11 Oct – LFF 2015 5th day

Yesterday during Skolimowski’s film, I was smelling my sweat deep into my hair elastic bands used as wrist bracelet and a watch hook for the past month. Shoving my nose in it and breathing in deeply as if getting high on it, same as I’d seen the young motorcyclist do with drugs a day before in “11 Minutes”. It was my way of keeping a hold on identity, beyond disgust, more to do with familiarity and reality with which you can cope. Especially as the texture of it had taken in all sorts of perfumes I’d used. And I do like organic ones lately. Only the acidic richness of it was now borderline and I was trying to see where that comfort edge’s gonna break/if it did. Come to think of it, I may have actually been getting high on own hormones. The adrenalin burst had to leave some trace behind. I was digging for it same as when a teenager I used to chew my leather watch bracelet. But now my submind was in hormonal mode after all that heart racing.
Today I had little time left in the morning with all the film choosing and journal keeping and left in a massive rush. Decided to wear my night smell and just simply drop a thin touch of Afghan Noir on top of it. Had finally washed my elastic bands. But no time to wash anything else I’m afraid. Actually I wasn’t afraid. Got onto that “no sweat”/”no toxins” body state of mind :-). All ok!

*

Gonna queue up for returns to see
13:00 “Listen to me Marlon” de Stevan Riley

Marlon!
Good film! An even greater promise as the film starts, ends up still making good on almost all of it. First aesthetics point to an interior film constructed entirely from his own archive of hundreds of hours of personal recordings and home films. But soon drifts into a more classic version, with his public persona documented as well. I felt this is where the film could have been much better and keep initial course. The director said they felt the need to show how Marlon’s obsession to keep the public away from his private life and the negative influence and self effacing effect had caused him to recluse deep within. And it’s that centre piece in his life – the memory of the past – the inner world is the one that destroyed him in the end and pretty much his kids and family too.
Impressive renderings of head scans from when he was old already. Recites Shakespeare. That image and animation of it is what I’d hoped the film to be.

Credit to the director who insisted on keeping that head here and there. Reminded me of Radiohead’s House of Cards and that sculpture from Pittsburgh museum of art that looked like my Grandma. Yep, that marble head talking to you was pretty much this:

A complex guy, but in the end overcome by his own demons. Beautifully so. Only the voice. Especially his youngster voice.. I couldn’t stand it. His wilderness was so muh more raging than that. A simple man. THIS simple.

*
*
*
15:30 Arabian Nights  by Miguel Gomes 
I decided that I don’t need to write this much! This was an ok film but it didn’t touch me. Felt original here and there, but not enough. Lightly ironic and critical of the current social life in Portugal, probably more satisfying for a portuguese. Almost parodic. I could see how the situations could be from a different society/country. But likely a latin one (be it Romanian, Italian, maybe French of course, or South American). But more likely representative of those in a similar state of economic conditions. Interesting how the trial in Sheherezade’s story is transposed onto a European scene, even a worldwide one, globalising the issues, with tongue in cheek ironies to EU and national current policies.

*
*
*
18:15 Experimenta section
“A Strange Suspenssion” 

3 authors
James Richards
first a series of three short films – total of 20′
“Radio At Night/Raking Light/The Misty Suite”

Textures involving fingerprints, water, splashes, reflections, flocks of birds, trees, a constant rectangular over screen in the middle of the image, showing trees passed by while driving, sort of in a cloudy or slightly sunsetty overtone. Inversion of black and white to white and black. Often a grid would over impose the main image like a mira. Some boats and tourists passing by the Niagara falls down from the river side. (I would recognize the place, rejoice the images o massive flows of water, harmonious powerful, my being present there with mum last spring. And how I would likely want to delve into that feeling. Thought that should any mishap with the skin test anything going bad, such a finish would be in the line of total immersion and disappearance. But then I suddenly felt overcome by water, by it’s smashing force and the split second when the thought has time to slit my head: “this was such a bad idea!”.) More human in a way; and the layerings reach you enough to correspond to some kind of emotion. But it was less provoking to me then I’d expected. Still interesting though. I’d probably forget about this entire little film it had it not been for this note. In the beginning there are a few seconds of the camera dragged in closeup to a surface of oily traces and fingerprints – catchy. Clumsily as it was broken-pushed along.
*
then a 28′ reading of a filmmaker about ideas and topics related to blindness and the loss of it, or partial loss of it (as it happened to her) and how one feels the centre of his/her own illness.
“Notes on Blue” by Moyra Davey 28′

