speak my language
So the Filmmaker Friend and I went to see Drawing Restraint 9 tonight.
I arrived a whole hour early so escaped from the heat into the lamplit coolness of the Imperial. Damn, those couches are nice and so bloody comfy. Twas a very mellow hour I spent with my feet up against the wall, head pillowed on my bag, iNano plugged in and reading Junky.
Dear William S. Burroughs, he always feels like a beloved enthusiastic young friend. I haven't actually read this one and was lending it out with no qualm until I began it in the pub. Ah well. Maybe I'll just read The Soft Machine instead and do the inevitable wonder about the band.
And Drawing Restraint 9 was a whole different kind of trip. We missed the first ten minutes cos we were just a little too late out from dinner. And now that I think back to what we walked into, urgh I do want to see it again. Symbolism! Gah!
The Filmmaker Friend had mentioned it was set on a whaling ship. I completely forgot this until a good way into the film and then wanted to thwack myself one in the head. So once that was set up, I was kinda braced to witness an actual, y'know, whaling thing. Grim jawed, etc. As it was, we were spared that, only witnessed in mock play form which was just amusing.
It was soooooooooooooo slow. It felt like four hours. It wasn't. But that worked perfectly. I was never bored. Just sort of slipped into this thoughtful, slowly analytical mood, filtering the images through, stringing them together with thought, ever aware of Bjork's music and the absence of it. The Filmmaker Friend totally nailed it afterwards when she said it was a meditative film, tranquil and meditative. So true. Exactly so.
It seemed to be all about ceremony and barbarism, juxtaposing the two. An elaborate gowning and robing of Bjork and Matthew Barney taking place in the belly of the ship while a whole other series of ceremonies took place above board in the preparation and rendering of the whale fat. Barbaric or ceremony?
And then the tea ceremony and the history of the ship with hints of "an older story in the deeper scar" and how in Japan they recognise that they are a part of nature, that it is all intertwined. And all the while I'm thinking about how Japan was demonised for its whaling trade, wondering about the politics of the film, wondering now if there was indeed any politics at all or if it was merely the politics of the personal.
Because it was always uneasy and fascinating to see Matthew Barney and Bjork react to each other, knowing that they have a child together, having been told by Z that apparently it was difficult for them to shoot the private scenes. When I got into the car after the movie, the Filmmaker Friend asked me if I thought it was romantic. Had to think about it for a good long while before I replied, "No. It was intimate. Not romantic."
Cos boy did it get weird and initially very disturbing after the tea ceremony. Until I realised they weren't actually cutting into each other's flesh. That totally bewildered and confused me, couldn't fathom it at all. To me, suddenly the ceremony of civilisation had turned into a ceremony of a sort of barbarism. And yet there was tenderness and that strong unspoken bond between them. Fascinating. The way the drops of blood coagulated so beautiful against the horror of mutilated limbs suspended in the water. I'm fairly okay with gore but I have to admit that even though I knew it was all prosthetics and possibly cgi, my gorge was beginning to rise. I guess that was the point.
There was this gorgeous pearl diver sequence early in the film that completely enchanted and slightly terrified me. Women pearl divers going down with nothing but goggles and a rope tied to a floating wooden barrel, relying entirely on their breathing exercises to stay alive. I was even more appalled because the sequence was intercut with an image of this gorgeous woman in black strung over with pearls playing some odd incredible black mouth instrument.
There seemed something so pure about the pearl diving, the total bare risk of diving without a mechanical air supply, diving for individual pearls that will end up twined in endless ropes around some woman's neck. The total barbarism of that horrified me even before the whaling ship appeared.
And god how beautifully it came together at the end. With Bjork singing "At the moment of commitment, nature conspires to help you." A concrete ramp collapses into the sea, the huge mass of rendered whale fat breaks apart over the deck, and the pearl diver rises from the sea, opens her mouth to spew forth pearls that fall back down through the waters to form two intersecting circles on the bedrock. Nature conspires to help you. Entropy. Brilliant.
And the Filmmaker Friend put it in the most marvellous way: "Wasn't it wonderful how they drank the whale tea and then turned into whales?"
Gah! Of course! That's what happened! *thwacks head*
Eye of the beholder and all, innit.
