When you align yourself with an artist, it is a true commitment - as deep as any in life. It should not be taken lightly and I suppose the commitment can be as deep as that which you, the art and the artist can permit. That can be deep, permanent and resilient, and such is the case with myself and Medem. There are three living filmmakers who I trust in this way.
When you do this, when you braid imaginations a sketch, a hint, has import. If it suggests that it should have been finished and is not, the difference becomes artistic. If it fails, eve if it repulses, it matters.
This film is less perfect than his two previous. Its that perfection that first attracted me not the perfection itself but that someone could imagine such a type of structure. The control over it is merely a matter of conversation.
This film has much of that vision of order: nested realities; art within art; selves within selves; symmetries of all sorts; honest giving of selves as a symmetry. It has visual expressions of this: from Caliban's Tempest cave through modern New York to Greenaway- like quantifications. Sea. Desert. But the order is broken, and I see that has put off viewers all over the world. This gives the impression that it is half-baked, that it is not finished. For instance, there's a mirroring of desert Indians and displaced Arabs that doesn't seem to work. There's a confluence of several types of violence that seems as if it could have been powerful but is not.
There's a remarkable notion of painting, painting doors and painting with feces that could have become archetypal but fails.
But each of these is a matter of disorder muting the effect and thereby making it all the more powerful. The personal story, if you do not know it, is that Medem's sister Ana was a painter. The paintings you see here by the character Ana are hers. She was killed at 22, just when this character is killed. There is a retroactive disorder that ripples back through time to perturb the movie that probably once was as perfect and powerful as "Sex and Lucia."
Its that perturbation that is the art. If you open yourself as I have, this will matter. If not, well, someone died and it didn't matter.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
When you do this, when you braid imaginations a sketch, a hint, has import. If it suggests that it should have been finished and is not, the difference becomes artistic. If it fails, eve if it repulses, it matters.
This film is less perfect than his two previous. Its that perfection that first attracted me not the perfection itself but that someone could imagine such a type of structure. The control over it is merely a matter of conversation.
This film has much of that vision of order: nested realities; art within art; selves within selves; symmetries of all sorts; honest giving of selves as a symmetry. It has visual expressions of this: from Caliban's Tempest cave through modern New York to Greenaway- like quantifications. Sea. Desert. But the order is broken, and I see that has put off viewers all over the world. This gives the impression that it is half-baked, that it is not finished. For instance, there's a mirroring of desert Indians and displaced Arabs that doesn't seem to work. There's a confluence of several types of violence that seems as if it could have been powerful but is not.
There's a remarkable notion of painting, painting doors and painting with feces that could have become archetypal but fails.
But each of these is a matter of disorder muting the effect and thereby making it all the more powerful. The personal story, if you do not know it, is that Medem's sister Ana was a painter. The paintings you see here by the character Ana are hers. She was killed at 22, just when this character is killed. There is a retroactive disorder that ripples back through time to perturb the movie that probably once was as perfect and powerful as "Sex and Lucia."
Its that perturbation that is the art. If you open yourself as I have, this will matter. If not, well, someone died and it didn't matter.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.