Three films today; two shorts, one feature, all for the first time and all on the big screen. The first two explore dreams and the personality filtered through them - one on dream logic, the other dream content. The feature, seen last, was my fifth Fellini film.
Meshes of the Afternoon Maya Deren / Alexander Hammid 1943 US1st time; big screen A woman dreams of being murdered by herself; she wakes up and is killed again. One of the most genuinely unsettling films ever made, in the feelings its askew cinematography conjures and the lingering tone left by Teiji Ito's score (added 1952). The entire thing is edited and shot so as to constrict the audience in every way possible. It'll probably give you nightmares - its imagery and general style of narrative is echoed by Lynch in Mulholland Dr.
Gently Down the Stream Su Friedrich 1981 US1st time; big screen Fourteen dreams from a filmmaker's personal journal are scratched in text onto film, coinciding with images of a woman swimming. Disturbing not in content but in the frankness with which its intimacy is achieved, this experimental short looks a lot like the kind of thing Greenaway likes to do - overlaying images and text so as to create a rich visual pattern; less about the logic of dreams and more to do with the actual content, it is daringly personal stuff; and entirely silent, which makes it often uncomfortable to watch.
La strada The Road Federico Fellini 1954 Italy1st time; big screen A simpleton is hired and exploited by a brute as he travels from town to town and circus to circus, and falls for him. A film all about humanity's need for love and companionship, without really knowing it; it is a decidedly downtrodden affair lifted throughout by Masina's portrayal of the woman taken for granted and led astray by whomever she might meet. It would be an annoying, rather obvious performance if it wasn't so fiercely controlled, and the circus scenes fetch up all kinds of similarities to Chaplin. Speaking of whom, its downfall is probably its undying need to gain its audience's love, flattering them with a sugary ebb and flow of emotions, and it isn't all that great to look at. Still of great interest, however, with lots of ambiguity and interesting scenes and characters - the Fool is one for discussion more than anybody.
...dot com bold typeface rhetoric. You go clickety click and get your head split. 'The hell you look like on a message board Discussing whether or not the Brother is hardcore?
