viruses and parasites
I had one of those reality check "no, dri, you really aren't like most people" moments today. When I said to the Gorgeous Gemini Girl that I have a total kink for gay men. She's like "I think you better get some therapy and have that checked out." Half joking, half serious but just a little shocked, y'ken. My response was almost reflexive, "Oh hell, no, I know why it is. It's cos I'm a gay man trapped in a straight woman's body." She was amused at that but it was bit of an odd moment.
How did this come up? I was telling her about my watching of Tom White last night. God, it was good. After the fatal flaw of The Book Of Revelation and the irritation of One Perfect Day, it was such a relief to see a well-crafted subtle beautiful and powerful Australian film.
I was really moved. And yeah, totally hadn't expected to be cos at the back of my mind was "hell, if Dan's in it for only a bit of the time, I might not enjoy the rest or even want to watch the rest."
I'm so glad I did, though. The journey of the film, the emotional journey of Tom himself, gah so so subtly awesome. Always knew Colin Friels was a fine and respected actor but somehow I'd never seen any of his films. Waitasecond, wasn't he in The Book Of Revelation? That's right, he was, him and Greta Scacchi and that's why that film pissed me off so much --- cos it was a great topic and they had great actors but the fucking script totally let them down, it was so frustrating to watch.
But gah, the writing in this. Masterful, excellent, and so so real. So awesome on so many levels from set up to character to meta arc and the little reflections of each character in Tom --- did they actually change him or was he a parasite? Omg parasite! And how he went from the keeper (Mr Moneybags!) to a parasite in his own right, and then full circle back to a semblance of responsibility and ultimately, oh god ultimately ...
My god, I loved that final scene so so much. That there was no action at all, that there was no active purpose to it at all but that I felt, I felt the whole curve and ascension of his journey culminate and resolve in just that one perfect moment of him so physically changed, in white, facing calmly hopefully into the future. God I love that shit! I love when art can communicate so much powerful momentum and meaning in the simplest subtlest moment of silence and peace.
Fucking gah!
Written by Daniel Keene. I wondered if it's the same Keene as in the Keene-Taylor Theatre Project. Prolly is, makes sense with the Film Victoria and yep, Dan, and all the quiet implications of excellence I've seen associated with mentions of Keene-Taylor. *googles* Yep, thought so.
It was so funny, though, cos there was so much swearing I couldn't help but have the Aunt in the back of my head. She went to see 2:37 a couple of months ago cos it's about teen suicide in Australia so was pretty significant in terms of her Lifeline counselling. Also why I told her to see Candy and pushed the book at her. I was too scared to see 2:37 in the cinemas, much rather watch it in the emotional privacy of DVD at home.
Anyway, she was colossally irritated by the constant profanity in 2:37. "Every sentence had the f-word!" Nothing gets up her nose more, even I get told off quite frequently although we've both toned down over time.
Man, she would have been so pissed at Tom White. Cos yeah, even I began to notice after a while that almost every sentence had the f-word. But, ahh, that's only in the middle of the film, innit? Symptomatic of how deeper and deeper he goes into that world, divorces it so cleanly from the pristine polite world of his wife and kids. It's simple but so fabulously effective, almost missable, that device of language deteriorating as the psyche disintegrates.
I do love the way Australians say "fuck you" or "fucking". It's with such wonderful venom, such eloquent force, when Dan says it, when Colin Friels says it, when Bill Hunter says it. For a while there, I was trying to properly phonetisise it ... is it "farken" or "ffahken" or ffuhkken"? Oof, I love it. It's not casual, it's never casual, it always means something of power, of bitterness, of fury, of frustration, it's not just lint in a sentence. I love that. Kinda makes me wonder if that's the difference between this and Pulp Fiction. If there is a difference ...
So fascinating how brutal Aussie films can be. A certain kind of brutality that somehow seems way more powerful than brutality in American films. Brit films I find are similar that way and I wonder if that's because I relate much more to Australian and Brit films than American just in very basic terms of accent and manner.
They do say Aussie and Brit films are very much their own animals, don't they? Maybe by sheer dint of Hollywood over-saturation, they have to be. Each country will make its own kind of film, can't help but? Especially now when the more interesting films seem to come from everywhere but Hollywood? Or maybe I'm just jaded like that. Or maybe I'm just ignorant that way cos I've only ever watched American, Brit and Australian films.
