Category: Films and movies

Whether big-studio or independent, celluloid or digital, anything about movies

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others (Leben der Anderen, Das) is a potent and pertinent film: a reminder of recent history that speaks to ongoing questions about surveillance, as well as the human and inhuman aspects of state security organizations. The film is especially impressive because of the subtlety with which the topic is approached, and the space for contemplation it affords to the viewer.

The cinematography of the film is elegant to the extent that one is in danger of missing subtitles on account of preferring to keep one’s eyes where the film-makers wanted them. The only minor lapse in good judgment is in a few scenes where the use of very wide-angle lenses produces an unwelcome and disconcerting effect. The set designs, costumes, and performs are all extremely well chosen, really managing to convey a certain vision of life under the GDR.

The film struck me as a kind of inversion of Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte) which I saw back in November of last year. One explores the moral dilemma of a member of Stasi, the infamous East German secret police, while the other is about a member of the Red Brigades, an Italian terrorist movement in the 1970s. In a way, both films are comments on how people can and do deal with the structures in which they find themselves. In particular, how exposure to the humanity and vulnerability of others affects one’s pre-existing convictions.

People in Oxford may find it useful to know that it is playing at the Phoenix Cinema on Walton Street until Wednesday May 9th.

Microbiology on display

This is too cool not to link: The Inner Life of the Cell

This short video shows animations of some of the chemical processes that occur inside living cells. I only recognized a handful, but they are all beautiful and surreal. The focus is on the behaviour of lymphocytes in the presence of inflammation.

[Update: 13 December 2007] The links above had become outdated. As of today, they are repaired.

“No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

During post-submission decompression, I have been reminded of what a brilliant film The Big Lebowski is. I have certainly seen it a dozen times, and will quite probably see it a dozen more times. Some of the lines in the film are priceless. Altogether, it is simply great storytelling, and a film I recommend to anyone with a sense of humour.

Looking at the Oxford experience of stress over time, it looks a great deal like an f(x)=tan(x) graph, if you disregard the portions in which the Y-axis is negative.

Notes on a Scandal

Flower in the Oxford Botanical Gardens

To call Notes on a Scandal a ‘thriller,’ as many have done, is to strike close to the reasons for which I found it largely unsatisfying as a piece of cinematic work. While decently acted, the story just couldn’t justify the drama that the producers tried to spin around the story. It turned out more like an example of amplified tabloidism, rendered a bit surreal through the inappropriate Philip Glass soundtrack (though my sense that the music made the plot seem trivial may derive from how I associate Glass inescapably with the bombing scenes in The Fog of War).

While the film was not without interesting elements – how a narrator can both be exceptionally aware of the workings of the world around her and profoundly ignorant of how others perceive her – they are ultimately not enough to redeem it as a piece of storytelling. If you’re going to make a film about people violating societal taboos, they ought not be so wishy-washy about it. Nobody wants an uncommitted, neurotic villain, nor one with no particular artfulness through which to be redeemed.

Aeon Flux

I saw the film version of Aeon Flux today. The physics and biology were bad; the architecture and lighting were good. Overall, it makes me want to go to Berlin. It also makes me want to watch Gattaca again: a film with similar logical flaws, but a comparable commitment to aesthetics.

As virus-haunted-future films go, 12 Monkeys is much better. As lethal heroine films go, Ghost in the Shell remains the standard. The philosophical issues raised are less superficial, and the combat is infinitely more credible. There is a lesser extent to which Force = [ Mass * Acceleration / Physical attractiveness of person in question ]. Also, no matter how many Hollywood dollars they seem capable of bringing in, elaborate flips and cartwheels are simply not tactically effective.

Excellent BBC nature series

Landscape near Goreme, Turkey

Anyone interested in nature or geography should have a look at the spectacular television series “Planet Earth.” I watched a couple of episodes on Antonia’s very large television and was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the videography and the lengths they went to in order to get amazing imagery. I saw the episode featuring Lechuguilla Cave and another on mountains. Without a doubt, it is the best nature documentary series I have seen since The Blue Planet. Both were made by the BBC, and may constitute the strongest endorsement I have seen for that broadcaster.

I have been tempted many times to buy the DVD set of The Blue Planet, but don’t think it would be wise to buy the European version, which will not play on most North American devices. Both The Blue Planet and Planet Earth also have rather good websites. If you are in the UK, you can even download high resolution video clips. Unfortunately, they are only available as Windows-only DRM-protected Windows Media Player clips: hardly what you would want from a public broadcaster. Mac users will have to be satisfied with an excellent new background image.

All the President’s Men

Continuing to draw upon Kai’s excellent connection of DVDs, I watched All the President’s Men. Above all, it has reinforced my conviction that journalism is a noble but difficult profession. The amazing thing is that they were just relying on notes. These days, one can simply expect that all conversations, emails, and phone calls are being recorded.

Other people have already written better and cleverer things about the film than I can manage at the moment.

In the end, though, a reasonable person must suspect that the present American administration has engaged in deceit at a level that makes the Nixon administration look moderate by comparison. The question is when, if ever, that claim will be authoritatively confirmed or refuted.

Thirteen Days

I watched Kai’s copy of Thirteen Days tonight. As a historical re-enactment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is apparently quite accurate. A lot of the dialogue was taken straight from tapes made of the meetings. Though, from what I have read, our historical understanding of the crisis keeps changing as new evidence becomes available. One can only speculate how much of what has happened in world politics more recently will be improperly understood, unless such archives are eventually opened.

The tension between the military and civilian portions of government is a particularly interesting aspect of the film. The kind of autonomy granted to military forces – as required for strategic reasons – is profoundly worrisome, in a world where ever more states have ever more nuclear weapons. That’s what makes the crisis such a chilling incident: the disjoint between intentions and certain action, the possibility of error and catastrophe.

Crossing the Bridge

Radcliffe Infirmary Fountain

Tonight, I watched the copy of Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul that my flatmate Kai gave me. Quite aside from its virtues as a documentary, it demonstrates something about tourism. The whole thing is basically shot in areas we never saw: areas you couldn’t hope to access without knowledge of the local language. Those of us most familiar with English are lucky that it has become the standard for business, technology, and science. Unfortunately, that very status can help to push English speakers to the margins of places they visit.

The music that forms a constant backdrop to the film is excellent. Indeed, the musical segments are a lot more engaging, overall, than the various statements made by musicians about Istanbul or Turkish music. My favourite, among the musical offerings, is the rap music made by a man called Ceza. I will need to track down some more of his work. Just be sure not to watch the film using tiny laptop speakers as the audio source. The Etys and the A510 vie for the title of ‘best electronic purchase per dollar.’

PS. There has been a bit of progress on the job front. I actually have an offer of a job in Oxford, starting immediately. I am a bit wary for two reasons: it involves two shifts a week starting at 6:30am, and I suspect that the pace of academic work may get somewhat fevered this term (not that I could ever devote as many hours a day to it as my flatmate Alex does). On the matter of a job after I leave Oxford, there has been some progress as well. All this seems to indicate that even very tangential personal contacts are a more effective route than openly advertised positions and recruitment websites.

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