tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post5700779582139847952..comments2023-10-22T17:40:51.323-04:00Comments on Tativille: The 48th New York Film Festival: Mysteries of Lisbon + Festival Recap (featuring Le quattro volte, Aurora & The Strange Case of Angélica)Michael J. Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12333893240336518881noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-35618591860645432692010-10-16T18:27:05.324-04:002010-10-16T18:27:05.324-04:00Now, that's more like it.
I just remembered a...Now, that's more like it. <br />I just remembered another aspect of Aurora that I talked with Puiu about, which I find very interesting, namely the subjective/personalised camera. The camera acts as if it was a person/a POV with a subjective consciousness etc. Most strikingly in the scene where Viorel kills the woman upstairs in her apartment. He follows her upstairs, but the camera stays downstairs while all the action unfolds off-screen so the viewer doesn't see, but only hears, what's going on. The camera, though, takes somewhat of a stance towards Viorel's crime. The moment he knocks out the woman we hear her fall to the floor and as she hits the floor, the camera - placed downstairs just below - sort of ducks or makes a surprised/terrified movement like a real person would on such a horrible sound cue. The camera, thus, takes a stance towards the character's actions which is interesting because Puiu himself - both in the guise of director and of the main character Viorel - somewhat refuses to do so and instead remains completely neutral to what unfolds on the screen.<br />The personalised (is there a more acurate term for it?) camera is also interesting in relation to the voyeur-theme that you, Michael, touch upon in your review.<br />It is also interesting in the way it somehow contradicts Puiu's own aversion towards subjectivity in general (as outlined in my summary above), thereby establishing a divide and a distinction between the filmmaker himself and the camera that records his 'vision'.Lasse Winthernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-48791969351385029862010-10-16T13:57:21.690-04:002010-10-16T13:57:21.690-04:00A quick note: I have revised my Aurora paragraph (...A quick note: I have revised my <i>Aurora</i> paragraph (10/16/10) to provide a better sense of this major work's achievement.Michael J. Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12333893240336518881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-74597952230534641942010-10-12T20:51:49.501-04:002010-10-12T20:51:49.501-04:00Yes, let me add to Sam's thanks, Lasse. Your ...Yes, let me add to Sam's thanks, Lasse. Your transcription is very much appreciated. And of course, thank you as well Sam for your very kind words.Michael J. Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12333893240336518881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-81368712896335403032010-10-12T20:38:20.804-04:002010-10-12T20:38:20.804-04:00Thanks for all that, Lasse. As someone who has als...Thanks for all that, Lasse. As someone who has also been living with "Aurora" and trying to determine exactly how much it means to me (and exactly *what* it means to me), it's nice to have such a thorough explanation from the director himself, especially since the Q+A at NYFF was likewise very opaque and difficult.<br /><br />And thanks, Michael, for the great coverage of the festival. I've enjoyed reading your always-intelligent considerations of each of these films. It's a level of critical thought I don't really find anywhere else.Sam C. Machttp://www.inreviewonline.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-12744191188186529242010-10-12T07:37:00.559-04:002010-10-12T07:37:00.559-04:00[Part 2 of 2]
- I said that in this way it was rem...[Part 2 of 2]<br />- I said that in this way it was reminiscent of films like Through the Olive Trees. Then we agreed that Kiarostami was indeed the master. I said that Aurora also (obviously) reminded me of La maman et la putain and Puiu said that Eustache’s film was indeed his own all-time favorite. I also mentioned Jeanne Dielman and he told me that he hadn’t seen it, but that many people indeed used it as a point of comparison when discussing Aurora.<br />- Puiu said that the film is about communication and about the illusion that human beings are able to understand each other. But in truth one person has no idea what the other person means when that person for instance says “love”. This is what films must show.<br />- I asked him how he felt about the fact that this film would only be seen by very few people, especially after the somewhat successful Mr. Lazarescu. He said he was totally fine with that because the film should be judged in the times to come and burn very slowly. Only then will he himself be able to see whether he has moved on to the right track or whether he needs to find a new and third way of making films.<br />- I told him that Lazarescu – in the view he advocated – was representative of a cinema that instantiates narratives and ‘patents’ truths, in this case about the Romanian health care and elderly people in his country. He totally agreed and totally denounced Lazarescu. He completely disregarded the film and said that he was done with that type of cinema and that it was exactly that kind of film he was battling against. In his mind Lazarescu is not a ‘real’ film like Aurora is. His films must not state that they possess a knowledge about any truths whatsoever.<br />- Another major point was that he really hated historical films because to him, one cannot state anything about history, because it will always inevitably be a lie fabricated by the deceitful memory. That is why he e.g. hates Haneke’s Caché because it proposes to know all kinds of things about history and about the influence of French colonial history on the bourgeoisie of today. According to Puiu one would never be able to make just a remotely accurate film based on History or memories, so one shouldn’t try that at all to begin with. <br />- Based on all of the above I said to him “But then you kind of disregard 99% of all cinema”. He paused for some seconds, shrugged his shoulders and said “Yeah”.<br />- Puiu is also majorly opposed to having dialogue carry a scene or an entire film which is why he also completely disregards Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective. Dialogue is ultra-subjective both on part of the character and writer and therefore it is uncommunicative and the opposite of audience-engaging. It is, however, somewhat inevitable and his next film will be about the dilemma of dialogue (looking forward!).<br />- Then there were the more sort of obvious points: Films shouldn’t focus on narrative/action and character because it will end up being a parasite of literature. A sort of emulation of an ontologically different art form. What’s at stake in the art of cinema is something entirely different than the exposition of narratives and characters.<br />- He also said that the art of cinema doesn’t exist because it is able to condense or plagiate e.g. literature, it exists because humans have a basic and instinctive need for the art of cinema. If they hadn’t it wouldn’t exist. In the human soul there is a unique need for something that only cinema can fulfill.<br /><br />That was pretty much it (albeit in brief) and he was pretty much the most uncompromising and interesting artist I’ve ever talked to. Of course it somehow complemented my experience - and heightened my esteem of - Aurora. But I can positively say that even before I talked to the director, the film was one of the most shocking, unique, intriguing, harrowing, rewarding, beautiful and insightful experiences I’ve had in a movie theatre.Lasse Winthernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-25825305835255830542010-10-12T07:34:30.133-04:002010-10-12T07:34:30.133-04:00[Part 1 of 2]