Still for all that, I love how the brutality in an Aussie film can shock me much more than brutality in an American film. Is it because the people on screen are more real to me cos I hear their accents and speech patterns around me? Or is it a certain quality of Aussie films that they don't flinch from the harsh and keep a good steady ironic rein on the emotion?
Balance. Love it when a film strikes that perfect equilibrium of violence and emotion, text and subtext, and god just does it well.
Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions --- more Dans! Lustee and Z's wife! --- did the music. And I was just thinking I bet my powerful emotional response owed a lot to the music of that final moment. But fabulously I don't remember any music. Ack, don't you love that?! When everything works so beautifully and subtly that you're moved without fully realising why. Fucking ace.
The music was great, though. Totally set the pace and mood of the film, from the opening shot, the dark reflective unsettled sense of a strange terrible but hopefully positive emotional journey. I don't remember the words of that first song but I do remember being quite conscious of how I was being eased confidently into the story, interested as a result. Rather than enter babbling, we entered with song and glimpses of characters that we'd meet properly later and then into the primary story.
Totally excellent structure. And little things like repeating boat journeys, only he's on the other side of the frame. (Was he? Or did I just think he was because he looked so very different? Did I misremember?) Makes me think of that John Ford thing of positioning the action across the screen as symbolic of character. Like in the Abe Lincoln film, how it's significant that Henry Fonda walks to the left out of frame while his wife walks to the right, her into the past, he into the future. Or maybe he's to the right and she's to the left, I can't remember, can't even tell my own left from right but it was something as tiny as that imbued with significance.
God, I love film.
Oh, right, Dan.
For the fourth time in as many things I've seen him, I had that sharp jolt of "Jesus, he really is a fucking excellent actor, isn't he?" It's totally a physical jolt, hitch in my chest. Happened in Part 2 of The Lost Echo when he switched facial expressions from old crone to young Bacchus and I had to catch my breath at the difference. Happened in Part 1 of The Lost Echo when he took out the little wooden stag, combed out its hair, set it down on the bench, then scampered away, gorgeous sweet Endymion, and I realised with a tiny shock that I had been completely riveted on him that whole time. *blinks* Happened in One Perfect Day when he paused, stared at his girlfriend and then screamed "Fuck you" right into her face, his whole body arching into it. My own damned body jerked, brain sort of broke.
And here in Tom White it wasn't even in our proper introduction to him, when he turns his beautiful wretched bloodied face to the light and asks for help. I was too "noooooooooo, my bewdiful Daaan!" to actually be lucid.
But oh, a few seconds later. Jesus, it still creeps me out some twelve or so hours later. When he drops the keys and whimpers, and then as Colin Friels stoops to get them, Matt (Dan) huddles against the doorjamb, going "key key key key key key key." My brain and heart totally broke at that point. Jaysus. Just the sequence of it all, the splinter of his voice. It freaked me out both times cos yes I did watch the whole film and then go back to his part cos he was just that good.
Really, I'm beginning to think the best way to react to his acting is to go "Urgh, Dan Spielman!" Like the only way to properly express appreciation of Christian Bale is to go "Bale, fuhhking legend!" Talk about the absolute necessity of profanity and exclamations of disgusted awe. Heh.
Fascinating character, not terribly likeable and really you end up a little bitter and resentful of him but oh god, totally charming and alluring at the same time. Urgh! i should liek iconise that: Urgh, Dan Spielman! A rather twisty character for such a short span of screen time: the aged cynicism cos he's an old hand at despair, the crippled and crippling vulnerability, the irresistible flirtiness, the slight touch of narkiness, the feckless rebellion, and ultimately that selfish wilful emotional need. He has this great line, god I love it so much and maybe it was a particular favourite for Dan too because he enunciated it perfectly: "You have enough money for a parasite like me." Oof! *twistfainttopple*
And argh, he was beautiful. His hair that perfect close crop, just the barest wisp of curl at his temple. Christ, how lush brown his lashes were. Really hope that was makeup trickery but my One Perfect Day caps are prodding me otherwise. Soooo pale and thin and narrow, so fey breakable boy. *moan* So, y'see, I'm not so far off my usual type after all. Heh.
