Kill Bill

As one film, Kill Bill becomes something much more than vol. 1 on its own, and something a bit less than the frightening formalist masterpiece I was expecting it to be. In many ways the arc of the film is a movement away from formalism into strangely pure emotion for a Tarantino film.

The almost ridiculous amount of formal pleasure present in the work is stunning. Sound, color, editing, and framing all contribute to create a hypnotic state in the viewer. That this pleasure was achieved through extreme cartoon violence in the first film caused (and still causes) a bit of consternation for me, but I can't deny my fascination for it. Watch for the graceful camera moves and sound in the House of Blue Leaves sequence especially. (The sound throughout is awesome.)

But is there a point somewhere in all this? Yes, probably. Something like becoming the person we need to be to raise our children, and about ending those relationships that are no good for us. That the violence becomes enclosed in smaller and smaller spaces until it is psychological in nature is no accident, the Bride's ultimate quest is to find the strength to kill someone close to her. Bill essentially dies of a broken heart.

There is a scene near the end of the film that is quite remarkable, considering the director. I kept expecting something silly to happen, but it didn't. Eventually I realized what I was seeing: Tarantino was transcending his own irony.

Dogville


Close to a masterpiece. I'm not gonna tell you that Dogville isn't anti-American, because in a lot of important ways it is, especially in the sense that being anti-American is to doubt the essentially goodness of people or capitalism or democracy. I suppose I can understand critics who are repelled by such an negative view of humanity, but I was never one for art that patted me on the back simply for being what I am. If I ever write that book on anti-humanist art, the director of this film, Lars Von Trier, will certainly warrant a chapter.

There is a sort of Augustinian pathos to this film, a despair over the human condition that is palpably religious (all the more so in the final scenes). Yet despite all the hue and cry over the film as "deterministic" I'm not so sure it is as meticulously thought-out as that suggests. The final credit sequence, in particular, creates such a chaotic mix of feelings that I'm not sure WHAT I'm supposed to think about it. But there is, undeniably, a mechanical and methodical structure in the film that charts moral decay with stark precision. Almost like clockwork are the residents of Dogville reduced to animals. I think the film works less well as a politcal allegory than a religious one, but the political aspect can be summed up pretty easily: people are essentially bad and must be kept in check through institutions (socialism).

The religious aspect, on the other hand, can't be summed up so succintly. Words like hubris, arrogance, and forgiveness are exchanged in a theological dialogue worthy of Dostoevsky, but eventually it is decided that revenge is a crucial aspect of what makes us human, and what gives us dignity. If we cannot be held accountable for our actions, are we any more than dogs? Can we be human without mercy and forgiveness? That these questions are left unanswered and hopelessly ambiguous at the end of the film only makes it that much more crucial that we answer them.

"Dostoevksy is not only a philosopher, he is also a philosophical problem."

-- George Florovsky

A picture in honor of the new DVD of one of the greatest movies ever made: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Buy it!

I've been listening to a lot of Japanese music lately, mostly on the "psychedelic" end. Bands with names like Fushitsusha, Nagisa Ni Te, Les Rallizes Denudes, Boredoms, OoioO, Acid Mothers Temple, well you get the idea. While part of the fascination is due to my even deeper fascination with Krautrock, that German music popular in the 1970s, full of steady motorik rythyms and spacious arrangements, a style which the Japanese proudly carry on, it's also due to what I feel is an rather idiosyncratic take on psychedelic music. Psychedelic music as popularly perceived is closely tied to the hippie culture of the 60s, feel good, good time, take some acid and tune out music. It's also tied to a rather vacuous religious sensibility, as music that is in touch with the divine. In the 90s the Japanese rescued this sensibility, connecting psychedelic tropes to what I feel is a more mature religious sense, one of striving and reaching for God, rather than the lazy comfort of drugs. The Boredoms released my favorite cd ever during this period, Vision Creation Newsun, which also happens to be, in my opinion, one of the most religious records ever made without a single lyric.

But, while I'm far from an expert on this subject (though I'm fast becoming one), I think at the same time another trend emerged within Japanese psychedelic music, a trend stared in the 70s by the mind blowingly brilliant Les Rallizes Denudes and carried on by the also phenomenal Fushitsusha, led by the incomparable Keiji Haino, pictured above. While the first style of psychedelic music represents self-transcendence in search of the divine, this side is a plunge into the abyss. Haino's ear-splitting harangues of guitar feedback seemingly eating itself in an infinite circle recall nothing so much as self-annihiliation. While the first style search for that good feeling to be found in what Freud called the "oceanic sense" we sometimes have, Haino's guitar represents a striving for self-destruction. This is the music of nihilism, and it's as terrifying and beautiful as it should be.

House of Sand and Fog


Most critics seem to find the first hour of the film superior to the second, which has been called histrionic or melodramatic. I suppose it is those things, but it is also immensely powerful, carrying the dramatic weight of true tragedy. The movie goes out of control at the same moment that the characters do, and their descent into disaster is reflected in the heightened and hyper-dramatic style of the film.

The screenplay is perfectly calibrated. No one, not even the cop, is truly evil, and everyone does what they have to do for their survival. This is why we can feel so bad when Jennifer Connelley's character is abandonded by her brother, or when the Colonel endures his own tragedies. We can feel for both of them, partaking in what Nietzsche felt was the lifeblood of human experience, that power that threatens to overwhelm us, but can also sustain us. (Sorry, just read The Birth of Tragedy.) Anyway, this film hits so hard because it shows an distinctly American tragedy, a search for "home" thwarted on all fronts, and it shows that while this country is a place where people go to fulfill their dreams, it is also a place where people go to watch those dreams evaporate. On second viewing, it's the moments where the connection between the characters is palpable, where it seems they have so much to give one another, that hit the hardest. All those missed chances for forgiveness and redemption are lost in the fog.