Haphazard travels of Sirman Deville to Alhambra and Popocatépetl

[niminy-piminy]

A/
Pedro Almodovar – SCFZ Directors Poll #60 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-60/

B/
Luis Bunuel – SCFZ Directors Poll #45 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-45/

C/
Segundo de Chomon – SCFZ Directors Poll #197 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-197/

F/
Emilio Fernandez – SCFZ Directors Poll #170 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-170/

M/
Joao Cesar Monteiro – SCFZ Directors Poll #78 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-78/

O/
Manoel de Oliveira – SCFZ Directors Poll #44 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-44/

R/
Raul Ruiz – SCFZ Directors Poll #15 ... https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... s-poll-15/

[niminy-piminy]

in this thread, i would like to ponder beyond my usual (Europocentric) travels.
occasionally, i intend to leave the Iberian Peninsula, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and haphazardly investigate Latin America too.
the reason for such an expanded cosmovisión is as follows...

in bygone internet ages, the popular pastime on various social media was to take all kinds of quizzes.
by responding to multifarious questions one was able to get more insight into one's real persona, one's unknown past, one's deepest longings.
once i took a quiz called "What Nationality You Really Are?"
i responded (to all the questions asked) to the best of my knowledge and conscience and (believe it or not) the result was..... MEXICAN!
once this hidden truth has been revealed to me a lot of things started to make much more sense.
now, i don't wonder anymore why i feel an affinity to Luis Barragán (for example)... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Barrag%C3%A1n

and it also explains why i was charmed by the following film in the past...
(the film absolutely ignored by the users of the ill-reputed Ltbxd database.)

THE FIVE SUNS: A SACRED HISTORY OF MEXICO (Patricia Amlin, 1996)
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-five-su ... of-mexico/

“The Five Suns” tells how Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca create heaven and earth, journey to the underworld to create humans and find sustenance for them, and finally create the sun and the moon.

https://youtu.be/V05syG7pNO4

remarkable about this film is its visual vocabulary that has been borrowed from illustrations/illuminations of the Codex Borgia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Borgia

The Codex Borgia (also known as Codex Borgianus, Manuscrit de Veletri, and Codex Yohualli Ehecatl) is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript from Central Mexico with a calendrical and ritual content, dating from the 16th century. It is named after the 18th century Italian Cardinal, Stefano Borgia, who owned it before it was acquired by the Vatican Library after the Cardinal's death in 1804.

The Codex Borgia is a member of, and gives its name to, the Borgia Group of manuscripts. It is considered to be among the most important sources for the study of Central Mexican gods, ritual, divination, calendar, religion and iconography. It is one of only a handful of pre-Columbian Mexican codices that were not destroyed during the conquest in the 16th century; it was perhaps written near Cholula, Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo or the Mixtec region of Puebla. Its ethnic affiliation is unclear, and could either have been produced by Nahuatl-speaking Tlaxcaltec people, Cholulteca people, or by the Mixtec.

there is one more remarkable film by Patricia Amlin.
this time telling the Maya creation story by borrowing the visual vocabulary from the Classic Maya pottery.

POPOL VUH: THE CREATION MYTH OF THE MAYA (Patricia Amlin, 1989)
https://letterboxd.com/film/popol-vuh-t ... -the-maya/

Twins were so happy to hear that they were ballplayers and not farmers, they rewarded rat for all eternity with corn, squash seeds, chili, bean, cacao, and chocolate. And if you find anything in the garbage that you like, you can have that too!

the division of people to 1/ "ballplayers" and 2/ "farmers" that is a common part of the vocabulary of nowadays football fans evidently comes from Popol Vuh.

Your message will move more quickly in my belly.

https://youtu.be/FHSOGryN-DA

[niminy-piminy]

an extraordinary film about aforementioned Luis Barragán...

THE PROPOSAL (Jill Magid, 2018)
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-proposal-2018/

When artist-turned-filmmaker Jill Magid learns that the archives of Mexico’s most famous architect are being held in a private collection, she devises a radical plan to explore the contested legacy of the late Luis Barragán.