And boy, did the camera love him up in the final moments of his last scene. Zeroed right in on those big greenish eyes. Talk about my heart lodging in my throat. Guh.
I was a bit puzzled at first by that speech, seemed a bit obvious for so early in the film. I had kinda thought that concept of emotional freedom would be the ultimate point of the film but him connoting it in terms of "you love who you love and you can't help that" was a little obfuscating.
But on the second viewing, paying more attention to Colin's reaction rather than Dan's retreating arse --- *facesmacks* What?! I was hoping it wasn't the last time I'd see him. I was yearning! I can't help who I yearn for! --- on the second viewing knowing how the journey ends, I got it. "No one's to blame," Tom repeats and that's what he struggles with all through the film, back and forth and back and forth, the guilt about his responsibility and love for his wife and kids, and his own need for self.
Oh god, how I love the moment when he's faced with the man he used to be and that's when I realised "nooooo, don't go back to that, don't, you're better than that now, Tom!" Which is then totally bizarre cos the man he is now is homeless, dirty, unshaven, foulmouthed, prone to violence and prolly quite smelly too. Ah, brilliant juxtaposition, how the script and direction moves you so awesomely to that point. Too fucking awesome.
And how there are degrees and nuances of insanity. He says bizarre things and behaves in irrational ways as a homeless man but still he seems saner than he ever was, steadier and surer and cannier than he was at the start of the film. He was pathetic when he was cleanshaven in a suit in his beautiful house and slick office, very Lester Burnham, and so much more admirable as a derelict eventual artist moving between soup kitchen and squat and pavement. Gah, that's so brilliant!
Man, that final scene between him and his wife just killed me stone dead. As a rule, I tend to brace myself when it comes time for emotional showdowns. I get hypercritical, the last thing I want is to be bombarded with hysteria and cringeworthy dialogue and overacting. I hate how a great emotional journey can be rendered crap by a heavyhanded showdown. Almost as heinous as an inadequate one. Such a fine balance.
So this totally blew me out of the water. I was so thrown by the little plot device of the piece of paper he holds out to her that I totally forgot to brace myself. So curious about what he wrote and then "wooooooaaaaaawwwwww that's beautiful and so painful and omg how's she going to take it?" And she was so great, she reacted in every way as I was --- the anger, the pain, the iciness. Excellent actress, who the hell was she? Rachael Blake. Right. *makes mental note* What else have I seen her in? Hmm. Maybe just Home And Away in passing.
It was such a quiet role, glimpses of her interspersed betwen his journey, her holding it together with steel and worry and all of it inward except for that one freaking awesome voicemail she leaves on his phone, veering from worry to rage to coldness and you don't even see her!
Mmmmm, Dan wore eyeliner. Just the briefest briefest side-on glimpse and oy ... *fans self, wheezes for breath* And then with the bump grinding and the twisting and that gleeful wicked terrible shock of his smile. Couldn't have been very difficult for the guy playing his lover to act besotted. The dude looked as adoring as I felt. Or perhaps I project. *cough*
And argh, they cut away from the gay sex. There was just the slowest most langourous pull off of his tee, pale pale flesh and red red nipples and the camera slid away and I fell all over my bed, reaching and crying "noooooooooo, go back, oh please go back, baaaaaaaack, please please pleaase ..." I think there were actually tears in my eyes. *snort*
Oh yes, there will be caps. Oh fucking yes.
Oof there was a great song in the final scene with Christine (Loene Carmen, whaddya know), brilliant marriage of colour and frame and gorgeous female body twisting in drunken dancing despair to this dirty raw sinister Nick-Cave-liek garage rock that had me going "remember to look in the closing credits." What happened next totally wiped that from my head but those moments were so great, so true, so god-I-wish-I-could-capture-this-in-a-novel. Don't know if that's possible, such was the perfect raw complement of sound and visual. How could I do that in words? *sigh*
And ack, Bill Hunter was awesome. It was a few minutes into his part that I realised how much I was enjoying the film, enjoying it separate from Dan. By the time it ended, I had almost forgotten about him. Almost, mind you.
Ooh, Margaret interviewing Colin and the director. And what David and Margaret thought. Hm. Funny that I had exactly the opposite reaction to David. I liked Christine but it was quite clear he couldn't stay with her. Hmm.
