robak

Naked Lunch (1991) David Cronenberg

ambivalence.
This movie is a great adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel of the same title. I am personally a big fan of his work and I was excited (as well as a little distressed) in preparation to watch this movie.
Naked Lunch explores the many themes that follows the authors' own life. His struggles with drug addiction and his struggles with his own homosexual identity. It is a theme that is reprised in many of his works but it is delivered differently every time. In Naked Lunch, it is explored with an accompanying theme of surrealism.
Compared to his other works such as 'Junky', 'Naked Lunch' shows a more visceral approach to the effects of drugs and drug addiction. If Junky focuses on the withdrawal and the processes of drug addictions, Naked Lunch shows the horrors of hallucinations and the loss of identity as well as stability. Bill Lee is most likely a self-portrayal of William himself, as it often is in his novels. There are many parallels within their lives, which makes it undeniably the work of William S. Burroughs.
Naked Lunch is a confusing, visceral and sometimes even grotesque film. The show of drugs, sex, violence, and addiction is shown through the lens of a drug addict and the portrayal of it is sex-repulsive rather than perverted. There is no real prejudice shown against homosexuality although Bill is often repulsed by himself and his attraction towards men. He rather is fixated upon his wife, Joan and the other Joan he meets in interzone, and goes through confusing phases of believing the hallucinations wholeheartedly and showing fear and distrust in it. It is a masterpiece in portrayal of drug addiction in harmony with surrealism, revealing to the audience pieces of his sanity along with his insanity, as he is stripped back to his true self as well as coddled up in the hallucinations of lies. His friends Hank and Martin is a part of the real world, pulling him out of his hallucinations for a little while and acts as a window into reality as we look outside of Bill's world for a moment. The pillowcase that we saw was broken parts of the Martinelli is revealed to us by the eyes of Martin that it is in fact, a bag of used drug accoutrements . The 'ticket to interzone' is revealed to be the vial of centipede powder he recieved from Dr. Benway. This is where we, as the audience find that what we saw, and what we categorized as reality and illusions, the line that we drew between these two distinct worlds, have been blurred the entire time.
The ending is confusing as well. Bill and Joan Frost recreate the William tell routine and once again, Bill misses the shot and shoots her in the forehead. I see this as an ending that emphasizes the cycles of drug addiction, with the beginning and end blurred together and winding up into a circle with no way to escape unless Bill manages to completely turn away from drugs. The death of Joan is unceremonious, yet again. Bill is accepted into Annexia as he has proven he is a writer. He accepts it.
Naked Lunch is a film that tries to make a bit of sense of the original novel without taking away all of its surrealist mystique. This is done magnificently and it leaves the audience feeling like they've just watched a whirlwind of scenarios one after another, overlayed on top of each other.
A masterclass in surrealist film.

Martin (1977) George A. Romero

Maybe death was his only fate.
For a film centered around violence, the violence in this film is very subdued and amateur, which fits, because Martin is but a young man. Raised in a family that believes he was born a vampire, Nosferatu, he is as drawn to violence as much as he is repulsed by it.

