"Your eyes distract you."
In case any of you are wondering what happened to those music posts I was doing, my CD-ROM drive started developing problems ripping music, regardless of the program used. As a result I imported enough music for three large posts (a series I was planning) and then discovered digital pops in many of the files. However, I seem to have solved bypassed the problem now, so as soon as I re-import the necessary music (after figuring out which files were affected) the music posts will return.
Films Watched February 25 - March 4
The Silence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1998) - The box that enclosed this tape when I checked it out from the library was strewn with more laudatory adjectives than I've ever seen on a single release. Words like "vibrant," "profound," three different permutations of "beautiful," and I recall the phrase "radiantly sensuous." Overkill, definitely, but I'm glad they're there because they encourage me to find less banal ways of telling you how much I loved this film.
Khorshid (Tahmineh Normatova) and Nadereh (Nadereh Abdelahyeva)
The Silence follows the experiences of a blind boy named Khorshid living with his mother in Tajikistan, where he works at a folk music shop tuning instruments. He appears to be the sole source of income in the house, as his mother later reveals that his father went to look for work in Russia and never returned. His best friend is the shopkeeper's protege, a young girl named Nadereh (incidentally one of the most beautiful children ever filmed) who picks Khorshid up at his bus stop everyday and acts as his eyes on the way to the shop, as he has a tendency to turn and follow any interesting sound he hears and gets lost in the process.
One of the earliest of the film's many, many wonderful scenes occurs when Khorshid pursues a piece of music coming from a man's hand-held boom box through the crowded sea of a vast market. He loses it, but is soon distracted again by a man singing a folk song. After Nadereh realizes Khorshid is gone and she has no hope of locating him in the crowd, she closes her eyes and finds him by following the sounds she thinks he would follow.
The film's environment is both visibly and audibly very beautiful. The sound design is clever and richly detailed, taking great care to convey the lush sound world in which Khorshid lives without ever overdriving the point or making him come across as something superhuman (in fact, he seems to be rather bad at his job). Moreover, the film's visual design is gorgeous and endlessly inventive, with a great deal of focus placed on little movements and tiny adornments, almost as if Makhmalbaf figured that a film about a blind character didn't require any typical sense of space and visual context and instead decided to uplift all the things our eyes typically miss when they're busy focusing on what the subject is supposed to be.
And despite the lack of that traditional sense of space, the city gradually attains its own curious and unforgettable character traits. I have no frame of reference to know where in Tajikistan this might take place. I don't know if Khorshid rides the bus from one part of a major city to the other or if he lives in some outer village. But the town certainly bears the marks of a post-Soviet centerpiece. Like many major cities in Russian satellite states once claimed by the USSR, it looks both ancient and partially modernized, like it remained unchanged for 500 years until someone put buses on the street and wedged a bunch of apartment complexes into any random open space they could find. In Makhmalbaf's frame it looks beautiful no matter where you go, teeming with eternal life even where the structures look spent.
There's a little thread of a plot in the film -- the landlord demands the rent by this or that date and thus provides the film with a clock -- but once you settle into the film's wistful, leisurely rhythm you get the feeling the plot is only there to give the financiers a synopsis. Makhmalbaf is interested solely in presenting a poetic portrait of Khorshid's world, and on those terms he richly succeeds, negating any (admittedly conceivable) criticism that the film lacks an overall "point." The only point is giving you the opportunity to jettison your own weary perspective for a little while to don an entirely new one. Despite the film's somewhat uncertain ending, I felt warm and practically glowing when it was over, and I feel that way again just thinking about it.
Star Trek Episodes Watched February 25 - March 4
The Galileo Seven - Not a bad episode, but evidence that they still don't have the hang of Spock. In other episodes he's practically a superhero, in this one he blunders beyond credibility. I guess they were trying to even him out.
The Squire of Gothos - Irritating.
Arena - Skipped. I've seen it countless times and it just hasn't been the same since I read the original story by Fredric Brown (which you can read here).
Tomorrow is Yesterday - NBC EXEC: "Hey Gene, we got this leftover military base set we're gonna tear down soon. Why don't you use it?" RODDENBERRY: "Uhh, sure...I'll do a time travel story, or something."
Court Martial - Perry Mason...in Space! Potentially an interesting idea (Kirk on trial for the death of a crewman) but it's an endlessly stupid script with a ludicrous, convoluted ending. This is also the episode Kirk says the ship's speakers can amplify any sound "by one to the fourth power." Was that in the script or did Shatner flub the line? 1x = 1, no matter what you plug into the variable.
The Return of the Archons - A very entertaining (and often spoofed) episode, though it's a tad inconsistent and I expect it started out as one idea and got turned into another, as the first act seems to be a parody of religious fundamentalism, but then the episode takes a sharp turn.
Space Seed - Skipped. It's great, but I've seen it constantly.
A Taste of Armageddon - One of two great episodes about war this season (the other being "Errand of Mercy"). This one is specifically concerned with a people's detachment from the wars their government wages and the casual acceptance of war that results from that detachment. It takes some questionable turns (and Spock is once again a superhero) but it's still pretty great.
This Side of Paradise - Okay, but I don't think it spends enough time dealing with what it seems to think its point is. Contains a really impressive "horror" moment that actually made me jump.
The Devil in the Dark - Great episode about human prejudice (and weird-looking aliens brought to life by the cheesiest effects possible).
Errand of Mercy - The introduction of the Klingons, and a really effective episode that contains towards the end what has to be one of the very best scenes of the entire series, as Kirk (accustomed to handing out lessons to beings who don't know any better) is justly put in his place. An excellent anti-war episode to boot.
