Avant que je...

Aside from the fact that I'm already sick and motherfucking tired of hearing about people's orgasms while watching the new Batman movie (I'm thoroughly convinced that most people can't really separate Heath Ledger's performance from the film itself, which isn't all that good without him), I really have had nothing noteworthy to say in the past few weeks, and I apologize. This blog has fallen by the wayside of my own existential crisis, and even my film viewing has taken the hit. I would say, "Inspire me to get back into it," but I don't think that'd work. I also wish I could tell you that Jacques Nolot's Avant que j'oublie was worth your time, but simply beginning and ending your film well don't add up to a good movie, even if you are trying your hardest to make a Claire Denis film. I could make a list of all the DVDs sitting next to me that I should be watching instead of listening to music online, but just looking at them is daunting enough.

On a brighter note, for those few remaining Peter Greenaway fans, the Sundance Channel will be airing all three parts of The Tulse Luper Suitcases on Saturday the 26th, beginning at 11 pm CT. They will also be airing Tony Gatlif's Transylvania, with Asia Argento, on Wednesday the 30th at 1:45 P.M. CT. None of these four films are available on DVD in the US (the second and third parts of Tulse Luper totally unavailable on DVD), so jump at your chance.

You see your gypsy

Transylvania – dir. Tony Gatlif – 2006 – France

When looking at cinema with the auteur theory at work, it’s always reassuring to find a director returning to the themes that seemed to previously obsess him. Many people have made such assessment to Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park in which the director revisits the ideas behind the films that got people interested in the first place, notably Mala Noche and My Own Private Idaho. With Transylvania, Algerian-born Tony Gatlif does the same, returning to his love and obsession with gypsy culture. More so than his “documentary” Latcho Drom, Transylvania is more accurately a thematic sequel to Gadjo dilo (The Crazy Stranger), his 1997 film in which a Frenchman (Romain Duris) travels to Romania to find a singer who’s become his obsession. Obsession and gypsy culture, particularly music, fuel Transylvania, as three women (Asia Argento, Amira Casar and Alexandra Beaujard) trek to the titular city in search of Argento’s deported lover. Her lover, whom she just discovered is the father of her baby, is naturally a musician, a pianist of Romanian descent.

Transylvania closely aligns itself with The Crazy Stranger more than Latcho Drom or Vengo in their central motives. Whereas Latcho Drom and Vengo capture rhythm and beauty in the movement and music of a group of people, Transylvania and The Crazy Stranger represent a journey. For Gatlif, there appears to be something missing in the heart of the western European and something inherently desirable about this gypsy lifestyle. There’s a purity of life which is never spoken of but suggested through the pursuit and subsequent transformation of French Stéphane (Duris) and Italian Zingarina (Argento). As is expected of Gatlif, Transylvania is exquisitely composed, beautiful and lush, but there seems to be a patronizing quality about returning to the singular theme of western Europeans finding themselves in the east. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem as critical if Transylvania didn’t seem like an almost entire transposition of Argento into Duris’ role. I also wouldn’t suggest watching Transylvania directly after Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress, as there’s only so much one can take of Asia Argento mumbling her dialogue whilst writhing in pain. Funny that I have yet another Argento film, Boarding Gate, next on my list of films to see. I’m a masochist.