back time, without a narrator to provide a measure of coherence in an otherwise chaotic and violent film. He uses a reel almost, a scene. The effect on the whole then is not so radical. The content is pretty off-beat and gut-wrenching. In the end(looking backwards, literally), though, at the risk of contradicting myself, it was a normal flick. Guys, download and watch and let us talk about it.

is this a surreal film? but what is surreal? the most fitting description of it is that of a dream-like reality. seemingly unconnected events are strung together. but you might draw your own conclusions. for example, the two men at winkie's (one of whom is discussing his nightmare, which in this dream becomes a reality) are probably being dreamed up by the amnesiac woman who miraculously escapes the accident on mulholland drive, which itself is an oneiric sequence ... part of betty's fantasy. the flick of course does not fit conveniently anywhere in andre bazin's reality-montage continuum. on the surface, it is montage, but far from its conventional didactic effects. but it evokes the strange phenomenon of dreams- their essential disconnectedness, randomness, stream-of-consciousness-ness and such as us that analyse it are as if interpreting a dream, but whose dream? david lynch's? so is this film a candidate for a psychoanalysis? that will be interesting to do- analyse this only as a dream and determine what neuroses afflict the dreamer.

Mulholland Dr.

i dreamed- or dreamt?- last night - or maybe early today- that i was blogging about mulholland dr. (the film). camilla rhodes, more than betty, comes across as an enigmatic character. she, of the sparkling eyes and pearl necklaces, pearly teeth. she's the girl. making hot love with the nameless brunette... the director, adam something, is calling the shots. david lynch is actually calling the shots. the woman at the gas agency is patronizing in her tone. the woman buying the regulator device looks familiar. the devices look strange and futuristic. this must be a future.
her happiness sears him. such ease and grace, driving him crazy ... to club her to a pulp. chiaroscuro is the play of light and dark... the pearly white blonde and the dark, enigmatic woman. the link is wholly coincidental, forced even.
far in the horizon is the milk booth. it is a long walk on a curved road littered with the detritus of saturday market, rotten tomatoes, papery onion peels- in ghostly little eddies, scavenging dogs and girls. the man selling the milk ... looks familiar too, but his transformation is complete now, I need to look closer for traces of his former characteristics, the fangs look great, though, on him.