Master Of The House

Carl Theodor Dreyer - 1925
Initially, the fast, late silent edit seems to move around fast; from a pretty wide, deep, realist establishing of the house, to side-views and others, which is definitively not continuity. It analyses the scene. Then it strikes; Dreyer has put huge amounts of this film around eyeline matches.
Considering Dreyer, in my experince, is one of the great directors who reinvents their cinema with every work, I was surprised, in that way, how formally similar this was to 'Jeanne d'Arc' (just three years later). That is; close-ups, the study of the face, eyeline matches (studies of a face; 'Vivre Sa Vie'). With generally strong side light, strong but misty, and the average tone of the palette being a dark grey.
Dreyer, like Hitchock (or rather Hitchcock, like Dreyer; I am sure Hitchcock knew and fully took in Dreyer), not only uses these matches but also displays sheer brilliance, thought, an exciting camera position, invention, in every shot. The embrace from behind the head, so we only see the hands come around the neck, for example..
Dreyer is also deeply creative in his montage. Cutting in the father's entry with the smiles or cries of the baby, for example, who is not plot-wise key to the action, gives the sense of the whole tone. Kuleshov at work
The plot is incredibly simple; yet it is a joyful and engrossing film to watch. The focus on the everyday chores is done briskly but, in the scheme of film time, arguably slow. We usually have a still camera, but occassionally those very neat horizontal tracks are made. These are revelatory moments; a connection is made across the field where people seem ignorant of each other. Even from one hand making a sandwhich to another.
What is the abiding sense of the film. Dreyer makes his actor's great; they express straight, primal emotions, daring to go to each other, yet retain a complexity and the enigma of the face, perhaps due to the cinematic medium and the eyeline matches. This film can be upbeat, brisk, but one also can't say there isn't a sense of impending doom as well. They are all watching each other, voyeurs even. One binds the other, as the plot goes the relations are reversed. There is something deeply sado-masochistic in the conclusions. Dreyer goes beyond the accepted emotions.
One more thing; Dreyer is here pretty sociologically acute. This is the baseline, an often seen as 'unglamorous' social issue, which Dreyer deals with. As he does economic hardsip, unemployment. This is perhaps Dreyer's, of what I have seen, most economically minded film, which I particularly appreciate. It, like all his films, deals with the seemingly average lives, not spectacular in on the surface overlarge; but gives them weight, lets us see, for all their mistakes, a dignity and the truth there.

Breaking The Waves

Lars Von Trier - 1996
Use of a moving non-mounted camera. Flying around enough to make you seasick, whip pans and so on. Usually pretty close to the faces. Shots are of a decent length. Cutting in the middle of a blurred movement in an elliptical manner ('Festen'). Film to video to film deep washout. Murky areas and video-ish contrast. Use of 'beautiful' shots, long shots and takes, as chapter-bindings with heavy colour saturation.
Interesting themes explored here. Well done, but Von Trier about as subtle as a hacksaw. Toned down, could express wonderfully. Worry of a certain condenscion to the characters, but they really are looked upon nicely as it develops.

Vampyr

Another look at the Carl T. Dreyer , 1932, film
Dreyer's camera movements are remarkable; tiny little, slightly jerky ones, with a remakably free camera (it feels almost 'Regle Du Jeu; like at times...) pushing us around. We seem to never have a full establishing shot, so people, or even just hands, pop into the frame out of nowhere. The lighting is also distinct; with a, for significant parts, without dominant key lights. In fact, the head is sometimes the darkest part of the room. The space of the film surely can't quite make sense; we don't get jump cuts, but I am sure that the geography doesn't quite work. It is too elliptical... and perfect for the film. The confusion is what takes place off screen, something is happened, not quite right.
I can barely remember conciously noticing so many eyeline matches in a film. This moves questions of subjectivity, of mystery again, and the overall thematics of the film.
Dreyer's actual graphics are often mildly, not radically, decentered. Within his shots, Dreyer still finds time for his close-ups, the still, wonderfully naturalistic, compelx skin shades that he was famous for. Let us notice the shadows too; the flesh, the substantial is again not there, we only have the strange trace, but this takes on an autonomy and life of its own. As too do the clear black sillouhettes, so simple, but at the same time taking on a bizarre difference from their surroundings.
The sound further enhances the deliberate decentered nature, the creep outside the camera. The sound, the dialogue when we can't see the speaker, is precicely this.
The exterior shots are most reminscent of other Dreyer work, notably 'Day Of Wrath'. The soft, bright, perhaps overexposed, with presumably gauzes, long shots of people going through scrtachy long grass, diffused lighting twinkling sleepily from every point.
The acting, indeed every element, adds to this theme; another example of form following content. The actors appear purposeful, but we have no idea why. They do strange things, the world does strange things. The candles are lit in the daytime, and seem to give off no light.
This film operates with outside and inside, the house itself a coffin. We don't just look through glass in that one famous sequence; but also throughout, at Gray at the start, and often in the background. Stark, but rich.

