Hello, strangers!

Hello, stranger...

This is a private (from time to time) blog for my cinematic obsessions and scintillating (one-sided) reflections about movies. Feel yourself at home!

22 aprilie 2012

Juxtapuneri (XVII)

Screenshots from Days of Heaven (dir. Terrence Malick/1978)

„When suddenly / Johnny / gets the feeling / he’s being surrounded by / horses, horses, horses, horses / coming in in all directions / white shining silver studs / with their nose in flames / he saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses…” (Patti Smith - Horses, from the debut album released in 1975 on Arista Records)

18 aprilie 2012

Make a wish and let it happen (1)


Screencapture from Bright Star (dir. Jane Campion/2009), an intoxicatingly beautiful piece of art that Keats himself would call „a thing of beauty... a joy forever”. 

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Bonus: They connect, I cut!

16 aprilie 2012

Monday Monologues (LX)



A woman was gossiping with her friend about a man whom they hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this. That night, she had a dream: a great hand appeared over her and pointed down on her. She was immediately seized with an overwhelming sense of guilt. The next day she went to confession. She got the old parish priest, Father O' Rourke, and she told him the whole thing. 'Is gossiping a sin?' she asked the old man. 'Was that God All Mighty's hand pointing down at me? Should I ask for your absolution? Father, have I done something wrong?' 'Yes,' Father O' Rourke answered her. 'Yes, you ignorant, badly-brought-up female. You have blamed false witness on your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.' So, the woman said she was sorry, and asked for forgiveness. 'Not so fast,' says O' Rourke. 'I want you to go home, take a pillow upon your roof, cut it open with a knife, and return here to me.' So, the woman went home: took a pillow off her bed, a knife from the drawer, went up the fire escape to her roof, and stabbed the pillow. Then she went back to the old parish priest as instructed. 'Did you gut the pillow with a knife?' he says. 'Yes, Father.' 'And what were the results?' 'Feathers,' she said. 'Feathers?' he repeated. 'Feathers; everywhere, Father.' 'Now I want you to go back and gather up every last feather that flew out onto the wind,' 'Well,' she said, 'it can't be done. I don't know where they went. The wind took them all over.' 'And that,' said Father O' Rourke, 'is gossip!' (Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Brendan Flynn in Doubt, dir. John Patrick Shanley/2008)

15 aprilie 2012

„Life is only on Earth, and not for long”

Justine: 678. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle.
Claire: No, that's right.
Justine: But I know. 678.
Claire: Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
Justine: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on Earth, and not for long.

678 

Cioran identifica originile melancoliei în Facerea, când Omul, nemulţumindu-se cu „pomul vieţii”, încalcã interdicţia divinã gustând din „pomul binelui şi rãului”. Dornic de cunoaştere şi ignorând cu superbie preceptele demiurgului, Omul se prãbuşeşte în abisul timpului, devine „fiinţă deficitarã, degeneratã (...), biologic declasatã”. Consecinţã a propriilor acţiuni.

678

Loteria boabelor de fasole. Şir aritmetic. Înlănţuire logică. Obicei de nuntă. Boabe de fasole într-un recipient din sticlă. Invitaţii sunt rugaţi să indice numărul lor exact. Din ochi. Fireşte, e şi un premiu. Reportat. Nimeni nu nimereşte the magic number. Nici măcar nu se apropie. Calcul probabilistic, hazard, absurd. Nimic nu funcţionează. Kafka, Beckett, Ionesco... Tustrei ar fi jubilat la acest film. Nu pentru că, bemol!, le-ar fi verificat teoriile, ci din pură încântare. Justine (Kirsten Dunst), Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg, febleţea lui von Trier, nu şi a mea), John (Alexander Sarsgard) îşi aşteaptă Godot-ul personal, dar nu mai au inocenţa de a-i prinde eventuala sosire. Singurul care e în măsură să-l întâmpine e un copil. Cu un cerc din sârmă ce aduce cu plasa de prins fluturi a lui Nabokov. Sau cu o antenă improvizată, depinde de capacitatea de abstractizare a fiecăruia. Dar adoarme şi el, aşa cum cred că ni s-a întâmplat tuturor aşteptând un Moş Crăciun întârziat. Moş Crăciun, Godot-ul teologilor şi al părinţilor ce rămân mereu copii. 

678

Aş dori să propun un toast, spune un personaj din Melancholia: Pentru viaţă! Viaţa văzută de von Trier e un zid de iluzii (the wall, dar acel zid pe care Syd Barrett cu tot cu Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds nu şi l-ar fi imaginat ca substitut al realităţii în platourile de televiziune sau în mediul virtual!) îndărătul căruia sălăşluieşte absurdul. Fratele de sânge al Melancoliei. O planetă. Mai albastră decât Pământul. Un sentiment. Mai albastru decât tristeţea. O revelaţie teleologică de tipul „when you find your servant is your master”!  

Melancholia e o strălucitoare disertaţie eshatologică, nicidecum o apocalipsă, însă e la îndemână să-l vezi aşa când nu mai vezi dincolo de clişee. Şi, înclin să cred, e cel mai coerent şi canonic demers al lui von Trier de la Breaking the Waves încoace. Dogma e literă veştedă.

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„Hold my hand. Close your eyes.”