Ok, it’s like this:
Puiu was head of...[Part 1 of 2]<br />Ok, it’s like this:<br />Puiu was head of the jury in Sarajevo and at the end of the week there was a special screening of Aurora with a Q&A afterwards. The film was a horribly amazing experience and lots of people walked out. The Q&A evolved into a show in itself mirroring the film’s impenetrability. Immediately after the film ended, a guy came to the microphone and said that Puiu wasn’t here yet but that he would come in a minute. Ten minutes passed and people started to look puzzled. Even more walked out, but the guy assured us once again that Puiu was on the way. At a time when there were about 15 people left in the theatre he finally came strolling in, demonstratively casually dressed in long shorts and a flax shirt. He came to the microphone and smiled and said that he was happy that at least a few people had managed to stay until the end of the film. His attitude during the Q&A was one of disinterest and sarcasm, and he shied away from answering even the most genuine questions with any sort of conclusion or seriousness. I asked him whether he would agree that Aurora was somewhat more spiritual and universal than the other Romanian new wave films that all seemed to deal with more specifically Romanian institutions and types of bureaucracy (the police, the health care, the prisons etc.), but his answer was so vague and evasive that I barely remember it.<br />Thus the director seemed just as impermeable as his film and he offered not the slightest solution or conclusion. Furthermore he was a bit rude, decidedly disinterested and not at all sympathetic. He more seemed to play the role of tortured male artist that the film itself in its way also conveys. In other words, the Q&A played like a continuation of the film itself. More obscurity, indeed.<br />The same night there was a sort of end-of-the-festival-party where journalists, hang-arounds and directors came. Puiu was there as well and I went over to him and told him how much I liked Aurora. I said that I really liked the way he emptied the film of narrative to an extent where an image or a sequence could mean anything because it wasn’t guided by a director’s apparent intentions of by any sort of intentionally guided flow of emotions. What I felt about a part of the film might diverge radically from what the next man felt about the same part and the torturous repetition along with the lack of narrative guiding made things apparent in the images that I hadn’t seen in any other film. I somehow had to complete the images on my own, which was a powerful experience. <br />Puiu was really intrigued by my take on the film and – in total contrast to his Q&A persona – his face lit up and he genuinely thanked me for my understanding of the film and what I had remarked upon was exactly what he had tried to achieve. Then began a couple of hours of discussion about film and the world. Here are some of his main points:<br />- The director must ask about something instead of showing something he thinks he knows. Because he knows nothing. By establishing a narrative he patents a truth about something and he has no mandate to do that, because it is a truth that doesn’t exist.<br />- The ideal is to reduce the narrative and the action as much as all possible without leaving the strata of the audience and stumbling into the realms of experimental cinema (latter-day Godard or whatever). That type of cinema is wonderful, but it doesn’t activate the audience into participation in the same way. The thing is to reduce the narrative as much as possible without abandoning the realm of the ‘narrative fiction film’. In response to this I said that the great thing about Aurora is that each member of the audience is as responsible for completing the film and investing meaning in it as the director himself is.Lasse Winthernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-68945003271786363062010-10-11T19:42:48.155-04:002010-10-11T19:42:48.155-04:00Yes I do, and I think 2000 (which I agree was genu...Yes I do, and I think 2000 (which I agree was genuinely outstanding) really isn't such a far-fetched comparison in view of this year's best.<br /><br />Otherwise, thank you for your complimentary words, and I would ask that you forgive my sketchy treatment of Puiu's, I would agree, major work (though I naturally disagree that it is the year's best). The reason for this neglect is simply that I have time for only one such post a week, and given that "Aurora" screened the same day as "Certified Copy," and being something of Kiarostamian myself, it only made sense to write on what I really know. Besides, in the end, I prefer the Kiarostami.<br /><br />P.S. If you have the time, I'd love to hear more about your encounter with the director.Michael J. Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12333893240336518881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13095695.post-2457511572361046312010-10-11T17:37:09.958-04:002010-10-11T17:37:09.958-04:00A month's time ago you complained about the la...A month's time ago you complained about the lack of quality films released this year, but don't you - in light of the NYFF screenings in particular - agree that 2010 is shaping up to be one of the better years in some time? Maybe the best since the still unfathomably great year 2000.<br />I really thank you for your excellent coverage of the major films at the festival, though I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed with your sketchy treatment of Aurora which is undoubtedly the best film I've seen this year (closely followed by Uncle Boonmee (thanks again for a brilliant reading)). Perhaps it helped my reception of Aurora that I talked to Puiu for hours after the screening at this year's Sarajevo Film Festival, but regardless I still believe it to be the major work of the Rumanian 'wave' and a masterpiece in the vein of La maman et la putain and Jeanne Dielman (which Puiu somewhat surprisingly hasn't seen). Puiu is also - along with Apichatpong, obviously - the director I'm looking most forward to following in the coming decades.Lasse Winthernoreply@blogger.com