claudecat

I remember watching this the year it came out and thinking how well it reflected visual trends of the day; it shares something with the high-end stock photography I was seeing at the time (back when stock photos cost a lot more). The technical aspects are impressive: the editing is spot-on, and the zoom-jumps to details, such as the Cadillac logo, are cleverly handled, and look like they must have taken hours. It's interesting that this first video is so much more polished looking than the band's later viral hits. I was also interested to find out today that the director spent his first four years in Austria and the rest of his childhood in Los Angeles, given the "midwest recreation center" aesthetic of the video. (Perhaps the director's background actually explains this.) There are also repeated references to subliminal messaging for some reason, maybe just because those blink-of-an-eye snippets match the pace of the song.

Some of the choices seem a little clunky to me now, such as showing a literal saltshaker on the word "salt," but there are just as many brilliant moments, including the brief-but-memorable visual connection between Andy Duncan's eye and a taxidermied deer head's eye.

A worthy first entry in the band's innovative video catalog, and still fun to watch today (especially since it was thoughtfully remastered for higher res screens).

I had read a bit about Hilma af Klint, but like most people who saw the exhibit at the Guggenheim, I was stunned when I realized how powerful her works are in person. Still, I thought I basically knew her story, so when someone recommended this documentary to me, I put off watching it for a while. Well, I finally saw it, and was blown away a second time. The filmmaker did a marvelous job showing me all the things I didn't know about Hilma af Klint. I knew she was academically trained, but I didn't know how assiduously she worked in series and developed her subjects. I knew she was interested in theosophy, but I didn't know how significant its views on women were to her. I didn't know how connected she was to scientific thought about the makeup of the universe. I thought I had seen a lot of her works but there were more and more, many astonishing.

You might have to be seriously interested in art to get caught up in this story, and some people will find the pace too leisurely, but it was exactly what I thought suited the subject. The photography was gorgeous. The art-historical points were clearly made. The multilingual "talking heads" were all lively, interesting people with useful, entertaining contributions (stay tuned after the credits for an additional tidbit from one of them).

My only complaint was that I would have liked to see some discussion of other types of abstraction, and how they fit into af Klint's work: decorative household arts of Scandinavia, spiritual art of the middle east, etc. But I suppose one doc can't cover everything. This one did so much more than I expected that it earns high marks from me. I hope my review doesn't impact anyone else's enjoyment, by getting their hopes up too high, but I was so impressed that I had to come here and write something.

I just heard this film recommended on a podcast, and it reminded me of how much I disliked it. The cast is impressive, but they aren't given very believable characters--I remember Danielle Darrieux made a lot out of her part, but that was about it. Catherine Deneuve tries to have some fun, but the role is against it; Emmanuelle Béart's performance is just weird. The film tries to be both an old-fashioned mystery and a musical, but the plot makes no sense, and is highly dependent on coincidence, so it won't satisfy mystery fans, and the musical numbers are very poorly shot, so they won't satisfy musical fans. I'm not that particular about camera work, but I remember that while I watched this film, in the theater back when it came out, I kept being annoyed by how dull the cinematography was. I remember of one musical number, my husband said, "It could have been fabulous, but instead it was just...two girls in a room."

In addition, the film seems permeated with a hatred of women, which is bizarre for a movie that's supposed to celebrate these great actresses. Even though the dead man at the center of the mystery is a horrible character who created many of his own issues, the film's POV seems to be that these scheming, awful women are responsible for every problem in the house. But the specifics of the plot don't really support this. In addition, a disturbing subplot involving child abuse is treated as inconsequential, and a violent action takes place right in front of a young teenager, punishing her for no reason. The point of the whole thing was confusing.

I wrote a review of this movie years ago, but IMDB removed it. When I asked why, they answered, "Sometimes we take down reviews," and that was it. We'll see if this one goes up.