The Alternative Factor - Like watching someone else put together a puzzle that neither of you is interested in.
Films Watched February 25 - March 4
The Silence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1998) - The box that enclosed this tape when I checked it out from the library was strewn with more laudatory adjectives than I've ever seen on a single release. Words like "vibrant," "profound," three different permutations of "beautiful," and I recall the phrase "radiantly sensuous." Overkill, definitely, but I'm glad they're there because they encourage me to find less banal ways of telling you how much I loved this film.
Khorshid (Tahmineh Normatova) and Nadereh (Nadereh Abdelahyeva)
The Silence follows the experiences of a blind boy named Khorshid living with his mother in Tajikistan, where he works at a folk music shop tuning instruments. He appears to be the sole source of income in the house, as his mother later reveals that his father went to look for work in Russia and never returned. His best friend is the shopkeeper's protege, a young girl named Nadereh (incidentally one of the most beautiful children ever filmed) who picks Khorshid up at his bus stop everyday and acts as his eyes on the way to the shop, as he has a tendency to turn and follow any interesting sound he hears and gets lost in the process.
One of the earliest of the film's many, many wonderful scenes occurs when Khorshid pursues a piece of music coming from a man's hand-held boom box through the crowded sea of a vast market. He loses it, but is soon distracted again by a man singing a folk song. After Nadereh realizes Khorshid is gone and she has no hope of locating him in the crowd, she closes her eyes and finds him by following the sounds she thinks he would follow.
The film's environment is both visibly and audibly very beautiful. The sound design is clever and richly detailed, taking great care to convey the lush sound world in which Khorshid lives without ever overdriving the point or making him come across as something superhuman (in fact, he seems to be rather bad at his job). Moreover, the film's visual design is gorgeous and endlessly inventive, with a great deal of focus placed on little movements and tiny adornments, almost as if Makhmalbaf figured that a film about a blind character didn't require any typical sense of space and visual context and instead decided to uplift all the things our eyes typically miss when they're busy focusing on what the subject is supposed to be.
And despite the lack of that traditional sense of space, the city gradually attains its own curious and unforgettable character traits. I have no frame of reference to know where in Tajikistan this might take place. I don't know if Khorshid rides the bus from one part of a major city to the other or if he lives in some outer village. But the town certainly bears the marks of a post-Soviet centerpiece. Like many major cities in Russian satellite states once claimed by the USSR, it looks both ancient and partially modernized, like it remained unchanged for 500 years until someone put buses on the street and wedged a bunch of apartment complexes into any random open space they could find. In Makhmalbaf's frame it looks beautiful no matter where you go, teeming with eternal life even where the structures look spent.
There's a little thread of a plot in the film -- the landlord demands the rent by this or that date and thus provides the film with a clock -- but once you settle into the film's wistful, leisurely rhythm you get the feeling the plot is only there to give the financiers a synopsis. Makhmalbaf is interested solely in presenting a poetic portrait of Khorshid's world, and on those terms he richly succeeds, negating any (admittedly conceivable) criticism that the film lacks an overall "point." The only point is giving you the opportunity to jettison your own weary perspective for a little while to don an entirely new one. Despite the film's somewhat uncertain ending, I felt warm and practically glowing when it was over, and I feel that way again just thinking about it.
Star Trek Episodes Watched February 25 - March 4
The Galileo Seven - Not a bad episode, but evidence that they still don't have the hang of Spock. In other episodes he's practically a superhero, in this one he blunders beyond credibility. I guess they were trying to even him out.
The Squire of Gothos - Irritating.
Arena - Skipped. I've seen it countless times and it just hasn't been the same since I read the original story by Fredric Brown (which you can read here).
Tomorrow is Yesterday - NBC EXEC: "Hey Gene, we got this leftover military base set we're gonna tear down soon. Why don't you use it?" RODDENBERRY: "Uhh, sure...I'll do a time travel story, or something."
Court Martial - Perry Mason...in Space! Potentially an interesting idea (Kirk on trial for the death of a crewman) but it's an endlessly stupid script with a ludicrous, convoluted ending. This is also the episode Kirk says the ship's speakers can amplify any sound "by one to the fourth power." Was that in the script or did Shatner flub the line? 1x = 1, no matter what you plug into the variable.
The Return of the Archons - A very entertaining (and often spoofed) episode, though it's a tad inconsistent and I expect it started out as one idea and got turned into another, as the first act seems to be a parody of religious fundamentalism, but then the episode takes a sharp turn.
Space Seed - Skipped. It's great, but I've seen it constantly.
A Taste of Armageddon - One of two great episodes about war this season (the other being "Errand of Mercy"). This one is specifically concerned with a people's detachment from the wars their government wages and the casual acceptance of war that results from that detachment. It takes some questionable turns (and Spock is once again a superhero) but it's still pretty great.
This Side of Paradise - Okay, but I don't think it spends enough time dealing with what it seems to think its point is. Contains a really impressive "horror" moment that actually made me jump.
The Devil in the Dark - Great episode about human prejudice (and weird-looking aliens brought to life by the cheesiest effects possible).
Errand of Mercy - The introduction of the Klingons, and a really effective episode that contains towards the end what has to be one of the very best scenes of the entire series, as Kirk (accustomed to handing out lessons to beings who don't know any better) is justly put in his place. An excellent anti-war episode to boot.
The Alternative Factor - Like watching someone else put together a puzzle that neither of you is interested in.