Random Thoughts

Persona. Ingmar Bergman. 1966. ⚅

I watched this movie two years ago during the 87 Bergman Things blog series, but I wanted to watch it again, so here you go: Probably a slightly different series of screenshots? You gets what you pays for, dead reader.

[thirty minutes pass]

Looking at the remaining films on the list of Officially The Best movies, I don’t think there’s anything better than this movie left. I mean, this film is in-credibly stunning. Everything about it is pure genius, centred around the shattering performances from Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Of course, Sven Nykvist could make anything look gripping, but when those two are on the screen…

Dude.

But watching it now is very different from last time (when it had been at least a decade since I saw it last): This time I know the central betrayal that underlies the apparent idyll, and… that makes it somehow even more gripping.

[the end]

Dude.

Dude!

The movie just gets better the more times I see it. It’s not a… timeless? movie: It’s very much a movie made in 1966. It’s the essence of 1966. And that somehow makes it more vital than anything.

But the real reason I’m rewatching this now instead of just punting to the previous blog post about it is this:

Yes! Criterion finally (i.e., last year) released a blu ray set of Bergman movies!

And this 2K restoration of Persona is totes wonderful. The box itself is also very er tactile — it’s very heavy, but it’s got a soft touch thing going on, which I assume is because it’s covered in a phthalate-treated plastic, so that means that an untold number of fishes gonads mutated to give me the pleasure of touching this box set.

I appreciate it!

Oooh. There’s a full moon tonight.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

The 400 Blows. François Truffaut. 1959. ⚅

I really thought I’d seen this before, but I couldn’t find it anywhere… until I searched for Quatre Cents Coups. Duh.

Anyway, I watched this in 2016, and now I’m watching it again. I don’t actually remember much of this (pre?-)Nouvelle Vague movie other than that it was quite pretty? And had something to do with school? Let’s find out.

[half an hour passes]

Well, OK, I didn’t remember this movie before starting to watch it, but immediately whenever a new scene starts it’s “aahhh! this scene…” like it’s an iconic scene I’ve lived with all my life. Which I haven’t. But Truffaut makes everything seem like the perfect instantiation of the concept: That’s The Schoolroom; that’s The Flat; that’s The Gorgeous Mother; that’s The Goofy Dad. How could it be otherwise?

[the end]

I love this movie, but it’s not perfect. The kids are a lot of fun to watch, but they’re not exactly er good actors — frequently they’re just standing around waiting for their cues to deliver their lines, which they’ll do with great alacrity. It’s fun to watch. The adult actors are also quite variable, with some of the teachers devolving into panto at times.

It is a wonderful movie, though I can’t really say whether the pleasure I’m having watching this is due to the film being, you know, great, or whether I just love watching these people moving around in their impeccably stylish 50s French clothes in these impeccably stylish picaresque French surroundings.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Andrei Rublev. Andrei Tarkovsky. 1966. ⚂

I watched this a couple of years ago, and it’s a bit naff. Which was really surprising for me, because Tarkovsky is usually absolutely brilliant.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Fanny & Alexander. Ingmar Bergman. 1982. ⚅

I watched this in 2018, but I’ve watched it a bunch of times before. It is 100% amazeballs.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.

Seven Samurai. Akira Kurosawa. 1954. ⚂

[two minutes pass]

I thought I had seen this movie before, but now I think not? And it lasts ALL THE HOURS. I may have to take a pause in the middle of this. I mean, I got up at 6 this morning and it’s 20 now…

[half an hour passes]

Oh, right, this is the original version of The Magnificent Seven.

I’m mostly wondering what these hairdos are all about:

Was that the fashion at the time? Or is it just a really bad hairdresser employed by Kurosawa?

It seems too… consistent… to be anything else than a thing Kurosawa wanted to have happen.

Anyway!

This movie is kinda boring? Rashomon, at least, had a singular focus (even if it somehow managed to seem too long at 1:30), but this seems so scattered.

As in Rashomon, the actors are really bad I mean totally Japanese and stylised and mysterious no I mean bad. The fetishation of Japanese otherness is really grating sometimes, and some directors (like Kurosawa) really lean into that for commercial reasons. I think! I know nothing about him! That’s just my impression!

[an hour and a half passes]

*sigh*

Has anything of interest happened? Not really. I guess you could enjoy the slow world-building… but… the “funny” bits are dreary and the serious bits are risible.

I don’t get it.

Even the cinematography is pedestrian — there’s nothing exciting about the sets or the scenery or well anything. The performances are pedestrian at best. Do I need to google why people like this?

Wow! A 100%! That’s scary. It’s deranged. What did the reviewers like about this?

Er… ok… uhm…

WHAT TIMES!!!

NO! BOTH THINGS ARE TRIVIALLY WRONG, RACHEL! There’s so many scenes here where you wonder whether Kurosawa or the cinematographer were even present when they were shot, because they’re all kinds of boring and awkward, and few of the actors are compelling.

So are people just rating this so high because they’ve somehow been sold on a narrative that this is a classic? It’s so weird.

[another hour passes]

I’ve been so bored by this movie that I’ve lost track of what the plot it? There’s been a lot of risibly bad panto acting, and now… finally… the bad guys are attacking? I think that’s it.

[the end]

Man, that final battle scene looks cold and miserable. I feel sorry for the actors.

This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.