Arven (Inheritance)

Pretty ropey family saga/ love story from Per Fly, 2003
The style is fussy, with no tripods in sight. Darting around
Constant cutting, in pretty basic continuity style. Usually a master-shot, but there’s a lot of shot/ reverse stuff
Shot in video, which along with the high contrast can’t help but make one think this is really suited to the television (it’s almost like a narrative documentary in its look)
The predictability of its style is matched with the content, to a laughable degree
Can see things coming telegraphed a mile off, all very obvious, as it churns along at quite a decent crack
Very clichéd plot, nothing out of the ordinary, with some pretty dodgy time-shifts
A plot with a lot of wholes in it too
Quite a fun game to play, stretching out these holes and playing ‘guess the next scene/ line / cut’
It is quite laughable, but a little bit endearing as well
Very theatrical, with completely over the top performances, and a lot of plot explaining to each other, in staging that is two dimensional at best (why was this film made?)
But it trops along enthusiastically, and the basic, very Shakespearean story of families and a love story (surely referenced somewhere in the theatre segments) makes it all rather sweet
Complete rubbish, and, ultimately, pretty tiresome, but, if one is in a good mood, can be watched without too much pain

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc

Quite, quite remarkable film for Dreyer, 1928
what is there to say? A real blow to the cortol
the close-up, Jean looks up, the grotesques look down
vivdly highlighting just one level, with frontlighting
an incredible study of the face; the texture, the sweat, the ringing of flesh
the use of the close-up in various parts around the screen; it is trapped, it is subjected
but also here we have Dreyer's transcendental; the pure affect, against the white of the back wall. Away from all else. The extra dimension that Dreyer can produce
Space is almost entirely in the viewer's creation; from one to another. Takes it to an almost literal unreality, a space beyond earth, purgatory
use of a few beautifully smooth pans (see 'Day Of Wrath') add to atmopshere of flies against a wall, swatting about, starnge two dimensional, though opens up two more...
huge canted angles throughout, remarkably experimental in nearly every shot (which could be hung on a wall, but remain fast, gritty, so sudden)
as though what it is to film was being constantly refound. Dynamic
Snappy, shoots along. Goes at the jugular from the first close-up, and keeps it there, at a quite incomprehensible level of pace and effect
manages to balance every shot, of the inquisitors and town, as well as Joan, in this status beyond normal life. All is at once questioned in this new 'reality'
the use of space clearly influenced Bresson (not least his version of the same story), as the close-up options opened up space for Bergman ('Persona'), and even Godard ('Vivre Sa Vie')
rightly seen as one of the most distinctive films of the silent era, and perhaps in the canon of European cinema. Quite, quite astonishing

Festen

1998 film, the first of the Dogme grouping, by Thomas Vinterberg
starts off with of course that handheld, but very fast cutting, chucking the camera around, all close-ups
then moves to a few wider shots, mixing the two up, always a dynamic camera
this is a sensational film; because it succeeds in creating, and communicating in, its own language
the earlier techniques are revealed to be drawing us into the language, which from there can use a mixture of tight framings/ length of shots/ objective vs subjective (ish), to communicate to us perfectly
this is really pure cinema; everything communicated by the editing and framing
musical, in the way that it tightens things up, choosing to cut from close-ups of the key players, but then rests us (really more vectors than just these two, of course) with the move to wider framings and so on
constantly redefining what each technique means; thye longer take creates suspense, the tight cloe-up changes from heightened intensity, to suspense, to violence
this is like conducting an orchestra; creates some wonderfully cinematic effects, the slight reframing; a different character
the narrative is at the beginning (with occasional returns) a little- action from start to end- but when it becomes more open-ended, retains non-literary quality
the uses of montage are supremely powerful; those close-ups as pure affects, atoms coming to collide
from their we have soviet montage influences, and the switches in tone we have the nouvelle vague, with a wonderful bit of cross-cutting in the middle making us say 'Griffiths'
but it is to the French impressionist cinema this most resembles; the rythmic editing
the ability, after the tightening, to produce some incredible, longer take, fantasy-ish sequences towards the end is masterly, recalling as much Vigo as anyone
the Dogme constraints are even constrained themselves, in the use of close cameras and various other technqiues, but these constraints force it to be a film that is properly filmic
the even 'mistakes', where it does slip up narrative and editing wise, are properly 'filmic' mistakes; which makes this such a superior movie
this is really a modern work of brilliance

