Jimmy came over for an unexpected evening of avant-garde shorts which I kicked off by fast-forwarding through Michael Snow’s Presents to show off its wackyness. Then we skimmed the Index DVD catalogue and I watched some others after he’d left.


Structuralist Films By Kurt Kren
I kinda know what structuralism is, though I’d have trouble defining it… so I defer to P. Adams Sitney, who says a “tight nexus of content, a shape designed to explore the facets of the material,” and the films render content “minimal and subsidiary to the outline.” Sounds a lot like Presents.
37/78 Tree Again – stop-motion of a tree, sometimes with cows, sometimes without.
2/60 48 Heads From The Szondi-Test – I liked this one best – heads cut out of newspapers or magazines rapidly edited into a time-montage.
17/68 Green-Red – a meditation on green and red bottles. Not too exciting… hardly up to the meditation standards of Lemon, for instance. Not just green/red, I saw some yellow in there.

Christoph Huber, when asked “What is the greatest movie ever made?”:

“Why, Kurt Kren’s 37/78 Tree Again, of course.” – which usually just raises eyebrows. So then, it’s my pleasure to expand on how a film they’ve never heard of, by a filmmaker they’ve never heard of, embodies the beauty and contradictions of cinema in its essence – and does so in less than four minutes. Kren’s film has an additional advantage, not always the case in that grey zone we shall term for purposes of straightforwardness “avant garde:” It can be described quite vividly in words, and its genesis makes for a good story. For about two months Kren returned daily to the same spot in Vermont to shoot single frames of a tree (using a roll of infrared film well past its expiration date). The succession of frames was not chronological, but Kren rewound the film according to a prearranged plan. The result is intoxicating, miraculously and mysteriously capturing time out of joint. In split seconds, seasons change and leaves are flashing in different colours, animals and clouds rush by, light and weather mutate constantly. In capturing decay and renewal of (and around) this tree Kren communicates the perpetual flux of the entire world, and a central paradox of cinema.


Actionist Films By Kurt Kren
A contemporary of Peter Kubelka, who made the irritating short Pause, Kren is also known for his “actionist” films. Actionism was an Austrian movement of artists who rejected “object-based or otherwise commodifiable art practices. The practice of staging precisely scored actions in controlled environments or before audiences.” (wikipedia). A precursor to performance-art, this mostly meant that people like Gunther Brus and Arnulf Rainer stripped naked and threw paint on each other, and people like Kren and Kubelka filmed it. Not as exciting as the structuralist works.
7/64 Leda and the Swan – Leda is covered in goo and acts as the main course in a feast, but the actionists stopped short of actually eating her. Eli Roth might’ve seen this before filming Thanksgiving.
10b/65 Silver Action Brus – Brus is in a tent, painting the walls, I dunno, looked like something high school kids would do as an art piece (because of the cheapness and easy shock-value) then edited to bits by Kren.

Leda and the Swan:
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Peter Tscherkassky
One of my new favorite people! His “Cinemascope Trilogy” (first three titles below) is mindblowingly awesome. I hope to watch it over and over again… it joins the ranks of Heart of the World and Life Wastes Andy Hardy and Dog’s Dialogue in my short-film hall of fame.
L’ArrivĂ©e
2 minutes, train arrives and happy woman disembarks, film itself “arrives” on the screen too after fluttering about for the first half.
Outer Space
10 minutes of terror, as a girl in a haunted house movie gets brutally attacked by film editing and multiple exposures.
Dream Work
11 more minutes of sheer awesomeness taken from the same film as Outer Space, but not as terrifying.
Manufraktur
Super-multi-exposure remix of some TV ads.
Motion Picture
All light/dark white/black flicker with no distinguishable image, short
Get Ready
A trailer for the 1999 Vienna film festival using PT’s exposure techniques