Review by Charlie Lyne ↓
Notionally a portrait of the late Mexican architect Luis Barragán, whose work — policed as it is by an illiberal rights holder — is shown only in precarious Fair Use glimpses, The Proposal reveals itself as a great movie (one of *the* great movies?) about absence, access, copyright and capital. I loved every minute of this film.

https://youtu.be/jcYZEGqTstk

[rischka]

wow jiri i love this thread! maybe we can lure lencho out of retirement too ♥

[niminy-piminy]

it is my ulterior motive

[Lencho of the Apes]

I love and support your Harpo-Marx-of-post-structuralism project, Jiri, but I'm pretty low-energy these days; thinking about trying to participate (or even keep up) gives me the old-n-wearies.

[niminy-piminy]

it's a pity.
i hope you will (sooner or later) get energized.
tho (since you didn't stop posting comments on Ltbxd) i don't really complain.

i am these days (obviously) full of energy (in a manic phase) and thus i can't resist (tho it would be probably more reasonable to display a bit of self-restraint) to share my trip to Popocatépetl that occurred in the recent past (June 2020) in Eastern Bohemia.
(partly due to the SCFZ "Dreams" thread) lately, i started to record all my (noteworthy) dreams.
i made for this purpose a hard-to-find website (an equivalent of the semi-hidden "She-Doctor" website).
one of the readers suggested i also include (among the dreams) an account of a mushroom trip.
at first, i was rather reluctant to do so.
but then i changed my mind and have written down all i could remember.
because the account contains a strong reference to a Mexican film i guess it fits to this particular "haphazard travels".