Gertrud

1964 Carl Theodor Dreyer
downright bizarre cast movement- dreamworld
more stagey than ever
use of light, again, for faces
few powerful moments with overexposure
plot is classic scandanavian tradition
difficult to see much, filmically, beyond that

Ordet

Carl Theodor Dreyer 1955
very stagey
use of light again
off stage sound (in Day Of Wrath) too
shows how what isn't there that matters
swinging back and forth with religious themesthough underplayed, in simplicity really makes it clear
is the end deserved? Doubtless powerful, but need to really invest to get it
Really very much like a stage (part from couple of headshots)

Day Of Wrath

1943 Carl Theodor Dreyer
Changing characters
more than just one way on the sympathy, though ends more clearly
use of light to show attention. Trope of white around the face
huge, high contrast
sensational, baroque framing
very realist despite these touches
long pans
a steady story, concentrate hard as underplayed
a few sensational scenes, light, slow walking
looks great at times, if a little stagey

Voksne Mennesker (Dark Horse)

This quirky 2005 film, from the director (Dagur Kari) of the alright 'Noi The Albino', is a decent distraction.
It is filmed in a weird black and white, grainy style, giving it the feeling of a real low budget, indie, small enterprise, which it of course is. The shots aren't particularly amazing, but the general drained out look, as a visual effect,just about works.
This is a film about messing about, but it perhaps doesn't quite have the cojones to follow this through. It's not a pure portrait of slackerdom, there's a bit too much of a plot in it for that. This allows it a nice emotional moment at the end (the colour move), but the mediation is perhaps not quite worth that.
This film works better as a study of living in the present, with silliness. This could make it interesting and subjective study, though it perhaps is too keen to go for knockabout humour at times, which can dull the effect.
Overall? Diverting, but not much more.

Idioterne (The Idiots)

Lars Von Trier's famous 1998 work, celebrated as the crucial, and one of the founding, sources in the 'Dogme 95' movement.
This film is a very well told narrative. That is, Von Trier simply knows how to cut at a good speed. He is smart at knowing when to begin and ened cuts and shots, or rather we mean smart in the sense that scenes taken on their own don't drag.
Due to the techincal aspects this film is shot in a, in fact, rather boring way. It is the wider shots when inside, then the mid shots on the outside, mixed in with close-ups for the emotional scenes. The deliberate limitations of the 'dispositif' of Dogme doesn't really change much at all (apart from production costs, which is an admirable goal). We have the same thoughts on the montage, the shot length and framing, as elsewhere.
The problem with this film is really that it is far too long. It is an idea that can simply only last an hour, and this film does really drag. This does not mean that there are not scenes at the end just as good as those at the start. Everything is done well, but parts of the general arc are simply not enough to sustain a 109 mintue narrative.
The ideas behind this film are really rather interesting. As a study of disability it deliberately shocks, it is also very self-relexive in so far as looking at the camera. Why are we doing this, why are we looking at them at all? The idea of hosting a revolution, and the failures of that, seem to be a comment on the Dogme style itself.
An interesting movie, but one that really needs one more idea to add to its already good ones.

Babettes Gaestebud (Babette's Feast)

This is why we cinema. Sweet, pretty, calm, strong, emotional.....the superlatives roll out but the only fair description of this on-the-surface simple and underpowered (1987) tale is the film itself.
We are told the story in the form of an unknown narrator's tale, which as a framing device gives the piece a fable-like simplicity. This sets up the action for its clear and almost childlike instructiveness. There is an almost Bressonian reticence in the characters acting styles, how the audience is invited to read in what they will. This is mirrored in the camerawork, which has scenes of a decent length, shot from a decent angle, ready to alight on character's to create visual montage narrative without drawing attention to itself. The shooting techniques are very much in the simple style of the story.
As are the backdrops, the white wall and the repitious uses of certain locations and ceremonies. All emphasise the Puritan life. It's not the edge of doing so, but doesn't mock the religion. Indeed, the film at times acts almost as a celebration of it, the beauty that we come to understand encompasses so much more than austerity.
In austerity it also lies, for the early courtship scenes are lessons in pacing. The emotional impact sneaks up on the viewer, in characters who have barely said a word we come to understand the strong underflow of emotions, and the memories of losses. While the film does have its humour, its gentle humour, the characters never turn into comic archetypes, but retain through their lack of open display a humanist integrity.
This films gentleness also though comes to reveal a strength, as within what could be almost a child's tale we come to see the edges, the strong emotions. There is an unbearably moving scene of the old hussar (the use of the elderly characters is a delight, a sadly unusual surprise). In simple things do the most powerful dwell.
This film sneaks around the edges of wider points, of the falsity of outside society and its attempts of imposition on the puritan community. It does not really focus in on these, focussing instead on a very small milleu, meaning the talk of France and so on is mildly ectraneous. This doesn't really take much away.
The vast majority of the films increasing humour strikes well with the narrative, but the end we have a wonderful mix. This is a simple film, and in its simplicity are the greatest depths. Overwhelming romance carried out through reticence, gentle happiness. A film to treasure. Mercy, indeed, is infinte.

