Puce Moment

I probably shouldn't have reviewed this. I had absolutely no interest in the subject matter or the story. So I am not going to dis it but I didn't see anything that was eye popping. I suppose the fact that it was made in 1949 had something to do with its inclusion at this time.

Because of the psychedelic music I didn't believe this was from 1949, but that is probably added a decade or more later. In combination with the pictures it creates a very special experience that I watched over five times (its only six minutes) to let it endure. How the music and the text relates to the images is another thing, its either hippie or pure hedonistic or (strangely) both. What it creates in feeling of reminisce and nostalgia over past times is what makes this so special.

All we see is a diva woman enjoying herself by herself, as a hermit as the music suggests, looking at her garments, smelling her perfumes or out on the terrace with her four greyhounds. She is so self indulgent that she looks high.

Kenneth Anger is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, and this is a film I've been wanting to watch for quite some time. After watching it, I enjoyed it. Although not as great as other Anger films like "Scorpio Rising", which has become one of my all time favorite films, it is still a great, little, experimental short.

It has no plot, like most of avant garde cinema, but it is a series of images, which, unlike other avant garde films, are all connected, involving the same one character, who, mainly just goes through a bunch of her dresses. Other stuff happens as well, but it is mainly a woman going through her dresses.

What is so good about that? Well, Anger's imagery and style make the film very visually interesting, and the soundtrack helps the film as well. It is ahead of it's time, and a great short film that you should probably have enough time to watch.

For me, that is Kenneth Anger is less impressive works, as most of Anger's shorts, the folk-rock music added in the 1960s is amazing. However, that short doesn't tell anything subliminal or interesting. That being said, I liked the intro sequence as well as the color palette.

I watched this film and saw that the dress alleged to be puce was actually blue. Not bluish puce--just plain blue blue. Puce is defined as a reddish purplish brown. The dress was nowhere near that color. Why did they take a blue dress and call it puce?