Our trip started about half an hour before noon by taking 10 mushrooms both of us (me and my trip guide H.).
There were still some more mushrooms left, ready as a booster (but I didn't need to boost).
The plan was to eat them and after a while to go for a stroll to the outskirts of the village (ideally to proceed even further into the fields and experience the trip in nature).
Since I have expected the impact of the mushrooms will be “me becoming one (or in harmony) with the universe” I considered this to be a good plan (which turned out to be not — at least not for me, because the impact of mushrooms on me was different than on H.) But I am jumping too ahead.
So, after we ate mushrooms (with cheese as a side dish), within about half an hour we started to yawn and feel something (and for about next half an hour everything went very smooth).
I didn't feel nauseous at all, the whole feeling was quite weed-like, i.e. we were talkative, joking (f.e. H. was amused by my frowning eyebrows), everything seemed bright (the sky was dark actually, at the verge to give rain, but in this phase suddenly the atmosphere somewhat brightened in our gaze), everything outside was pleasing to sense.
After this mild intro, the real trippy feelings started.
I drank a bit of mineral water and it made me feel nauseous (but it was fast gone).
Then, stronger trippy feelings started to come in waves and we decided now is the right time to go out for a stroll.
But before leaving the house, H. wanted to eat some tidbit and urged me to have a snack too (especially after figuring out, I ate near to nothing since the morning).
However, I didn't feel like to eat and just seeing H. eating made me feel nauseous (ultimately, I had to stop looking at the mouth swallowing food, otherwise I would vomit).
So (ultimately, without me puking), we went out but the more we walked, the more I started to feel I would prefer not to.
From being talkative before, I went into being completely mute.
All the sensual stimuli I started to perceive as disturbing.
I didn't like I have to move forward, I didn't like I have to look at stuff, etc., etc.
H. got somewhat worried about me and said my state is strange because mushrooms are not supposed to have a sedative effect.
I trusted my guide, took some deep breaths, started to feel better and we proceeded.
But, somehow, I still felt like “going against the grain”.
Meanwhile, started to rain and we were urged to go back home (which I greeted with relief).
I felt I would like to sit in the grass, but it was already wet from rain, so we could not make any “picnic” pause.
But, now, as we walked on a path fully covered with grass with green fields on both sides (and no other stuff that would stand out, move, or differ in color) I started to perceive looking around as much less disturbing — actually almost pleasing (I felt the pleasure of the monochromatic perception).
Then, we got back home with soaked shoes from wet grass (and soaked socks from wet shoes).
We decided to stay out under pergola (being protected from rain, but being in the fresh air).
And we also decided to dry shoes and warm feet with the heater (which I brought from Prague some weeks ago, without an idea it can facilitate my upcoming trip).
But to be able to use a heater under the pergola, I had to spread the extension cord there.
However, my body was already becoming so heavy (started to petrify) that to spread this extension cord was truly a herculean task.
Somehow, I did the job.
H. later recalled me spreading this extension cord for a heater under the pergola was the most amusing part of the trip.
Unfortunately, I can't say (from my own perspective) what specifically might have been so funny about it because I was in a different dimension with a very low level of external sense perception (acting predominantly on autopilot).
When I finally could put my wet&cold feet on the heater and lean in the chair, I started to feel fine.
I closed my eyes (I became “blind and deaf”), I let the body to get truly heavy (to get fully petrified).
I felt still being inside the body, but the body was “out of the game“ (“switched off”) and all I sensed was a very neutral feeling (in the most positive sense) — like the consciousness all alone (like body sleeping, but me being awake).
And all this was great, now I didn't feel like during the stroll (like “going against the grain”).
During later deliberation about all the experience, I could clearly see my trip preconception of “becoming one with the universe” during the “high” stroll in nature was wrong.
Instead, I was supposed to switch off my body, shut off the senses (block the external stimuli), and just to feel what is left (when the body is thus shut off).
I appreciated very much my guides' presence before the peak experience (in the prologue phase) and in the phase after it (the epilogue), but during the strong impact phase, everything external (including the guide) was redundant and even disturbing.
After the effect evaporated, we had again a very pleasing conversation with H. on various subjects — f.e. I elaborated (for some unknown reason) on my recent viewing of Veit Harlan's film “Opfergang” (“The Great Sacrifice” or “Rite of Sacrifice”).
After H. left in the evening, I went inside the house, lied on the sofa, felt somewhat tired but not sleepy (tho, I had an urge to close my eyes again).
Thus relaxing (with eyes closed), I did some deliberations about the whole experience (including the aforementioned realization my trip program was just switching off the sensual stimuli and feeling what's left — strolling around being counterproductive).
Maybe the right thing to do would be strolling in the early phase, during the peak experience just to lie in the grass with eyes closed (instead of “walking forward” rather “to let the body move towards the switching off”), and proceed with the stroll in the epilogue phase.
Next time I might try this, tho it's a question if the “plots” of the trips repeat?!
I might do this, but maybe there will be again the feeling of “going against the grain” (because mushrooms will conceive some other schedule).
In any case, I will (somehow) try to go forward to switching off (the external stimuli) next time.
During this later deliberation, it also came to my mind (based on my fresh trip experience) that the general claim that “people should not die alone” might not be completely true (or might be true at the condition that the presence of others is not prominent). I can imagine that people who are not afraid of death (who are not panicking), can maybe pass away more easily if nobody is giving them diverse (diverting) external stimuli.
When my mom was coming closer to death, my sisters during their visits in hospital tended to speak to her about all kinds of details related to family (and alike), but I always felt strange to do so.
Once, I remember I was saying something (of this kind) to her, she was listening, looking at me, but besides she had a hard time to breath, at times obviously felt some pain (based on her grimace), and was becoming more and more exhausted. So, I told her, if she feels tired she can just close eyes, I will not go away, I will keep holding her hand, will stay being there (despite being mute). She nodded her head in agreement and closed her eyes. And within a very short time, she had a very serene expression on her face, was breathing steadily, she looked very calm (no signs of pain anymore).
After the trip, I recalled this and it seemed to be similar to the proceedings of my trip (at first “going against the grain” while keeping the body and senses activated by external stimuli, then “going the right way” by letting the body and senses to switch off).
I had some more afterthoughts during the post-trip deliberations (f.e. about the relation of eros and thanatos), but after a while, my mind got calmer, I just relaxed without analyzing the trip anymore and soon I could even start to read a book (i was reading a biography of the photographer František Drtikol called "A History of Light" by Jan Němec, borrowed from H.).
Then I fell asleep.
Last but not least, one more peculiar detail happened during the trip.
Shortly after we swallowed the mushrooms, my phone started to ring and the person who was calling me was D. who was sitting right next to me half of the elementary school and the whole secondary school. As teens, we were close friends, but later he moved to Britain, got quite business-oriented which I can hardly relate to and thus we somewhat alienated to each other. But still once in about 2 years, we meet (whenever he comes to visit his sister who lives in Prague). I saw him last time about one and a half year ago. Since there is the internet, we were always arranging our meetings via e-mails, or via chat. When he called me by phone last time, it's more than 10 years ago. So, when I saw on the phone, he is calling me, for a moment I thought it is already some strange mushroom hallucination. But it was real. And the funny detail is that he was the guy with whom I was for the first time taking weed. And this very guy who was present during my first weed experience called me out of the blue during my first mushroom experience that he's in Prague and we can meet.