Krótki film o milosci/A Short Film about Love (1988) Krzysztof Kieslowski

Why do people cry?
A Short Film about Love by late Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski is about loveless people. There is no romance in this film, not in its story nor cinematography. The film is shot mostly in apathetic medium long shots or through the lens of Tomek’s telescope, watching Magda in her home, at the post office, at the door. The camera invites you to watch along with him, studying her every move and following her from window to window. Almost every aspect of Tomek’s life is curated around Magda, working at the post office and sending her fake notices to see her, getting a job as the milkman to meet her at the door and deliver her milk every morning.
I wondered, ‘Who is Tomek?’. Spying on Magda through her window with a telescope seemed to be his only identity. He says he loves Magda, but he gives no reason why when questioned.
Magda, on the other hand, is a woman surrounded by men and surrounded by people, perhaps the opposite of Tomek, who only has his godmother around him. She doesn’t belive in love. She’s defined by her definition of love and detestment of it. Watching her through the Window invites you to fall in love, just as much as it asks you the question, ‘Why would you fall in love?’.
A Short Film about Love is about lonely people not knowing how to love. Tomek’s ‘love’ is illogical and obsessive, projecting his loneliness onto a woman he barely knows. What he lacks in emotional understanding he pours into baseless melancholia. Magda’s ‘love’ is shallow and exclusively physical, every reason defined and powered by physical attraction and desire. She fills her life with half-baked, emotionless relationships, laughing at love and turning it away.
Tomek’s godmother’s ‘love’ is disengenuinity and obsession, projecting her son, who went away to war, onto Tomek. As Tomek was raised in an orphanage, it is clear that he sees her as his mother figure, a person to turn for guidance to. However, when Tomek asks why people cry and how to deal with it, her advice for getting over sadness is to put the pain somewhere else, leading to him harming himself with a pair of scissors. Her idea of love, even as a misplaced love for her son on someone else, seems to be out of touch and horribly toxic, even if she is caring for him in her own way. Upon rewatch, it immediately became clearer to me how Tomek seemed to be intent on replacing his best friend's spot as a son in their home, and how the godmother seemed to use his loneliness as an ointment to her own, because she needed a son to care for.
These three people intertwine around each other in a miserable display of human loneliness and lostness in themselves, hurting each other and themselves in the name of love, but really out of loss.
Krzysztof Kieślowski binds these miserable creatures together into a hopelessly unromantic melancholic masterpiece, telling a story of people searching for something else in the name of love. Using simple techniques and camera angles, he magnificently captures the hostility as well as enigmatic attraction of these strangers, convincing us that such a fleeting moment really did create a special memory within these characters. The atmosphere of late 80's communist Poland also adds depth to the aesthetics and cinematography although the star of the (mundane and apocalyptic) show is the concrete apartment buildings encasing the characters, the windows all faced towards the opposite as to encourage any peeping toms.
A Short Film about Love was a depressing but also a very human film, reminding me of the uglies as well as the beauties of love and life. Not being able to love, or understand it, is in my opinion as human as being able to love, as complex of an emotion Love is, only a human could ever misplace it and make it even more complicated in the process.

Funny Games (1997) Michael Haneke

it only gets worse. why the fuck did i rewatch this
I did not enjoy myself watching this movie, and I dreaded every time the movie cut to another scene or every time anything happened. The suspense in this film is extremely intense yet the camera often zooms out, and stays still and far away as the characters move around within the frame. This film is a masterpiece that portrays non-intimacy in violence and manages to deliver it in the most visceral ways possible.
Even the first death of the film, the death of Georg is done off-screen, with the gunshot being heard from upstairs. Even the reveal is done unceremoniously and the camera refuses to pan any other way for a good 4 minutes or so. Some might say this drags on for too long, but I think It was the perfect amount of time for the audience to take it all in, take in the death of a child, the blood splattered on the wall, the state of the mother, the deafening silence against the laboured breathing. Wonder about the whereabouts of the father, feel the devastation as well as relief in the room as they slowly acknowledge what has happened and what might happen next. It's a torturously methodical approach to pan the camera out and film the mother and father from a distance, never leaving the room and staring from far away as the mother and father hold themselves and mourn their son as they plot their escape.
Throughout the movie, we are addressed by the killers as their audience or accomplice. This adds another layer to the movie: we are part of this 'game'. We are the audience, participating in the torture and making entertainment of violence. We are no different from the two psychopathic killers holding this family hostage, because we, as an audience of this cruelty, are also taking part in this crime. The uncomfortable silences and the uncomfortable atmosphere of this film is maybe not caused by the fact that there is cruelty happening on screen, but the fact that we as an audience is viewing this film as entertainment, just as the killers are. We are one of them.
Michael haneke you motherfucking genius