*sigh* Dan. I feel so unworthy when I talk about him in public, like someone as dark and short and untidy as me shouldn't be so vocally in love with someone as smart and beautiful and otherworldly as him. *sigh*
Self loathing, my old friend. Now there's an icon worth the making. Hee.
How did this come up? I was telling her about my watching of Tom White last night. God, it was good. After the fatal flaw of The Book Of Revelation and the irritation of One Perfect Day, it was such a relief to see a well-crafted subtle beautiful and powerful Australian film.
I was really moved. And yeah, totally hadn't expected to be cos at the back of my mind was "hell, if Dan's in it for only a bit of the time, I might not enjoy the rest or even want to watch the rest."
I'm so glad I did, though. The journey of the film, the emotional journey of Tom himself, gah so so subtly awesome. Always knew Colin Friels was a fine and respected actor but somehow I'd never seen any of his films. Waitasecond, wasn't he in The Book Of Revelation? That's right, he was, him and Greta Scacchi and that's why that film pissed me off so much --- cos it was a great topic and they had great actors but the fucking script totally let them down, it was so frustrating to watch.
But gah, the writing in this. Masterful, excellent, and so so real. So awesome on so many levels from set up to character to meta arc and the little reflections of each character in Tom --- did they actually change him or was he a parasite? Omg parasite! And how he went from the keeper (Mr Moneybags!) to a parasite in his own right, and then full circle back to a semblance of responsibility and ultimately, oh god ultimately ...
My god, I loved that final scene so so much. That there was no action at all, that there was no active purpose to it at all but that I felt, I felt the whole curve and ascension of his journey culminate and resolve in just that one perfect moment of him so physically changed, in white, facing calmly hopefully into the future. God I love that shit! I love when art can communicate so much powerful momentum and meaning in the simplest subtlest moment of silence and peace.
Fucking gah!
Written by Daniel Keene. I wondered if it's the same Keene as in the Keene-Taylor Theatre Project. Prolly is, makes sense with the Film Victoria and yep, Dan, and all the quiet implications of excellence I've seen associated with mentions of Keene-Taylor. *googles* Yep, thought so.
It was so funny, though, cos there was so much swearing I couldn't help but have the Aunt in the back of my head. She went to see 2:37 a couple of months ago cos it's about teen suicide in Australia so was pretty significant in terms of her Lifeline counselling. Also why I told her to see Candy and pushed the book at her. I was too scared to see 2:37 in the cinemas, much rather watch it in the emotional privacy of DVD at home.
Anyway, she was colossally irritated by the constant profanity in 2:37. "Every sentence had the f-word!" Nothing gets up her nose more, even I get told off quite frequently although we've both toned down over time.
Man, she would have been so pissed at Tom White. Cos yeah, even I began to notice after a while that almost every sentence had the f-word. But, ahh, that's only in the middle of the film, innit? Symptomatic of how deeper and deeper he goes into that world, divorces it so cleanly from the pristine polite world of his wife and kids. It's simple but so fabulously effective, almost missable, that device of language deteriorating as the psyche disintegrates.
I do love the way Australians say "fuck you" or "fucking". It's with such wonderful venom, such eloquent force, when Dan says it, when Colin Friels says it, when Bill Hunter says it. For a while there, I was trying to properly phonetisise it ... is it "farken" or "ffahken" or ffuhkken"? Oof, I love it. It's not casual, it's never casual, it always means something of power, of bitterness, of fury, of frustration, it's not just lint in a sentence. I love that. Kinda makes me wonder if that's the difference between this and Pulp Fiction. If there is a difference ...
So fascinating how brutal Aussie films can be. A certain kind of brutality that somehow seems way more powerful than brutality in American films. Brit films I find are similar that way and I wonder if that's because I relate much more to Australian and Brit films than American just in very basic terms of accent and manner.
They do say Aussie and Brit films are very much their own animals, don't they? Maybe by sheer dint of Hollywood over-saturation, they have to be. Each country will make its own kind of film, can't help but? Especially now when the more interesting films seem to come from everywhere but Hollywood? Or maybe I'm just jaded like that. Or maybe I'm just ignorant that way cos I've only ever watched American, Brit and Australian films.
Still for all that, I love how the brutality in an Aussie film can shock me much more than brutality in an American film. Is it because the people on screen are more real to me cos I hear their accents and speech patterns around me? Or is it a certain quality of Aussie films that they don't flinch from the harsh and keep a good steady ironic rein on the emotion?
