films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

D

DannyL

Wild Horses
Bela Tarr's basic filmic style is obtuse and ponderous. That's kinda the whole point. Bit of an awful pain if you're not in the mood but can be great sometimes, especially as a contrast to normal Hollywood fare. I do think that The Wreckminster Harmonies is an amazing film, and it's guilty of the same sins.

I did watch the whole seven hours of Satantango - partly as an act of personal endurance but I did enjoy it. Some amazing parts and hella trudging. I think the whole act of taking up so much of one's time for filmic payoff is part of what he's doing. Trying to push the boundaries of our viewing experience - monotony or meditation, it can go either way.
 
Last edited:
D

DannyL

Wild Horses
I saw Kontroll recently. Wasn't that into it - I think it had such a strong recommendation from a friend that I was underwhelmed when it came down to it.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
i wouldn't bother. there's something really distinctive about the Hungarian sense of humour/wry way of seeing the world, but unfortunately Bel Tarr doesn't communicate any of it. Anyone have recommendations for good Hungarian films?
Click to expand...
There is one called Szindbad or something. Basically it's an adaptation of a kind of dreamlike book by some famous Hungarian poet who sort of visualised episodes in his life (mainly women) as the voyages of Szindbad.
Also Gabor Body's stuff.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the assassin. every review talks about how the story makes no sense, is uninteresting, or just impossible to follow. well once you stop trying, the film gets better. but every review also mentions how ravishing it looks. and it looks nice, but its a bit low budget really to be 'ravishing'. it looks like a high quality chinese tv drama series. the director has done better films.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
anomalisa. its just a sad bit of nothing. has a nice general feeling of melancholy, but its poorly underwritten. also dont know what they gained from doing it with puppets. apart from if they did it with actors, it would have been just another typical indie about failure/awkwardness/alienation. wonder if the fact it was funded on kickstarter had something to do with it seeming like something that wasnt quite finished, or if this is just beneath charlie kaufmans usual standards. then again i think he might be better off just writing, and not directing. hes also not that good at straightforward storytelling.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
high rise. just dont bother. i only read half of high rise a long time ago (i lost it) so my memories of it are unclear but i remember laing being someone who would not be tom hiddleston, who does poshness well, but also seems to look a bit confused (rather than morally unimpressed) most of the time, and i dont remember laing seeming like that. but the main prob is that its a budget production. so it never looks quite right. not 70s enough. not 70s-future enough. and def not at all 2016-future. so its a bit confused and hard to place from the off. the humour isnt as broad as i anticipated from some of the reviews, but it just does not seem very 'ballardian'. there is no real chilling/icy/deathly/arch sense of unease. ben wheatley said in one interview i read/heard that cronenberg shouldnt be the default film vision of ballard (not sure why, crash is still brilliant). well this shouldnt be either!

why they bothered in 2016 im not sure, and why they gave it to wheatley, i dont know either.

sienna miller looks quite nice in it however.
 
Last edited:
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Do you think it might still be worth seeing for someone who's never read the novel, or much of any Ballard for that matter?

It's weird, I liked the idea of Ballard but my only exposure to his writing was an aborted attempt to read The Atrocity Exhibition about five years ago. Got 50-odd pages in and just got utterly bored with it.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i dunno. it just seems tonally confused. id wait to see it on dvd/TV. it seems like it was created by people with no real certain idea of what the film should be exactly. it should have been made in the 70s or not at all really.

only ballard ive read is crash. which i loved and found brilliant/appalling.
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Do you think it might still be worth seeing for someone who's never read the novel, or much of any Ballard for that matter?

It's weird, I liked the idea of Ballard but my only exposure to his writing was an aborted attempt to read The Atrocity Exhibition about five years ago. Got 50-odd pages in and just got utterly bored with it.
Click to expand...

Tea!!

Read these.

BALLARD-STORIES1000.jpg
 
droid

droid

Well-known member
luka said:
Read anything except atrocity exhibition. That book is an anomaly in his oeuvre
Click to expand...

Yeah, pretty much the worst place to start. If you want something more contained Id start with Super Cannes, High Rise, Cocaine nights, Crash, Millennial People or Kingdom Come, which are all more or less the same story in different settings.

I think the only Ballards I didnt like were Day of creation and rushing to paradise.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've read High Rise, some of the short stories, Millennium People... and I STILL like the idea of his writing more than his writing. I've found there's something fundamentally alienating and chilly about his work which makes it fascianting but (for me) difficult to love. I feel like you can tell he didn't care about creating plausible, let alone loveable, characters--though there's no reason he SHOULD.

I definitely should go back to the short stories, though, having seen them praised so much.

I absolutely love his interviews, though.
 
Last edited:
luka

luka

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
I've read High Rise, some of the short stories, Millennium People... and I STILL like the idea of his writing more than his writing. I've found there's something fundamentally alienating and chilly about his work which makes it fascianting but (for me) difficult to love. I feel like you can tell he didn't care about creating plausible, let alone loveable, characters, and though there's no reason he SHOULD.

I definitely should go back to the short stories, though, having seen them praised so much.

I absolutely love his interviews, though.
Click to expand...

Sometimes the thing which repels you becomes the thing which draws you in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top