additional note:
After coming back to Prague, we met with D., his wife, and their infants (they were all heading in a caravan to Italy).
I also searched the web thereafter and discovered the terms “peak experience” and “body load”.
Some count “body load” as one of the unwanted side effects of mushroom eating (giving advices on how to minimize it), but to me “body load” was something desirable (a prerequisite to the feelings beyond sensory perception).
I also (subsequently) watched a film called “María Sabina, Mujer espíritu” (1978, directed by Nicolás Echevarría) and it was reassuring to what I felt, because (according to the film) curandera Maria Sabina always conducted her mushroom healing sessions during the night time and at one point the voiceover even says, “There is a moment during the ritual when the candles are put out. Darkness serves as a background for the visions. It is not necessary to close the eyes. It is enough just to look in the infinite depth of darkness.“ Hearing this was so much appealing. Next time, I wish to eat mushrooms in darkness too.
In my post-trip readings, I was also focusing on the subject of eating/non-eating before and during the trip (because I had obviously some issue with food during the trip). Now, I believe fasting (not too long) before the trip might be beneficial. Eating cheese as a side dish to mushrooms was fine (this I would repeat). During the high phase of the (possible next) trip, I expect to abstain from eating anything (and will even abstain from looking at anybody else eating). And in the epilogue phase, it might be okay to eat some raw food because I didn't feel like eating anything we had at hand which was cooked but I was fine eating small red European radishes. It was a bit funny to read later that the taste of psychedelic mushrooms can be compared to the taste of those radishes (one of the opinions I encountered in the expert mycological literature) — another amusing little coincidence.

additional note:
At the end of October (i.e. few months after the trip), I watched a film called "White on White" (2020, directed by Viera Čákanyová) which is a video diary from her stay in Antarctica and at one point she says, “This landscape works like a drug. Pure, concentrated, monochromatic drug.“ I can strongly relate to this claim and can recall vividly the feeling while going home in rain during the trip and being surrounded by all-around green, or being already at home and with closed eyes seeing "all-around" intense red on the screen of my inner eyelids. I guess I would feel fine staying inside the dark (pitch-black) chamber for a while.

MARÍA SABINA, WOMAN OF THE SPIRIT (Nicolás Echevarría, 1978)
https://letterboxd.com/film/maria-sabin ... -espiritu/

There is a moment during the ritual when the candles are put out.
Darkness serves as a background for the visions.
It is not necessary to close the eyes.
It is enough just to look in the infinite depth of darkness.

https://youtu.be/y5YVe09C9NU

[niminy-piminy]

AI (Lucrecia Martel, 2019)
https://letterboxd.com/film/ai-2019/

https://youtu.be/Ua6sMjfoBvg

[Lencho of the Apes]

A bull is distracted from his "I run at them, they poke me with hurty sharpthings" game, turns his head to watch Popocatépetl farting.

https://youtu.be/tp3iiJ2XatU?t=1384

[niminy-piminy]

btw. there is a local tongue twister that says, "Ten můj Popokatepetl je ze všech Popokatepetlů ten nejpopokatepetlovanější Popokatepetl."
it can be translated, "My Popocatépetl is among all the Popocatépetls the one that is the most Popocatépetlesque."

[niminy-piminy]

after a few days break, watching again "Academia Film Olomouc" programme...

No15
AM I STILL BURNING?: PETR JURAČKA (Hana Pinkavová, 2020)

His photo is on the cover of Paulo Coelho’s book. He was awarded for filming mold. The popularizer of science and globally acclaimed photographer continues to amaze with his drive and playful disposition.

After fifteen years, the director Hana Pinkavová follows up on the Do Not Extinguish! I’m on Fire! cycle about promising individuals with exceptional zeal. The then sixteen-year-old Petr Juračka dreamed of saving endangered species. Today he teaches at Charles University, has traveled to every continent, and has written a book. The medallion combining statements, the backstage of popularizing TV spots, and archive footage from travels reveals that Petr cannot contain the enthusiastic young turtle-logist with wild dreams.

and in the aforementioned film (among other things) a "peeing butterfly" is mentioned/displayed...


after investigating the issue closer, they are actually drinking pee, extracting nutrients from the pee, and peeing (excreting) residue water.
all this is technically called "mud-puddling"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud-puddling
so, a "peeing butterfly" is actually just "excreting excess water after mud-puddling" (after drinking pee).