Kept bringing up Sylvia Plath and Derek Jarman and others. Their views maybe..? was she reading from them?… fell asleep. Was struggling not to. The image of her passing in front of the fixed camera slipping from one room to the other, heard from the off… and her clipping off the braziers under the t-shirt, stretching one string out of a sleeve then sliding it out the other sleeve is one memory of that piece. The other one was of the light blue covered outdoor wall in front of a window she kept passing by. Filmed from the interior of her apartment. It read “Blueskin” like a leitmotif, a reference to Blue by Jarman. Then me losing sense of it, of words and drift. Not convinced, not even sad that I might have missed something deeper. Didn’t engage enough in it. Sorry. Actually disappointed to a good extend. As this was supposed to be a string reference to Blue by Derek Jarman. And saw that yes!, she did read poetry and fragments form Tilda Swinton on/related to Jarman’s films/personality. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that bag of popcorn, I shouldn’t eat at all, anything before a screening. Inevitably blurs my mind damn it!! Even if it was almost nonsense, at least I’d have been aware and weave something else/more out of it!
*
Third piece was that of  Ah! so late!, gotta get from ICA to Ritzy (Brixton) in 19′. Dashing off running crazy to Charing X. In the train 5′ later. On the edge. Though I had more time to write. A late 30s czech (heard her speaking on the phone after) let me hang on for 3-5′ in the cinema after everyone gone just to finish some notes, then moved onto the ICAffe and then moved out of time.

Third was a longer 59′ episode organized material by Charlotte Prodger: Stoneymollan Trail

Disruptive quite often but much more landscape in it. And a lot of interspersed monologues. Some of it just reel reads/description like I used to do when working on my shorts. Others were reads from fictional works. One long read on explicit sexual encounters where a story on penetration of all kind is repeated dauntingly. Then a more personal episode of a blowjob episode where penis and bj description is verbally very explicit, but in a mix of pornographic-emotional relation. Brief but more humane exchange than the one before.
Then snaps of river broken overviews, like the american canyon airplane POViews, or the pile of dirt and rocks, or that of sea afar off the shore where you see streams of currents designing the surface as if patches of wind swept would be painted into frames of .. sea silent rivers. THAT’s what got to me. The cloud shallow patterns, grey or dark grey over the sea. All brought me forward. To myself. and to my others. Like the desolate Shetlands …
*
*
And finally @ 21:00
Take Me To The River   de Matt Sobel

A post film talk with Anca about it:
Eu: Tell me more abt this film. Take me to the river. pls
Ea: Coming of age, but in reverse… Boy arrives knowing who he is, who’s on his side, and who are his parents… Leaves confused…
The scene with the cousin at the river, throwing mud at him – muddying his clean understanding of life
Great build up and maintaining of the suspense/unease…
The ‘dinner’ at the uncle – comedy dialogue, but everybody was still on the edge of the chair
There’s no one story – everybody can pretty much build their own – there’s a lot of colour provided, but no actual story…
Eu: Well there’s one main line which is that of female inception sexual exploration and how it can be construed by various ppl, with different cultures.
Also a film about a deviant type of revenge, but as much as tortuous psychologically Molly’s father is, he’s also intelligent enough to ho past his initial pigheaded view of events and turn the whole story on against his sister and a similar event in the past that ended up disfiguring him morally and pshychologically.
De acord cu partea de tensiune, bine realizata. Foarte misto cele cateva secvente de natura so beautiful and so apparently trying to soothe the spectator but in the end build ip to eerily make us feel even more strangely strangled by tension. Strange cos it happens in such a beautiful surrounding.
Ea: Asa e. Si cateva randuri de relatii parinti copii, care de care mai troubled
Eu: La fel ca scena aceea in care vine maica-sa la el in casuta veche noaptea, si exact inajnte sa intre se vad licuricii aia misto, as if this was a fairtale, then moves into door screeching and nearly scary entry
Ea: I think amazing director. Care cred ca a scris si scenariul, dar nu sunt sigura.
Iar pustiul fenomenal.
Eu: Da, tot el
am vbit cu el am pus intrebari
porneste de la un cosmar
in care se regasea la o reuniune de familie similara in Nebraska cu ai lui
si s-a trezit cu acea vina coplesitoare ca si cum ar fi fost acuzat de ceva de care era perfect constient ca nu e vinovat
but somehow couldn’t word out his innocence in any effective way
Iar casa aia e casa alor lui
de facto
Ea: Ah, right
Eu: Gd q&a
Ea: Da, a fost si aseara
Guess different Q’s 😉
Eu: Maybe… eu am intrebat cat de aware era fata de sexualitatea scenei/lor
si el a explicat in addition cum a trebuit sa lucreze cu parintii fetei si ce serie de descrieri a trebuit sa-i faca incat sa o protejeze inca de chestii who would probably biologically be soon to happen anyway in her growing up,
dar sa nu impinga ei/el intelegerea fetei mai repede decat ar trebui intr-acolo via this film
si apoi i-am pus o intrebare mai ampla abt what audience he showed this to and if he’s aware there’s a LOT of “nebraska” culture and reaction around us, including in London when it comes to sexual inception/children etc…
And again it was a very interesting answer like about how in fact there have been a lot of women/mothers who came up to him admitting that their first sexual explorations had been similar
and then he emphasised the no guilt necessity of society when accepting this behaviour as normal
Gata, intru la metrou