Balance. Love it when a film strikes that perfect equilibrium of violence and emotion, text and subtext, and god just does it well.
Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions --- more Dans! Lustee and Z's wife! --- did the music. And I was just thinking I bet my powerful emotional response owed a lot to the music of that final moment. But fabulously I don't remember any music. Ack, don't you love that?! When everything works so beautifully and subtly that you're moved without fully realising why. Fucking ace.
The music was great, though. Totally set the pace and mood of the film, from the opening shot, the dark reflective unsettled sense of a strange terrible but hopefully positive emotional journey. I don't remember the words of that first song but I do remember being quite conscious of how I was being eased confidently into the story, interested as a result. Rather than enter babbling, we entered with song and glimpses of characters that we'd meet properly later and then into the primary story.
Totally excellent structure. And little things like repeating boat journeys, only he's on the other side of the frame. (Was he? Or did I just think he was because he looked so very different? Did I misremember?) Makes me think of that John Ford thing of positioning the action across the screen as symbolic of character. Like in the Abe Lincoln film, how it's significant that Henry Fonda walks to the left out of frame while his wife walks to the right, her into the past, he into the future. Or maybe he's to the right and she's to the left, I can't remember, can't even tell my own left from right but it was something as tiny as that imbued with significance.
God, I love film.
Oh, right, Dan.
For the fourth time in as many things I've seen him, I had that sharp jolt of "Jesus, he really is a fucking excellent actor, isn't he?" It's totally a physical jolt, hitch in my chest. Happened in Part 2 of The Lost Echo when he switched facial expressions from old crone to young Bacchus and I had to catch my breath at the difference. Happened in Part 1 of The Lost Echo when he took out the little wooden stag, combed out its hair, set it down on the bench, then scampered away, gorgeous sweet Endymion, and I realised with a tiny shock that I had been completely riveted on him that whole time. *blinks* Happened in One Perfect Day when he paused, stared at his girlfriend and then screamed "Fuck you" right into her face, his whole body arching into it. My own damned body jerked, brain sort of broke.
And here in Tom White it wasn't even in our proper introduction to him, when he turns his beautiful wretched bloodied face to the light and asks for help. I was too "noooooooooo, my bewdiful Daaan!" to actually be lucid.
But oh, a few seconds later. Jesus, it still creeps me out some twelve or so hours later. When he drops the keys and whimpers, and then as Colin Friels stoops to get them, Matt (Dan) huddles against the doorjamb, going "key key key key key key key." My brain and heart totally broke at that point. Jaysus. Just the sequence of it all, the splinter of his voice. It freaked me out both times cos yes I did watch the whole film and then go back to his part cos he was just that good.
Really, I'm beginning to think the best way to react to his acting is to go "Urgh, Dan Spielman!" Like the only way to properly express appreciation of Christian Bale is to go "Bale, fuhhking legend!" Talk about the absolute necessity of profanity and exclamations of disgusted awe. Heh.
Fascinating character, not terribly likeable and really you end up a little bitter and resentful of him but oh god, totally charming and alluring at the same time. Urgh! i should liek iconise that: Urgh, Dan Spielman! A rather twisty character for such a short span of screen time: the aged cynicism cos he's an old hand at despair, the crippled and crippling vulnerability, the irresistible flirtiness, the slight touch of narkiness, the feckless rebellion, and ultimately that selfish wilful emotional need. He has this great line, god I love it so much and maybe it was a particular favourite for Dan too because he enunciated it perfectly: "You have enough money for a parasite like me." Oof! *twistfainttopple*
And argh, he was beautiful. His hair that perfect close crop, just the barest wisp of curl at his temple. Christ, how lush brown his lashes were. Really hope that was makeup trickery but my One Perfect Day caps are prodding me otherwise. Soooo pale and thin and narrow, so fey breakable boy. *moan* So, y'see, I'm not so far off my usual type after all. Heh.
And boy, did the camera love him up in the final moments of his last scene. Zeroed right in on those big greenish eyes. Talk about my heart lodging in my throat. Guh.