"mud-puddling" observed & explained on the video from Peru...
https://youtu.be/7G22ST78tHY

[niminy-piminy]

1975 poll No31
TWO PORTS AND A HILL (Mario Handler)

After several close calls with death squads, Mario Handler fled Uruguay in 1973 and eventually settled in Venezuela where he lived and continued to make films before returning to Uruguay in recent years. The first film he completed in exile, Dos puertos y un cerro is an essay film about the imbalances of trade. A narrator dispassionately recounts in voice-over a brief summation of Venezuela's situation as a hub port in the establishment of the colonial system in the sixteenth-century.

The images and narration then address "dry exchange" on the world market in the modern industrial era. Raw materials, particularly minerals, oil, and timber, are pumped out of the third world into the first where they are processed into consumer goods which are then shipped back to the periphery. The film provides quite effective illustrations of the scale of exchange starting with an example that is laden with historical irony in the context of Caribbean colonization: thousands of metric tons of mineral ore are the world market equivalent of a single ambulance.

A very subtle humor is at work in Handler's didacticism which reminds me somehow of Chris Marker (there are even tinges of "science fiction"). In addition to its clever illustrations of the neo-colonial processes at work to ensure South American and Caribbean dependency on the north, Handler's film features very cool concrete music.

The film develops its visual metaphors about world trade in a mannered way. Stock industrial footage represents the north in contrast to the vivid imagery of Venezuelan mining and export/import activities. The opening sequence's tinted sixteenth-century etchings develop into ruined landscapes and provide a quite brilliant and original way of looking at that central contradiction of the European narrative of colonization: the bringing of saving light to the Indies in exchange for this wretched earth.

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No30:
ABYSS OF PASSION or WUTHERING POPOCATÉPETL HEIGHTS (Luis Buñuel)

1954 was the year of budding cinematic explorations of incest (or incestuous leanings) in melodrama.
despite love triangles (forming intricate love rhombuses or complex love polygons) consisted only of brothers and sisters of "different" families (time was not yet ripe for full-fledged incest on screen), this lack of portraying straightforward incest was compensated by pushing the agenda of enamored "brothers & sisters" to the absurd extremes of SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS.


more restrained rendering of this subject offers Lotte Reiniger in her SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED which is a tale of only "two brides (sisters) for two brothers". this particular film also interlinks incestuous leanings with a related subject of "animal brides & bridegrooms" that is classified in folkloristics (Aarne-Thompson index) as type 402 — one of the brothers in SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED is a spellbound prince (transformed into a bear).

Type 402 (Animal Brides & Bridegrooms) elaborated f.e. in...
https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2020 ... rooms.html

in ABYSS OF PASSION, the love rhombus is formed by brother Eduardo (called "worm" or "trembling rabbit") and his sister Isabel, and then brother (stepbrother) Alejandro (called "swine") and his sister (stepsister) Catalina.
stepbrother Alejandro is not a bear from the SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED, neither the FROG PRINCE (or alike) but he is still a "beast" (savage), while sister Isabel naively believes she can transform him back into a human by her tenderness.
on the other hand, sister Catalina is not such a "romantic fool" as sister Isabel and takes wicked pleasure in making her formal hubby (Isabel's brother Eduardo aka "worm" or "trembling rabbit") fist-fight over her with her stepbrother Alejandro ("swine").

