Unspoken Cinema

If I had to resort to one of those crude movie equations to describe Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control (2009), it would have to be “Quentin Tarantino minus the hyperkinetics”. Studded with a plethora of movie references, Jarmusch’s movie is a film buff’s dream, literally. In some ways, Jarmusch is like Pedro Almodóvar, who has been consistently accused of being apolitical in his movies (Is it a mere coincidence that The Limits of Control is based and shot in Spain?). But a little investigation shows that the very nature of Almodóvar’s films – with their explicitness of ideas and visuals – reinforces the difference between contemporary Spain and Francoist Spain and, in the process, draws a portrait of a country that has come a long way since those oppressive years. Jarmusch’s cinema, too, does not exist in vacuum. With their plotless scripts and unhurried pacing, his movies are the perfect antidote to the summer blockbuster of Hollywood. These films have been relentlessly repudiating...

Interview de Bruno Dumont sur France Culture (25 Nov 2009) à propos d' Hadewijch (2009): "Moi je comprends le cinéma quand je lis les Mystiques. C'est à dire quand je lis les visions, quand je lis les ravissements, quand je vis l'entretien des images, quand je vis la coïncidence des contraires, quand je vis les échelles mystiques. Ce degré de coupe, d'association d'images, des plans, c'est véritablement la matière même du plan. C'est à dire que les mystiques nous disent que c'est par l'apparence, c'est par la comparaison de l'extériorité des choses que le divin se manifeste. Saint Thomas D'Aquin a parlé de la pluie par exemple, de la puissance de l'eau comme évocation justement de la présence de Dieu. Moi la présence de Dieu je ne peux pas la filmer. Je ne la filme pas. Je m'en garderais bien. Mais la pluie je peux la filmer. Et je sens bien quand je filme la pluie, je filme autre chose. Dans le cinéma il y a la présence e...

Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s maiden feature Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) is an instant success. Loosely based on the game Exquisite Corpse, originally conceived by the surrealists, wherein the participants of the game take turns to advance a storyline, Weerasethakul’s film shows us the director and his crew traveling throughout rural and urban Thailand, picking people at random, presenting them with an audio tape that contains the narrative of a story as told by its previous bearers and asking them to further the tale in whatever way they like. The “story” in the film begins with a physically challenged kid, taught at home by a visiting teacher, who notices a strange, round object roll down from his teacher’s skirt one day, which later transforms into a mystic boy with superpowers! Wait till you see what this already bizarre setup mutates into. The “characters”, who narrate the story, almost run the gamut and include a sober tuna fish seller who, she believes, has bee...

James BENNING (born 1942; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA) = 67 yold in 2009 42 films (20 feature length) / 6 screenplays (1st film: 1971/latest film: 2009) INSPIRED BY : Henry David Thoreau, Andy Warhol, Bill Traylor, Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, George Landow, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Smithson? C.C.C. films ( strict model in red ) : 13 Lakes ; Ten skies ; RR ; Ruhr ; INFLUENCE ON : ? Quick scroll : BIBLIOGRAPHY | BOOK | ONLINE ARTICLES | INTERVIEW | WEBSITES | DOCUMENTARY Ruhr (2009) 120' IMDb - " Duisburg 09: ‘Ruhr’ radikal – James Benning " By: Michael Sennhauser ( Sennhausers film blog ; 3 Nov 2009) [GERMAN] " Der Fernseher als Aquarium: James Bennings Ruhr auf 3Sat " By: tfunke ( Kein Blut, Rot! ; 4 Nov 2009) [GERMAN] " Ruhr (James Benning, 2009) " By: miguel ( punto de partida ; 22 Nov 2009) [SPANISH] "Ruhr" By: Mark Peranson ( Cinema Scope , #41, Winter 2010) " Long shots " By: Blake Williams ( R and G and B , ...

Lost in a moment  | Shrift (1998/Dennis Wheatley/Stefan McClean) 4'56" "one take impromptu film made in Tokyo by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean. We were sitting in this sushi bar pondering how best to set up a camera to film things all by itself whilst we were in Tokyo. Take our hands out of the equation... let the camera have its own journey. I'd taken a cannibalised record turntable with me from the UK with the idea of filming slow panoramas but it was painfully bumpy and stopped every minute. Then we had our eureka moment and filmed this. A few years later I was working on a piece of music and married the two together. The music is all about that feeling when you're half asleep in the sun.. the ambiance of foreign voices becomes a lullaby to dream away. There's something beautiful in not understanding a language.. it becomes abstract, musical. Opera is so much better when you can't understand the words! What we loved about watching this f...

Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL (born 16 July 1970; Bangkok, Thailand) = 39 yold in 2009 5 (feature) films / 4 screenplays (1st film: 1993/latest film: 2009) INSPIRED BY : ? C.C.C. films ( strict model in red ) : White Malady?; Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives ; A Letter to Uncle Boonmee ; Mobile Men ; Luminous People ; Emerald ; The Anthem ; Syndromes and a Century ; Worldly Desires ; Tropical Malady ; Blissfully Yours ; Mysterious Object at Noon ; Thirdworld ; Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves INFLUENCE ON : ? Quick scroll : BIBLIOGRAPHY | BOOK | ONLINE ARTICLES | INTERVIEW | WEBSITES | DOCUMENTARY Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) 113' part of the installation The Primitive IMDb - Cannes 2010 Press kit [ PDF ] | Wikipedia Press conference in Cannes [ 41' video ], [ MP3 ]; interview [ 12' video ] " Hors d'œuvre " By: Antoine Thirion ( Independencia , 13 May 2010) [ENGLISH] [FRENCH] " Lo absol...