L’Arrivee:
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Outer Space:
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Dream Work:
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Today (1997, Eija-Liisa Ahtila)
“Today my dad’s crying. Last night a car drove over his dad who died instantly.” First part, Tanaan, a pretty girl tells us about her sad dad. Second part, Vera, an older woman, says some stuff but it doesn’t last long and before I’ve gotten my bearings we’re on to Third part, Faija (dad). First we see grandad lay down in the shadows of a dark road, then the pretty girl’s dad talks about being a dad. Movie wasn’t what I was expecting after sitting through all that Kurt Kren, but it’s actually pretty good, really nicely shot, some kinda associative pondering of three generations (going from the girl to her dad to vera/grandad, back to the dad and girl) maybe? Music by 22-Pistepirkko! Ahtila is Finnish. I found art gallery websites spouting off about her methods, but it’s all fancy-talk for “she tells stories about people.”
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Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998, Martin Arnold)
Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Fay Holden are trapped in the moment, rewound, slowed down and turned into robots, their every subliminally sexual movement revealed. I can not watch this enough times… so happy to have it on DVD now.
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Le Film a Venir (1997, Raoul Ruiz)
Yay, more wacky short fun from my man Ruiz. Black and white and mysterious, once more about hidden meaning and light sources and repetitions, abruptly shifting mood and plot, either surrealistic or beyond my comprehension. I’ve watched it twice and I’m pleased to say that I can’t manage a plot description. More play with narrator voices and narrative shortcuts, like in Hypothesis and Dog’s Dialogue. And Ruiz has a hundred movies – a hundred movies! – to explore. I could not be more excited.
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Letter to America (1999, Kira Muratova)
Disappointingly not half as wacky as the Ruiz. A dude is being filmed by his friend, sending a video message to new york, but the dude has nothing to say. So dude goes to the place he rents and tries to get some rent money out of the woman staying there. She’s being a jerk about it, but gives him a little money. He wanders back to his video friend and recites a triumphant poem before the camera. Apparently had some Crime & Punishment references I didn’t catch. J. Taubman: “Muratova’s film is itself a letter to America. One of its not so hidden messages is an ironic self-commentary on Muratova’s own situation, an example of what talent can do even in poverty.” She won a $50,000 award in Berlin, which helped fund her next feature. I liked it alright, but rather than seeming like a new cinematic voice, it kinda seemed like an american indie short that speaks Russian.
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Colloque de chiens is the real title, Dog Symposium is the title on the subtitles. The movie is a story told to each other by dogs through a series of stills, La Jetee-like, with quavery synth music and dry narration. The dogs are shot live-action with natural sound.

Dogs on a vacant lot bark at each other over the credits.

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“The woman you call mum isn’t your mother” Monique turned pale on hearing those words from a school friend. Madame Duvivier tells little Monique that Marie, the woman who often comes by, is the real mother. Marie tells Monique that she doesn’t know who her father is. Monique flees Bordeaux. “From now on, sex and domination shall rule Monique’s life.” Monique is a nurse, has illicit affairs with her male patients. Christmas eve 1966 she dances with rich, 65-year-old Hubert, intends to seduce him for his money. Monique becomes a “cold and dry voiced whore” with “an urge for revenge”.

Dogs bark in apartment windows and balconies.

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Monique falls for the TV repairman, Henri, who she remembers from her hometown. She starts a new life, opening the Joli Mont cafe, but “in fact she’s buying her own death”. Henri helps her run it. Alice, a friend from home, comes to visit, blackmails Monique to not tell Henri about her sad past, has an affair and falls in love with Henri. When the three are in the park, Monique kills herself and her 3-year-old son Paul-Henri. Dogs.

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“Henri’s only option is to marry Alice, his wife’s intimate friend, who dominates him. In a way, Alice was buying her own death.” Alice tells about both women’s pasts on their wedding night. Henri has an urge for revenge. He grabs an empty bottle of wine, which turns into a knife on the images, and kills her. Dogs. Henri cuts up Alice’s body and hides the parts all over town, which switches to live-action for a bit, with no dogs but the sound of children singing.

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Back to stills. Henri goes to Marseilles and falls into some shady dealings with gangsters, is jailed for 5 years. Nurses a sick cellmate with whom he has an affair. The police draw a map of the body parts they’ve found, which form a circle, the Joli Mont cafe at the center. “The universal geometric laws gave him away”. Live action street shots, adults singing.