[niminy-piminy]

2007 poll No4:
TABLE TALK (Yanara Guayasamín)

Devotedly and lovingly, a woman sets an improvised table. She puts out delicious homemade rolls and sweets, and sets a place for each off her deceased loved ones. First, it is the children's turn. While the food disappears, their little voices indicate how much they enjoy the meal. Then the table is set once more, this time for the adults. It is hard work for the woman, but she does not mind. After two days, she cleans off the table and makes her bed on it. Content, she lies down. She waits for her dead husband to come and get her. Table Talk is an experimental anthropological documentary that captures a ritual carried out every 1 and 2 November on the Santa Elena peninsula of Ecuador. The result is just as ordinary and true as it is extraordinary and mystical. The footage is filled with beauty, and the effect is touching.

https://vimeo.com/1091350

[niminy-piminy]

2007 poll No11:
SILENCE (François-Jacques Ossang)

Silence, Vladivostok en Sky's Black Out!: Three silver pearls that together form the Trilogie du paysage. The visual poem Silence follows in the tradition of documentary elegies that began with the films of Rudy Burckhardt and Charles Sheeler. But in the era of Throbbing Gristle, poetry must measure itself against industrial disasters, invisible nuclear apocalypses, a travel report, an optical meditation, an overwhelming array of black and white tones, a love song, a progression of dim phantoms in the terrifying caverns of hope… strike.

Trees, the sea, megaliths, an iron bridge, a woman passerby are filmed in the early morning and late hours of the day. The film examines the elementary figures of the cinema and the world. A return to primitive cinema and the basic elements: water, wind, earth, sun : with an industrial music score by Throbbing Gristle.

a road trip to Portugal...

[niminy-piminy]

JIDFF 2021
REMEMBER TO KISS ME WHEN YOU WAKE UP (Estefanía Clotti, 2021)

A grandmother, a mother, daughters. Despite living in one house, they exchanged letters. The first one was written in 1994, the last one 15 years later. In these letters, the women share their deepest feelings and insecurities. This autobiographical essay also takes the form of a letter. Its author revives the lively letter exchange through videos recorded on her mobile phone and her own animations. It is not only a dialogue of the women in the family, but also of the past and the present, of people and their images.

https://youtu.be/_LpBYyrRk3I

[niminy-piminy]

JIDFF 2021
THE STONEBREAKERS (Azul Aizenberg, 2021)

In 1908, Argentinian stonebreakers went on what was to become the longest strike in the country’s history. Only a few testimonies and no pictorial documents have been preserved. Sixty years later, a feature film was shot about the incident, which, however, ignored the presence of women among the strikers. Azul Aizenberg set out on an exciting search for fragments of a history long-forgotten to emphasise the importance of this event for the persisting fight for the rights of exploited social groups.

http://blog.filmstofestivals.com/las-picapedreras-5636/

Director’s Statement / Declaraciones del Director:
Omitted or neutralized, part of the history of class struggle in Argentina remains in the shadows. The so-called “Great Strike” at Tandil is part of this omission. In cinema, those who fight for empowerment are usually caricatured, victimized or they simply lose. We wonder: isn’t there a film where we win? I study argentinian film history with this question on my mind. On this search, I discovered a film on youtube: Cerro de Leones, from 1975, months before the last military dictatorship. In this film amateur actors play as the workers on strike, which ends up with the historic triumph for the working conditions. The film is directed by Alberto Gauna, but it is signed by a collective. I found his contact after months of research: he has been exiled in Spain since the dictatorship. He writes to me that the militaries entered his house illegally and set it on fire. The rushes of his film ended up in flames, taking away the only images of the women who took part in the strike. From this absent image I imagine this film. Regaining this piece of class struggle becomes a story. In the words of Jonas Mekas, the history of cinema is an invisible history: history of friends getting together to do what they love. And, in that case, the history of comrades that fought for revolution.

https://youtu.be/i4j36GDUYH4

LION'S HILL • CERRO DE LEONES (Alberto Gauna, 1975) ... no Eng subs
https://youtu.be/sSielTk69YI

[niminy-piminy]

JIDFF 2021
INTERFERENCE (Juan Carlos Soto Martínez, 2020)

The film deals with the circumstances of a mysterious crime that took place in 1973. Just before the Pinochet‘s coup, an antenna for the right-wing Channel 5 was installed in Concepción but was subsequently destroyed under unclear circumstances. A few days later the body of an artist was found murdered in an unusual way. The investigation of the decades-old case, however, was interrupted by the coronavirus epidemic...This investigative film shows the current pandemic and the isolation that results from it as drivers for overactive imagination, speculation, and the unravelling of forgotten mysteries.

https://youtu.be/bvpsDja0I64

[niminy-piminy]

JIDFF 2021
OPEN MOUNTAIN (Maria Rojas Arias, 2021)

