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JD-98
Reviews
Arktos: The Internal Journey of Mike Horn (2005)
Couldn't see the point
This documentary was mildly interesting, if only for the footage of parts of the world that are rarely seen, but there didn't seem to any reason for telling this story.
It would have been interesting to know why he felt compelled to make this journey, leaving his wife and two young daughters behind for more than two years. What did he learn about himself or the people and places he visiited? How did he feel after completing the journey: was it worth it? What we got was basically a travelogue: arrived here, waited a couple of days for weather, walked for ten days, arrived somewhere else, got on a boat, boat broke, had to repair boat, arrived somewhere else, etc., etc.
I was curious to know why there seemed to be so many logistical cock-ups, but these were never discussed. Why did he set off so late in the summer that when he arrived at Baffin Island on schedule the sea was already too frozen to continue, costing him two months? Why didn't he arrange with Russia in advance for permission to travel across Siberia instead of just turning up and being turned away, costing him three months? But again it was just a list of what he did, never why,
Sous le soleil de Satan (1987)
Uninvolving
I couldn't relate to this film. It failed to engage me either intellectually, emotionally or aesthetically. The dialogue was very dense and uninvolving. I couldn't connect with and hence care about any of the characters and I'm finding it hard to find much that's positive to say about it.
I've read that to understand it properly one needs to be familiar with some of the more obscure aspects of Catholic theology. I'll admit that, as an atheist, I probably am unfamiliar with many of the finer details of Catholicism, but I have also seen many films dealing with religious issues that have touched me because their themes are still universal to the human condition and don't rely on specialised knowledge or beliefs.
Human Touch (2004)
A missed opportunity
I found it hard to watch this film without comparing it Paul Cox's "Man of Flowers" from the mid eighties which I loved. Both have the central theme of a wealthy but sexually dysfunctional man persuading a young woman (who has an artist as a partner) to pose naked for him to help him address sexual problems which stem from some sort of Oedipal relationship with his parents. Norman Kaye who played the central figure in Man of Flowers is here relegated to the role of butler. His presence in many of the Anna/Edward scenes only underscores the connection.
Where the two films differ markedly is that Man of Flowers was centred on Norman Kaye's story whereas Human Touch seems centred on Jacqueline McKenzie's. However, the encounters between Anna and Edward seem to me to be kept very much at arm's length. We mostly find out about them when she tells David about them, indeed David is the character that I felt I knew most about by the end of the film, and therein lies the problem for me. I didn't understand Anna's transformation because it was never really shared with us, and Edward seemed almost relegated to a minor character by the end of the film, so the final scene with the slideshow seemed unimportant and heavy-handed (like the cave sequence earlier).
I did like Ouspensky's installations, even though I couldn't really see the relevance of his character. Paul Grabowsky's music was beautiful and deserves a mention. But my overall feeling is that story seemed interesting, but it failed in the telling of it by not involving us enough. A missed opportunity.