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Stills. Mr. Benami tells Henri about sex-change operations in Casablanca, “the perfect disguise”. “Henri Odile has become a charming young lady.” Christmas eve 1974 she’s invited out by a rich, 65-year old man, intends to seduce him for money. Odile becomes a prostitute. Goes back to Montsouris, sees the Joli Mont is for sale, buys and runs it, adopts young Luigi. One evening, 18-year-old Fernand comes to the bar with a bottle of wine / knife / empty glass, kills Odile. Dogs barking. At school, Luigi is pestered by his friends. “Your mother was killed by her lover.” “That’s not true. The woman you call my mother wasn’t my mother.” Credits.

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This movie is as old as I am. I watched it three times in one weekend… it is fantastic.

The editor and composer both still work with Ruiz (That Day, Klimt, etc), the cinematographer is now with Olivier Assayas, and the actress (!) who played Henri is now a press agent. Everyone involved still alive and well, including Ruiz, who has a euro-art-meets-quentin-tarantino cast of actors lined up for his next film.

Second half of shorts listing from Cannes 60th anniv. celebration (first half is here):

It’s A Dream by Tsai Ming-liang
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Occupations by a hatchet-wielding Lars Von Trier
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The Gift, more weirdness by Raoul Ruiz
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The Cinema Around The Corner, happy reminiscing by Claude Lelouch
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First Kiss, pretty but obvious, by Gus Van Sant.
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Cinema Erotique, a funny gag by Roman Polanksi with one of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s large-faced actors.
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No Translation Needed, almost too bizarre to be considered self-indulgent, first Michael Cimino movie since 1996.
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At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World by and starring David Cronenberg, one of his funniest and most disturbing movies.
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I Travelled 9,000 km To Give It To You by Wong Kar-Wai.
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Where Is My Romeo? – Abbas Kiarostami films women crying at a movie.
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The Last Dating Show, funny joke on dating and racial tension by Bille August.
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Awkward featuring Elia Suleiman as himself.
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Sole Meeting, another gag, by Manoel de Oliveira and starring Michel Piccoli (left) and MdO fave Duarte de Almeida (right).
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8,944 km From Cannes, a very pleasurable musical gag by Walter Salles.
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War In Peace, either perverse or tragic, I don’t know which, by Wim Wenders.
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Zhanxiou Village, supreme childhood pleasure by Chen Kaige.
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Happy Ending, ironically funny ending by Ken Loach.
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Epilogue is an excerpt from a Rene Clair film.
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Not included in the DVD version was World Cinema by Joel & Ethan Coen and reportedly a second Walter Salles segment.

Not included in the program at all was Absurda by David Lynch (reportedly he submitted too late, so his short was shown separately). I saw a download copy… some digital business with crazed sound effects and giant scissors.

Picked a nice, short, famous one for my first Raoul Ruiz movie. Based on a fictional painter (I didn’t know until I looked it up). The curator studies “a collection of paintings by Tonnerre, a French academic painter of the mid-nineteenth century, whose rather undistinguished works, with no consistency in style or subject matter, are said to have provoked a major but mysterious society scandal”. The title is misleading, because the supposedly missing painting is not discussed so much, but rather how the paintings are connected and what scandal they could have caused. Turns out the characters within may be enacting the rituals of a secret society, but that barely seems to matter anymore by the time it’s unveiled.

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Pretty amazing movie to watch (even though I fell asleep the first time). The curator is not the film’s narrator. The curator actually falls asleep once while droning on about the paintings, and the narrator whispers to us until he reawakens. The curator stages complicated tableaus, reenactments, like life-sized dioramas of the paintings in order to get a 3-D perspective on the hidden clues, which are in mirror reflections, light and shadow, and everything else. A movie all about mise-en-scene, so the paintings and stagings have interesting layouts, and the filming of them is interesting on its own. So many layers I don’t pretend to understand.

Below: Professional Jean Reno in his first film role.
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Completely wild. Loved it, though I don’t know who I could recommend it to. Guess I’ll just see more Ruiz movies. Not sure whether any/all questions are answered at the end… curator seems too obsessive to be able to see the truth anymore, and may be using the ritual explanation to justify his own ritualistic beliefs. The movie’s got a few visual freakouts, like the one below, but otherwise is a sort of fictional essay film.

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Where the missing painting, the fourth in the series, should have hung:
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Essential essay here: http://www.rouge.com.au/2/hypothesis.html
Katy might’ve liked it. I guess. Can’t really say.