In July 1929, a group of shoemakers from a small Colombian village triggered a one-day revolution to improve the living and working conditions in the country. Despite the fact that almost all the traces of the event and of the revolutionaries, who called themselves The Bolsheviks of Libano, Tolima, have disappeared in the past few decades, Aura, a living contemporary and anarchist, believes their fight goes on. The evocative hybrid 16mm documentary combining archival materials and personal memories takes the viewer to a place where history runs deep and where time has stopped.

https://youtu.be/53ZaSc3VFTc

[niminy-piminy]

besides charming ode to Bratislava (capital of Slovakia), i.e. LINES (Barbora Sliepková, 2021), this year's JIDFF offers one more noteworthy psychogeographical study of the capital city (Brasília), i.e. A MACHINE TO LIVE IN (Yoni Goldstein, Meredith Zielke, 2020).

The feature-length documentary essay by the filmmaking duo of Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke tells the story of the Brazilian capital’s unique, almost mystical architecture, its prophetic history, and the cosmic dreams of the future that surround it. Pieced together from snippets of audiovisual texts, songs, interviews, and snapshots, the four distinct narrative perspectives form a hybrid portrait of the futuristic, almost cosmic landscape of Brasília, which becomes a source of UFO cults, spiritualist temples, and the transcendent. The filmmakers portray the architectural environment of Brasília as a unique, inspiring place where utopia often becomes reality.


"A Machine to Live In attempts to locate where the desires for myth and reason sublimates in the building of utopian spaces. It collects vignettes and stories from architects and builders as they describe their ideal cities, both real and transcendent." (Yoni Goldstein)

https://youtu.be/Jdmsq2x7Nao

[niminy-piminy]

1962 poll No14:
MAGUEYES (Rubén Gámez) ... IMDb/Mubi 1963, Ltbxd/etc. 1962

https://youtu.be/TI1RfOH8ILg

[Lencho of the Apes]

Gamez did a surrealesque featurette in 1966? that you would like, La Formula Secreta.

[niminy-piminy]

didn't watch anything by him yet, liked the spiky agave short, thanks for the rec., bookmarked!

[niminy-piminy]

1986 poll No14:
ARTIFICIAL PARADISE (Chick Strand)

Paradise was a central and elusive subject of Strand's work motivating her investigations of other cultures, from her travels in Mexico to her interest in psychedelia. These films blend Strand’s fascinating with abstraction from her lyrical early beat films such as Angel Blue Sweet Wings 1967 and the psychedelic Waterfall 1967 made with help from fellow filmmaker Pat O'Neill. Her remarkable film Fake Fruit Factory 1986 show the women’s labour behind exotic talismans of paper mache fruits. Sensuality and desire are ever present in Strand’s work, from her depiction of the carnal sport of Bullfighting and teenage masculinity in Guacamole 1976, to one of her most hypnotic films Artificial Paradise 1986 a tribute to innocence and beauty.

[mesnalty]

Is that a real Sappho poem? When I google it, all I get are references to the film, and now I'm intrigued by the possibility that Laura Marling is a Chick Strand fan...

[niminy-piminy]

ha, i didn't investigate the film's initial "quote" prior to posting.
now, i see "cheeks" having an alternative with "bottom".
and an alternative version to be falsely ascribed to someone living around 1700.
https://twitter.com/DalrympleWill/statu ... 92864?s=20
seems like the world of wisdom experienced many cameos of this "quote" in the past.

https://youtu.be/uErItzgDPVg

[niminy-piminy]

no such poem is to be found in this book...

[niminy-piminy]

1972 poll No11:
INCA LIGHT (Robert E. Fulton)

https://youtu.be/1ATOJ6m4MPs

[sally]

after doing iberia month over at icm forum, i must say i've found a new appreciation for the culture

'is that a snake in your carving or are you just pleased to see me?'

'why yes i DO want to see your bum, thank you very much'


https://twitter.com/CantRomanica/status ... 3917921286

[sally]

and i'm not going to duplicate my raving over at icm iberia challenge but o trigo e o joio (1965) was brilliant (very gentle - think haanstra's fanfare, barnet's whistle-stop, mixed with those furiously pastoral italian b&w dramas...a film of realistically unrealistic episodes of brain-fuddled country ways, the odd rhythms & gestures of folklore)

added straight to my 'canon' - and i thought i'd never like a film from the 60's again! (poland excepted)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