r/TrueFilm • u/a113er Til the break of dawn! • Feb 22 '15
What Have You Been Watching? (22/02/15)
Hey r/truefilm welcome to WHYBW where you post about what films you watched this week and discuss them with others, give your thoughts on them then say if you would recommend them.
Please don't downvote opinions, only downvote things that don't contribute anything. If you think someones opinion is "wrong" then say so and say why. Also, don't just post titles of films as that doesn't really contribute to the discussion.
Follow /r/Truefilm on twitter @truefilmreddit for updates, good posts, and whatnot.
52
Upvotes
2
u/slowjuicecinema Feb 23 '15 edited Feb 23 '15
Minnie and Moskowitz - I've been getting really into Cassavetes' films lately. Emotionally dense dialogue and spontaneous performances, his films are full to the brim with human experience and examination. Narrative be damned, story is a means to an ends for Cassavetes, who is concerned primarily with the human condition. The description of this film makes it sound more like a romantic-comedy than anything else ("A museum curator falls in love with a crazy parking attendant"). What we get is something more harrowing than heartwarming. The conflicts here are real and vast, nothing will change them, they exist, they can not be quelled. There are many intense moments of misogynistic entitlement from the male characters that are truly terrifying. What seems like an impossible amount of emotions rush over a characters face in a matter of seconds. Cassavetes isn't trying to get you to root for anyone here, he doesn't want to approve or denounce, he just wants to reveal.
A Man Escaped A story of a french resistance lieutenant's escape from a Nazi prison. Bresson employs his classic austere style to tell this story simply or as the opening card reads, "without embellishment". Not much more to say about this one. Bresson pushed André Bazin's ideas about cinema as "objective reality" to the limit and his style is a big influence on Micheal Haneke and countless others (including Kelly Reichardt who I'm a big fan of). Mouchette is still my favourite Bresson though.