Andrei Tarkovsky: POO

An anonymous young man wanders through a dreamlike, decaying, 19th century urban labyrinth; he has a series of encounters, like fragments from some long-obliterated narrative (the incidents are in fact derived from Crime and Punishment and Gogol). In the film's most memorable sequence, he looks on as a series of people inexplicably launch themselves into a mysterious, bottomless abyss--it could almost be an image of Sokurov's own brand of cinematic black hole.

Charged with supernatural and psychic suggestiveness, Whispering Pages' narrative doesn't so much move as insinuate, accompanied by the haunting strains of Mahler's "Kindertotenmusik" and a faint cacophony of distant voices and sounds on the soundtrack. In long takes Sokurov's camera creeps insidiously through this timeless, spectral underworld, more attentive to atmosphere and texture than action. The sparse dialogue scenes might as well be the fill between the real action--Sokurov's uncanny extended transitions. Employing a vocabulary of mournful pans, slow-as-molasses dissolves, radically desaturated color, degraded, murky textures, speed shifts within shots, and warped perspectives and compositions care of a custom-built anamorphic lens, Sokurov takes the cinematic atavism he shares with Guy Maddin and the Brothers Quay to new extremes of dreamlike suspension. This formal archaism conspires with the trancelike acting, and the absurd gravity of the action to produce a genuinely mysterious, mesmerizing effect. Mainly filmed in a disused St. Petersburg factory, Sokurov's masterly film is an Industrial Gothic epitaph for a civilization in the throes of slow death.

er, that's "kindertotenlieder," but anyway

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/antonioni/

xpost

i don't think i'd actually look forward to a new antonioni movie, but the short that played twice at the landmark century ("the gaze of michelangelo") was supposedly pretty interesting

It should be.

Anyway, Tarkovsky.. Nostalghia. Doesn't make sense, but I love it. I like that the woman just gets fed up and disappears from the film. Also, I am kind of disturbed yet fascinated by the fact that there's a reference (almost the same room, same bed) in Takashi Miike's Audition to this film. I don't know what to make of it. A very close second for me would be Andrei Rublev.

but yeah after that the bell chapter of rublev is killer.

re: tarkovksy refs, loved the scene in uzak where the guy was flicking between stalker and porn!

wow, really? it struck me as a poor 'cover' of tarkovsky's original, with anything that would confuse americans removed. but maybe i'll re-read the book and watch it again.

"stalker" is my favorite. i was half-awake when i started watching it, which seemed to help me pay attention, oddly. dream logic!

i thought it was brilliantly filmed and concise. 90 minutes happens to be the perfect
length for most stories, imho.

it was definitely not as (willfully) obscure as the original. but who cares? i'm all
for more clarity where possible. leave it to umberto eco adaptations or misbegotten
thomas pynchon television pilots to leave people with brains agape,

and i've never seen a movie that justified four hours running time (re: the original).

http://www.ruscico.com/eng/films/105

Now is this the only current version available, or is there a Stateside version?

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/

http://dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/andreirublev.htm

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/DVD_Recommendations.html

Nostalgia for the scene when he's trying to walk across the bottom of the swimming pool again and again.

Mirror for the mother washing hair dream sequence.

Didn't like The Sacrifice much.

And while the animal stuff is unpleasant, the cow didn't actually get hurt - it was asbestos burning, not its skin. The horse did actually die, but at least it was shot and already dead by the time it fell down the stairs. It was also supposed to be killed anyway (not by the filmmakers, though I can't remember the exact situation), which doesn't excuse the violence or anything but is worth noting nonetheless.

My Name is Ivan/Ivan's Childhood is really, really fantastic, and you should see it if you've got the chance. It's harrowing, but there are so many amazing parts - it has a few scenes shot in a birch forest that are really a treat for yr eye. And Nikolai Burlyayev fucking owns Ivan. By the time he became the bellmaker in Rublev Tarkovsky said he was a real pain in the ass to work with (and you can tell in his acting) because he thought of himself as a big star after Ivan.

yes

Sacrifice has some lovely scenes but doesn't work at all.. a shame. I have no idea what it was trying to do.

stalker is my favorite of them all... such a well sustained air of magic and intrigue. it makes me happy to hope for the chance to work in a creative field. as far as the hope it instills with me, it is maybe second only to 'la jetee'.

no one seems to have said this yet, but i... ummm... prefer the soderbergh 'solaris'. it warms me.

the reason i like tarkovsky films is that they are really good to fall asleep too. i cant understand it bein g a criticism of a film "i wanted to fall asleep". thats a really good thing for me!

anyone seen any larrisa shepitko films? she was a friend of tarkovskys and her films have a similar quality although they are more brutal. i only saw "the ascent" and "proshanie (farewell?)" but they were both really good. i think they were on at the ica and in leeds a while back. also, on the subject of soviet filmakers, the paradjanov season is coming to leeds soon too! good job i moved to sheffield :(

Rublev for me, from the ones I've seen -- really gotta serach some medieval Russian choral music

Tarkovsky related, innit? Can't wait!

Mirror gets Criterioned.

https://www.criterion.com/films/28894-mirror

Saw something about fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Solaris.

I'll have to drive aimlessly on the freeway for 50 minutes in commemoration.

I’m going to stare at some algae drifting in my pond for this afternoon

gonna go see solaris tomorrow at the IFC

Ah fuuuuuuuuck really? Is it on widescreen (SovScope!)

https://www.ifccenter.com/films/solaris/

never saw it before! or the remake for that matter. i hear soylent green is people.

Mods!

Anyone else read the book review/profile of Stanisław Lem in a recent New Yorker? Interesting life.

I want to, before I die, see both Solaris (the original) and Andrei Rublev on a widescreen. From what I have read they were both filmed in 180 mm.

xp That Lem profile was fascinating. I've only read his Futurological Congress and a few short stories (have only seen the movie of Solaris), but I've been meaning to dig deeper. Lots of science fiction gets called mind-bending, but no other book has bent my mind or made me laugh as hard as The Futurological Congress

i read the lem profile as well, promptly bought a book that is now somewhere in the middle of the pile

Tarkovsky. Dancing. pic.twitter.com/UTckA4qLFi

— Janus Films (@janusfilms) October 28, 2022