I was a bit puzzled at first by that speech, seemed a bit obvious for so early in the film. I had kinda thought that concept of emotional freedom would be the ultimate point of the film but him connoting it in terms of "you love who you love and you can't help that" was a little obfuscating.
But on the second viewing, paying more attention to Colin's reaction rather than Dan's retreating arse --- *facesmacks* What?! I was hoping it wasn't the last time I'd see him. I was yearning! I can't help who I yearn for! --- on the second viewing knowing how the journey ends, I got it. "No one's to blame," Tom repeats and that's what he struggles with all through the film, back and forth and back and forth, the guilt about his responsibility and love for his wife and kids, and his own need for self.
Oh god, how I love the moment when he's faced with the man he used to be and that's when I realised "nooooo, don't go back to that, don't, you're better than that now, Tom!" Which is then totally bizarre cos the man he is now is homeless, dirty, unshaven, foulmouthed, prone to violence and prolly quite smelly too. Ah, brilliant juxtaposition, how the script and direction moves you so awesomely to that point. Too fucking awesome.
And how there are degrees and nuances of insanity. He says bizarre things and behaves in irrational ways as a homeless man but still he seems saner than he ever was, steadier and surer and cannier than he was at the start of the film. He was pathetic when he was cleanshaven in a suit in his beautiful house and slick office, very Lester Burnham, and so much more admirable as a derelict eventual artist moving between soup kitchen and squat and pavement. Gah, that's so brilliant!
Man, that final scene between him and his wife just killed me stone dead. As a rule, I tend to brace myself when it comes time for emotional showdowns. I get hypercritical, the last thing I want is to be bombarded with hysteria and cringeworthy dialogue and overacting. I hate how a great emotional journey can be rendered crap by a heavyhanded showdown. Almost as heinous as an inadequate one. Such a fine balance.
So this totally blew me out of the water. I was so thrown by the little plot device of the piece of paper he holds out to her that I totally forgot to brace myself. So curious about what he wrote and then "wooooooaaaaaawwwwww that's beautiful and so painful and omg how's she going to take it?" And she was so great, she reacted in every way as I was --- the anger, the pain, the iciness. Excellent actress, who the hell was she? Rachael Blake. Right. *makes mental note* What else have I seen her in? Hmm. Maybe just Home And Away in passing.
It was such a quiet role, glimpses of her interspersed betwen his journey, her holding it together with steel and worry and all of it inward except for that one freaking awesome voicemail she leaves on his phone, veering from worry to rage to coldness and you don't even see her!
Mmmmm, Dan wore eyeliner. Just the briefest briefest side-on glimpse and oy ... *fans self, wheezes for breath* And then with the bump grinding and the twisting and that gleeful wicked terrible shock of his smile. Couldn't have been very difficult for the guy playing his lover to act besotted. The dude looked as adoring as I felt. Or perhaps I project. *cough*
And argh, they cut away from the gay sex. There was just the slowest most langourous pull off of his tee, pale pale flesh and red red nipples and the camera slid away and I fell all over my bed, reaching and crying "noooooooooo, go back, oh please go back, baaaaaaaack, please please pleaase ..." I think there were actually tears in my eyes. *snort*
Oh yes, there will be caps. Oh fucking yes.
Oof there was a great song in the final scene with Christine (Loene Carmen, whaddya know), brilliant marriage of colour and frame and gorgeous female body twisting in drunken dancing despair to this dirty raw sinister Nick-Cave-liek garage rock that had me going "remember to look in the closing credits." What happened next totally wiped that from my head but those moments were so great, so true, so god-I-wish-I-could-capture-this-in-a-novel. Don't know if that's possible, such was the perfect raw complement of sound and visual. How could I do that in words? *sigh*
And ack, Bill Hunter was awesome. It was a few minutes into his part that I realised how much I was enjoying the film, enjoying it separate from Dan. By the time it ended, I had almost forgotten about him. Almost, mind you.
Ooh, Margaret interviewing Colin and the director. And what David and Margaret thought. Hm. Funny that I had exactly the opposite reaction to David. I liked Christine but it was quite clear he couldn't stay with her. Hmm.
*sigh* Dan. I feel so unworthy when I talk about him in public, like someone as dark and short and untidy as me shouldn't be so vocally in love with someone as smart and beautiful and otherworldly as him. *sigh*
Self loathing, my old friend. Now there's an icon worth the making. Hee.