Oyenstikker (Dragonfly)

A film with some beautiful material to work with, and is worked with in an intellgient way. Despite this, it does rather 'over-egg the pudding', perhaps laying on its violences and emotional resonances too hard, if these are in some ways justified.
The Pinter-esque undercurrents of violence soon becomes pretty obvious over-currents. What is seen at first in an ambiguity of script and deliverance soon becomes all too obvious due to dead dogs and burning barns. The weird and the violent is not so much suggested as thrown into your faces.
Despite this, the uses of language and the idea of one from outside coming in to disturb is a wonderful theme, and the actors in this all deliver fine performances.
This whole film probably works best as a metaphor for having children. With the heat turned down a couple of degrees, it could have been brilliant.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

Five Films that run between seventeen and twenty two minutes, an ecletic mix of comedy, tragedy, and farce that were the academy's selections for the category this year.
Kavi: A bit of a Unicef advert, but an important call-to-attention of the human slavery business in India. It seemed a little like a number of even-tinier films tacked together, but had some fine shots and convincing performances. The music was delightfully different.
The New Tenants: A comedy/ farce that brings up a few laughs, and has one very arresting character (the druggy). However, it is not sharp enough to have consistent comedy, and tries to pack too much in, leaving an unsatisfactory and pretentious ending. Lacks the bite better direction could have given it.
Miracle Fish: Probably the winner we would have crowned, this establishes well and has a wondrous, dreamy quality to both the child's vision and the whole later scenes. Nicely enigmatic, shot with an eye to lighting effects, but quick enough for the format. It rather over-eggs the ending, but all told very impressive.
The Door: Undoubtedly the most boring to watch, and it is unrelentingly gloomy, easy to cast off with a big who cares. One was rather wishing for it to end. Despite this, the auteur would likely make the best feature film of the five. There are some wonderful, slow moving shots of the snow, the weary travellers passing through. Individual scenes, individual pictures (the ferris wheel, the entire packing-up scene) are nicely, calmly evoked. Perhaps with a more focussed sriptwriter, this could be a talent. Not a great short film though.
Instead of Abracadabra: Delightful, funny little piece of Scandanavian whimsy, with strong comedy of embarrasment (in an absurd manner) as well as some near-slapstick. It had cheery music, a bright and breezy aesthetic, and was the funnest to watch out of all the five. It also had an ability to make itself rather touching, the absurdity and silliness cloaking real characterisation. Impressive.
So, we have very different themes in all five, and if none really blew us away then all had some redeeming features. The winner, 'The New Tenants' was the wrong decision; it may not have been the worst to watch, but it was the worst made. We will watch out particularly for the directors of 'Miracle Fish' and 'Abracadabra', though we will also do so for the director of the rather dull 'The Room'.
Short Films are rarely seen, but are a terrific medium that should be brought out of the film school. To reflect on the use of images, slow or fast, to tell no story or a quick one, we look forward to having more experience of the art form.

Bleeder

This mildly tiremsome piece has its' fingers in a lot of pies. With some Clerks style nerd comedy, touches of romance, a good dollop of gangsterism, violence, and to round it off a bit of a slacker ambience.
The problem is that it doesn't really have a stroy, or characters, good enough to engage. The central males are all rather inconsequential (our video store worker) or coherence-bendingly schizophrenic and periodically unpleasant in their actions (We refuse to attribute bad characterisation to a postmodern sensibility) that we struggle, to drag that hoary cliche out, to CARE too deeply about the characters. It all seems rather pointless, and meandering. There is nothing for the viewer to do, just a bunch of scenes rag-tag together.
We are not a fan of the directoral style, the shaky and moving camera added nothing except an unnecessary distraction. And we get that you know alot about films, you're a film director.
This isn't awful, it never embarrases, and is written accurately with faith in the intellignece of the viewer. It just fails to go anywhere, or do anything. Only great films can get away with this.