The Gleaners and I

So, as excited as I was to see Metropolis... it ended up slipping my mind completely. I came home from work absolutely starving, and at the prospect of going out for Mexican food, I forgot anything else. I felt very stupid when I realized what I had done, but I don't entirely regret it.

Sad as I was to miss that, I did pick up this Agnes Varda documentary, which I described to everyone around me as "a French documentary about gleaning," revealing that it is no mystery how I end up watching my movies alone on the couch with a mug of coffee. This is a poor description of what this film is, but I guess I didn't bother to elevate its charms much, since I knew I would end up watching it alone, regardless.

Pauline a la Plage

Eric Rohmer's Pauline a la Plage has a nice sense of theatricality about it, which comes from the centrality of the dialogue, and the downplaying of visual style. The swinging gate of the beach house operates as a velvet curtain, framing the narrative and isolating it within this sun-soaked Eden. Having set the stage, Rohmer has only to set up the camera and let the comedy of errors unfold. This styling is anything but passive, though, as the hapless young people are strategically grouped within the frame. The camera is often static, allowing the characters to wax poetic about the intricacies of love, as if delivering soliloquies on a stage.

Oh no, oh my

I'm a bad blogger

It's true. There's a lot going on in my life right now. Namely, I'm moving from Rochester, NY to Chicago. Yes! It will be good for me in the long run, but as it turns out, there's a lot involved in transplanting oneself.

So I will not be posting as regularly, but I have no plans to stop. For example, I am going to see the new restoration of Metropolis. Afterwords, I don't see how I will stop my eager little fingers from tapping away at my laptop keyboard. See you then, if not sooner.

Double Dose: Delicatessen and Shutter Island

By coincidence I saw Delicatessen and Shutter Island relatively close to one another. They have almost nothing in common, save for one thing, which is actually kind of an interesting similarity. Both of these take place totally in one isolated setting. And this is important element in both. The house in Delicatessen is a self-contained universe, essentially a microcosm of the brutal life outside of it, while Shutter Island is equally isolated, operating as a metaphor for the human mind, as well as serving practical purposes in support of the narrative.