Andrei Tarkovsky — ‘Mirror’

‘Mir­ror’ is a beau­ti­ful, impen­e­tra­ble film. Direc­tor Andrei Tarkovsky crafts a nar­ra­tive that takes you between past, present, and future, dream­like, as mem­o­ry often feels. The sto­ry is a messy scrap­book of mem­o­ries, some near­ly past­ed atop one anoth­er, pro­duc­ing a col­lage of frag­ment­ed emo­tions. But to speak only of the sto­ry would over­look Tarkovsky’s accom­plish­ment as a director.

Ryland Walk­er Knight writes for Reverse Shot,

Mir­ror’s edit­ing per­forms an odd alche­my of mem­o­ry that pro­lif­er­ates iden­ti­ties as much as con­verges them. Like in a prism, or kalei­do­scope, mir­rors are every­where in the film (adorn­ing walls or reg­is­ter­ing in win­dows) for­ev­er mul­ti­ply­ing real­i­ties and planes, for­ev­er fur­ther­ing the refrac­tive inward reflec­tion, or meditation.

Tarkovsky focus­es not only on repeat­ed mis­takes in per­son­al life, but also in polit­i­cal life, high­light­ing con­flicts in Spain, Rus­sia, and Chi­na as the film pro­gress­es. There’s some­thing bit­ter­sweet about them, as though we’re trapped in a cycle of mis­takes that we’re doomed to repeat even when those mem­o­ries are still fresh in our minds.

If there’s one short­com­ing about ‘Mir­ror,’ it’s that Kino released it. Kino is often praised for exhum­ing and restor­ing obscure titles, which isn’t an inex­pen­sive thing to do. But they oper­ate as though no oth­er com­pa­ny is doing that work. For a com­plex film like ‘Mir­ror,’ it might help to have some­thing more than just the film itself. I’d be will­ing to over­look that if they paid more atten­tion to their trans­la­tions. There are moments in ‘Mir­ror’ where the view­er has to treat it like silent film while an entire exchange is omit­ted from the tran­script. Tarkovsky’s visu­al style makes up for some of those short­com­ings, but you can’t help but feel that some mean­ing has been lost.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Some Thoughts on Synecdoche, New York

One of the rare plea­sures I had as a video store clerk was being able to enjoy how cus­tomers respond­ed to Char­lie Kauf­man’s work. One such cus­tomer was even eager to check out Don­ald’s stuff after watch­ing Adap­ta­tion! For me, Kauf­man’s scripts were love let­ters to out­siders of all shapes and sizes, for whom the pur­suit of a “nor­mal” life presents a tremen­dous chal­lenge. Yet even when some degree of nor­mal­i­ty is obtained or accep­tance achieved, his pro­tag­o­nists remain just out of step with their peers.

Caden Cotard, the man at the cen­ter of Synec­doche, New York, is no excep­tion. I spent some time read­ing Film­brain’s excel­lent two-part review (part 1, part 2), but felt that Char­lie Kauf­man’s motifs remain the same. In Synec­doche, he con­tin­ues to play with time and space, leav­ing it up to Cotard to rec­on­cile his place with­in them, while strug­gling with infir­mi­ty and inse­cu­ri­ty. Synec­doche, New York finds Kauf­man address­ing the cre­ative process in a way he has­n’t since Char­lie drove him­self to dis­trac­tion in Adap­ta­tion.

It’s hard to say very much about Synec­doche, New York. I was com­plete­ly mes­mer­ized by the sto­ry and the per­for­mances, with­out much more than a pass­ing thought for where the plot might lead. I found it spell­bind­ing. I was com­plete­ly engrossed in the char­ac­ters and what they might do next. Does that make me one of Armond White’s “fash­ion sheep?” Maybe. Do I care? No.

