Last Watched

[...]

Yeah, Taming the Garden is excellent, much more subtle in its examination of its subject than it might first appear, where a large number of the comments on the film focus too intently on hate for the billionaire alone and are disappointed the movie isn't more forthright in condemnation. The critique is there, but too painfully obvious to dwell on as a sole center point, instead it uses the situation as a jumping off point for a much wider set of considerations that accompany the idea of buying and transporting trees to a private reserve.

There is a sense of awe in the activity, the act of moving these ancient trees is visually stunning and inherently impressive to behold, frightening almost for being able to do it and seeing it accomplished. Impressive in a different way than raw destructive force so much more commonly associated with power. The aesthetic of the movie then somewhat sneakily aligns the viewer with the billionaire in seeing the beauty of these trees, making the desire to be around them palpable, so why not collect trees since they clearly are beautiful in a way that isn't replicable. What makes collecting trees different than collecting art, which also can come from obscene wealth? The movie plays in the documentary form, but clearly uses some chosen set ups with the workers and some of those selling "their" trees, where the people are stage managed a bit in how they are situated for the camera and possibly in what they talk about, feeling more like some of the talk is perhaps repeated dialogue heard discussed before or of subjects mentioned but elaborated on in more special detail in these set ups. Not "made up" or fictionalized, just fit to the camera space in better emphasis.

Those moments are often telling in some of the seemingly minor details, as when there is repeated mention of the billionaires fondness for his dog, where dogs as pets then carry some suggestion of seeing trees as pets, as if he's creating a tree zoo instead perhaps of a tree museum, as if they were art. The various people giving their opinions of the buying, either as sellers or people from the area where the trees are coming from, then raise sets of questions around why trees are different, who can claim to "own" one and what that might mean in a variety of ways, where utility and history, both personal and that of a specific space, are drawn out, and where there is also this odd sort of tension between taking the tree as a living thing is somehow different than, say, cutting one down for lumber or for purpose of "improvement" of an area. Jaski received some criticism for seeming to have been granted access by the billionaire, the former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, to film the project, suggesting this somehow diminishes it, but I think the access really underscores the various ideas being raised in the film, not the least of which is that in the open question of why the government couldn't help some of these people before, but now as private citizen Ivanishvili can do so for his own benefit, but even more than that there is a really lovely connection from the beginning of the film to the ending on the private reserve where we see the new home these trees are going to. Near the beginning there is a brief conversation between workers describing how happy one of the seller was to get money for their tree, as part of that conversation, one of the workers found the whole event fantastical, laughing about the idea of collecting trees as something amusing for being beyond comprehension, joking along the lines of "What's he gonna do next? Collect all the birds?" and at the end of the film, in this lovely, but too orderly reserve as we see the trees being tended to, all we hear is the sound of the wide variety of birds that live with the trees in this new home.

[sally]

how nice, people are watching movies! got so quiet for a while i thought everyone stopped

i just watched lynx / ryś (stanisław różewicz, 1982) which is a mash-up of sexy hot tormented priest genre and that horrific video circulating of ukrainian soldiers shooting russian POWs in the leg. gonna go have a little cry now

[rischka]

i watched drive my car after my two day road trip. one needs to be patient (jerry says he turned it off after an hour) but i enjoyed it!

gonna watch the last 40 or so minutes again today, i was nodding off a bit xD

[sally]

jerry is watching movies again?

truly the world is different now

[St. Gloede]

Thank you for your thoughts and observations greg x, very good read!

[sally]

i was nodding off a bit xD

hello, have i got your attention? i INSIST you watch babette mangolte's the sky on location.

bryce, zion, mono lake, grand canyon etc & round again. and all narrated by what i imagined was your internal monologue (if you were there 40 years ago)

[rischka]

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ok i'll get right on it thx

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1511 ... qcYd2jU4Uw

this was marvelous and i am ever more determined to return to colorado this summer

[sally]

maria do mar (1930) josé leitão de barros

fuck me this is my cup of tea, the story is absolute fluff but it's a by-sea silent and for some incomprehensible reason the main lad is actually super cute for once

spoiler has never worked for me so just scroll faster








HELLO

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

You weren't kidding – main lad is a major cutie. Looks like an interesting movie in general, too, thanks for putting on my radar!