So want to see The Cremaster Cycle now.
I arrived a whole hour early so escaped from the heat into the lamplit coolness of the Imperial. Damn, those couches are nice and so bloody comfy. Twas a very mellow hour I spent with my feet up against the wall, head pillowed on my bag, iNano plugged in and reading Junky.
Dear William S. Burroughs, he always feels like a beloved enthusiastic young friend. I haven't actually read this one and was lending it out with no qualm until I began it in the pub. Ah well. Maybe I'll just read The Soft Machine instead and do the inevitable wonder about the band.
And Drawing Restraint 9 was a whole different kind of trip. We missed the first ten minutes cos we were just a little too late out from dinner. And now that I think back to what we walked into, urgh I do want to see it again. Symbolism! Gah!
The Filmmaker Friend had mentioned it was set on a whaling ship. I completely forgot this until a good way into the film and then wanted to thwack myself one in the head. So once that was set up, I was kinda braced to witness an actual, y'know, whaling thing. Grim jawed, etc. As it was, we were spared that, only witnessed in mock play form which was just amusing.
It was soooooooooooooo slow. It felt like four hours. It wasn't. But that worked perfectly. I was never bored. Just sort of slipped into this thoughtful, slowly analytical mood, filtering the images through, stringing them together with thought, ever aware of Bjork's music and the absence of it. The Filmmaker Friend totally nailed it afterwards when she said it was a meditative film, tranquil and meditative. So true. Exactly so.
It seemed to be all about ceremony and barbarism, juxtaposing the two. An elaborate gowning and robing of Bjork and Matthew Barney taking place in the belly of the ship while a whole other series of ceremonies took place above board in the preparation and rendering of the whale fat. Barbaric or ceremony?
And then the tea ceremony and the history of the ship with hints of "an older story in the deeper scar" and how in Japan they recognise that they are a part of nature, that it is all intertwined. And all the while I'm thinking about how Japan was demonised for its whaling trade, wondering about the politics of the film, wondering now if there was indeed any politics at all or if it was merely the politics of the personal.
Because it was always uneasy and fascinating to see Matthew Barney and Bjork react to each other, knowing that they have a child together, having been told by Z that apparently it was difficult for them to shoot the private scenes. When I got into the car after the movie, the Filmmaker Friend asked me if I thought it was romantic. Had to think about it for a good long while before I replied, "No. It was intimate. Not romantic."
Cos boy did it get weird and initially very disturbing after the tea ceremony. Until I realised they weren't actually cutting into each other's flesh. That totally bewildered and confused me, couldn't fathom it at all. To me, suddenly the ceremony of civilisation had turned into a ceremony of a sort of barbarism. And yet there was tenderness and that strong unspoken bond between them. Fascinating. The way the drops of blood coagulated so beautiful against the horror of mutilated limbs suspended in the water. I'm fairly okay with gore but I have to admit that even though I knew it was all prosthetics and possibly cgi, my gorge was beginning to rise. I guess that was the point.
There was this gorgeous pearl diver sequence early in the film that completely enchanted and slightly terrified me. Women pearl divers going down with nothing but goggles and a rope tied to a floating wooden barrel, relying entirely on their breathing exercises to stay alive. I was even more appalled because the sequence was intercut with an image of this gorgeous woman in black strung over with pearls playing some odd incredible black mouth instrument.
There seemed something so pure about the pearl diving, the total bare risk of diving without a mechanical air supply, diving for individual pearls that will end up twined in endless ropes around some woman's neck. The total barbarism of that horrified me even before the whaling ship appeared.
And god how beautifully it came together at the end. With Bjork singing "At the moment of commitment, nature conspires to help you." A concrete ramp collapses into the sea, the huge mass of rendered whale fat breaks apart over the deck, and the pearl diver rises from the sea, opens her mouth to spew forth pearls that fall back down through the waters to form two intersecting circles on the bedrock. Nature conspires to help you. Entropy. Brilliant.
And the Filmmaker Friend put it in the most marvellous way: "Wasn't it wonderful how they drank the whale tea and then turned into whales?"
Gah! Of course! That's what happened! *thwacks head*
Eye of the beholder and all, innit.
So want to see The Cremaster Cycle now.