Why? Because part of the joy in see­ing movies made by writ­ers and direc­tors like Kauf­man, Gondry, Ander­son, Reichardt, and oth­ers is that they feel like our movies. Their actors feel like our actors.To me, this cin­e­ma is Gen­er­a­tion X com­ing to grips with a world it has­n’t shaped in any mean­ing­ful way, reflect­ed in Cotard walling him­self off from the war-torn real­i­ty that exists out­side his “the­ater of the real.” There’s an over­whelm­ing sense of inad­e­qua­cy and impo­tence that per­me­ates the movie, and those are two sen­ti­ments that could be applied to Gen­er­a­tion X if you ask me.

This is the sort of movie I’ll come back to again and again. It’s the sort of movie I’d love to see released in a spe­cial edi­tion three-disc set, com­plete with notes and inter­views and doc­u­men­tary footage. There’s no chance that it’ll receive such lav­ish atten­tion when it comes out on DVD, but one can dream.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Joan Didion on Obama

Maybe you weren’t with me when I linked to Adolph Reed Jr.‘s now infa­mous “Oba­ma No” piece from the pro­gres­sive, but you might find Joan Did­ion’s sober thoughts on the Oba­ma pres­i­den­cy more palat­able. From her essay in the New York Review of Books:

No one ever sug­gest­ed that the can­di­date him­self was drink­ing the Kool-Aid—if there had been any doubt about this, his ini­tial appoint­ments laid them to rest. In fact it seemed increas­ing­ly clear not only that he would wel­come some healthy real­ism but that its absence had become a source of wor­ry. “The exu­ber­ance of Tues­day night’s vic­to­ries,” TheNew York Times report­ed on Novem­ber 6, “was also tem­pered by unease over the pub­lic’s high expec­ta­tions for a par­ty in con­trol of both Con­gress and the White House amid eco­nom­ic tur­moil, two wars over­seas and a yawn­ing bud­get gap.” A head­line in the same day’s Times : “With Vic­to­ry in Hand, Oba­ma Aides Say Task Now Is to Tem­per High Expectations.”

What’s hap­pen­ing now is pret­ty much what hap­pened with Bill Clin­ton. Peo­ple thought the rev­o­lu­tion was at hand and then wel­fare was more or less abol­ished. We’re din­ing on thin polit­i­cal gru­el these days, but there are those who call it a feast. It’s time for what remains of the Amer­i­can left to regain its sens­es and active­ly pur­sue a pro­gres­sive agen­da in the face of aus­ter­i­ty. It’s our only hope.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Criterion Delays Blu-ray Collection, Again

Engad­get dropped this lit­tle tid­bit last week about Cri­te­ri­on delay­ing their Blu-ray launch yet again. Do I sus­pect any­thing nefar­i­ous? Not real­ly, but I wish Cri­te­ri­on would recon­sid­er dump­ing mon­ey into a for­mat that will nev­er be adopt­ed in any mean­ing­ful way. I’m hope­ful that their flashy new web­site (pun intend­ed) is an indi­ca­tion that they may be rethink­ing Blu-ray and con­sid­er­ing some sort of HD dig­i­tal deliv­ery system.

With the HD Stream­ing Net­flix on New Xbox Expe­ri­ence blow­ing my mind, I’d hope that they’d find a way to get their con­tent uploaded there to spare the expense of author­ing Blu-ray discs. I have my fin­gers crossed.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Smashing Pumpkins Anniversary Tour

I laughed when I read this at Pitch­fork. They threw a sim­i­lar tantrum when I saw them in July 1996, play­ing 20 plus min­utes of feed­back, alleged­ly because they’d been asked to play longer to avoid traf­fic snarls with the crowd leav­ing a Phillies game. Some things nev­er change, huh?

These 90’s reunions would be much more appeal­ing if the bands could seri­ous­ly get their acts togeth­er. I’ve skipped Stone Tem­ple Pilots and Smash­ing Pump­kins sim­ply because I expect­ed both to be dis­as­trous, not to men­tion that it feels too soon for these reunions. (I’m look­ing hard at you too, Pavement.)

Posted on by J T. Ramsay