[sally]

on the one hand, it does go on forever. on the other, i didn't mind so much

i also appreciate the portuguese sea-faring fashion of showing a lot of male thigh (not too keen on the pointy-bobble hats tho, it makes them look like damp elves)

[Lencho of the Apes]

All that AND the most intensive/extensive use of acres-of-flapping-black-cloth village crones that I've seen in maybe forever.

[St. Gloede]

I need to seek out Maria do Mar ASAP it seems. Will try to catch it today. I love Lisbon from the same director (same year as well), one of the most immersive and free silents ever made. His later, also sea focused Ala-Arriba! is also great.

[sally]

I love Lisbon from the same director (same year as well), one of the most immersive and free silents ever made.

that's on muh list! (iberia challenge needs more 1930s representation anyway) i just went with the sea first...

(and it will be in resources here when my dial-up speed broadband finally finishes uploading it, probably tomorrow now)

[sally]

it's there now! finally! can go to bed now

[serri]

assassin dir. lee man-hui




--

--

[serri]

cloak and dagger dir. fritz lang

[St. Gloede]

I love Lisbon from the same director (same year as well), one of the most immersive and free silents ever made.

that's on muh list! (iberia challenge needs more 1930s representation anyway) i just went with the sea first... (and it will be in resources here when my dial-up speed broadband finally finishes uploading it, probably tomorrow now)

Enjoy! It is incredible.

Maria do Mar was visually lush as expected, but it did not quite grab me. I'll put part of that on fairly poor casting of the father. The weather eaten and rough faces of the community were so cinematic, while the father almost brought a kind of comedy actor feel and lacked the charisma to carry the first few acts. Later, the melodrama was not that involving for me - but a good film never the less - mainly due to what the screenshots you shared above are just some examples of.

Lisbon on the other hand is an epic city symphony, coming this visual prowess with symphonic power, and leaving the melodrama entirely on the sidelines.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Menu Total - Christoph Schlingensief, 1986

Oh, how I wish I had watched this in time for the year poll. "Wim Wenders walked out of the screening after 10 minutes."

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1514 ... AAkiHvHQ7g

ooooh no they say he's got to go go go godzilla

[sally]

that's not basic instinct.

[greennui]

Takashi Shimura as Michael Douglas, Setsuko Hara as Sharon Stone, I'd watch that.

[sally]

Setsuko Hara as Sharon Stone

you bad bad boy, stop that

[greennui]

Yeah, it's def more in Ayako Wakao's ballpark.

[sally]

o som da terra a tremer - rita azevedo gomes

(how come we (me?) only heard of her about the time a woman's revenge came out? was she a well known director before that & i just missed every single conversation about her? it's still so strange. who else is out there that will suddenly appear after being there forever?)

this feels a pretty early iteration of art vs life but it's nevertheless lovely

anyway freaking out because





recognising the film what-there-was-plot went a bit hawthorne's wakefield (and confirmed once finished seeing it on the letterboxd page) then checking twitter to see what's happening generally:



(wakefield is a town nearish me, trending because local now-ex MP is a sexpest causing by-election, but a) it has the hepworth gallery which is england's loveliest building and b) i once knew a man called wakefield who lived in said wakefield and he was unfathomable, inpenetrable, unperturbable until the day i poked him too much and saw actual fire in furious eyes like i've never seen in anyone, amazing inferno)

[rischka]

is this a selection from your upcoming novel?? i'm going to watch basic instinct, just you wait

[rischka]

i never know what i'll feel like watching til late afternoon. i can't seem to plan anything

[sally]

ha, i make such grand plans and then i ignore them cuz then you get to make new plans. i can't even remember basic instinct, i think i watched it mid-90s...

do people only watch movies past noon? i can wake up in the weekend mornings and read until the coffee kicks in and the duvet is kicked off but i can't remember the last time i watched a film before lunch, even if it was raining and i wasn't going out....WHY?

[rischka]

my place is too sunny til the sun goes over the hill around 5 pm

[sally]

ah of course, to have such problems! due to my street being 1.5 cars wide before the other 4-storey side looms up, i get sun for, at most, until 10am-ish during summer and zilcho during winter. so i'm just being incredibly lazy not watching breakfast movies, i see now.