Sexy Laundry (2016, Izabela Plucinska)

Gooey clay people Alice and Henry can’t seem to have sex even in their fancy vacation hotel. They give up and consider divorce then try to spice things up one more time. Based on a stage play, which I wouldn’t want to mess with since the only attraction here is the clay.

–
The Age of Swordfish (1955, Vittorio De Seta)

Restoration paid by George Lucas, so of course the movie opens with a backstory text scroll. The men hunt swordfish while the women do laundry onshore. Paddlers, a spearman in front, and on an elevated pole a lookout guy who yells way too much. Not a mass-scale animal slaughter movie – they catch one fish and come home to sing and dance. This being Italy the sound is out of sync, but the titles tell us the audio was at least recorded on location. Mainly, this thing is shot and edited like absolute mad – it seems De Seta’s other work will be fun to watch.

–
Fishing Boats (1958, Vittorio De Seta)

Fishing with nets further out at sea this time, Leviathan a half-century early. Added drama from a storm, sea birds, a dolphin, a rainbow. No attempt at talking this time.

–
Same Player Shoots Again (1967, Wim Wenders)

Person is filmed from shoulders down, stumbling down a street while holding a rifle, the same shot then repeated with green/orange/red/blue tints. It’s a 12-minute movie but they ran out of music after three.

–
Silver City (1968, Wim Wenders)

Nice opening, fading between a sea of people and the sea. Then long static shots of various traffic intersections (car and train), light flaring at the end of each film roll. There’s a take of a still photograph, one of the Rolling Stones on TV (silent, so Criterion didn’t have to pay for the song). Feels like location scouting for the later road movies combined with a Benning-like duration experiment.