Dude, it's about the context in which the crazy shit happens, not the shit itself.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Dude, it's about the context in which the crazy shit happens, not the shit itself.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
You: I don't like The Piano Teacher because it has a character doing crazy shit and expects us to find that interesting.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Me: Her encounters ultimately affect others and herself. There's more to it than her being neurotic.
You: Yes, but I'm only talking about the one character. Not any of the others.
So yeah, your argument against the movie makes no sense.
She's not. She's a psychological diagnosis. She is not ever once interesting because, much like ghost horror, she was likely to do any old shit at any time, draining away all interest in the absence of any other plot.Quoting MacGuffin (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Yes. And in this movie, the context is a huge void.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
I found her character and situational interactions with the other characters to be the most interesting part of the film, and of any film I've seen by Haneke.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Firstly, I don't see how she is not a character. I appreciate you attempting to look at the movie on a deeper level, but she is by any technical sense of the word, a character.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Secondly, I don't see how a movie could be dismissed on the basis of a characters' actions. The movie is merely a documentation of what the character is doing and as such, needs to be looked at on a broader level.
I love Robin Wood.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Quoting Robin Wood
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Um, if the main character is the one ulitmately affecting the other characters, and I don't like that main character, then.....? Where is the logical problem with disliking the movie?Quoting MacGuffin (view post)
If you have a character apt to do something completely nuts at regular intervals, and I find the motivation and reasoning to be a total contrivance, I couldn't care less about how the other characters react, because they are reacting to a contrivance.
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
If you are trying to make me dislike the movie even more, well done.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Now you're just denying what's actually on screen, right in front of you. Her relationship with her mother, who throws a giant fit when she comes home three hours late, her inability to explore her sexuality outside of Vienna sex shops, in secrecy as if she were doing something dirty, is clearly dictating her behavior, and how she interacts with Benoît Magimel's character.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
You don't have to like the main character of a movie to like the movie.
Isn't this something we've been over and over and over around here?
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
See post 45461. The logical problem is that you are dismissing the movie on the basis of a characters' actions, when the movie is, as baby doll says, about the context in which those actions occur. It's simply not fair to dismiss a movie as a whole because you don't like a character. I don't care which movie you are talking about—there's always going to be more to it than that.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Hey, I'm happy you got something out of the movie. But it is still nothing but a series of psychologically disturbed actions that contained nothing of interest for me. The fact that it might have been her mother that fucked her up doesn't deepen the movie. It is still just a series of "Hey, look at how fucked up she is!" scenes minus any type of emotional or dramatic energy. I need more from a film than a historical investigation of sexual liberation - to me, that is something that is only interesting in the context of interesting characters and plot, and emotional engagement. Otherwise it's the world's most banal PowerPoint presentation.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
If that's what you think I'm arguing, then you are thinking the wrong thing.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Cache SpoilersQuoting transmogrifier (view post)
[]
The Princess and the Pilot - B-
Playtime (rewatch) - A
The Hobbit - C-
The Comedy - D+
Kings of the Road - C+
The Odd Couple - B
Red Rock West - C-
The Hunger Games - D-
Prometheus - C
Tangled - C+
Except the tone of the movie is a little different from, "Hey, look how fucked up she is"; it's more like, "Look how fucked up society is," and Huppert's character is a lot more sympathetic than Magimel, who's supposedly more normal. (There's an implied parallel between Huppert and her mother, and one of her students.) And I can't think of many movie sequences as emotional or dramatic as the opening sequence where her mother's bitching out at her, or the sequence when she brings Magimel back to her mother's place for some S&M roleplay.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
The film is based around the psychology of its main character. That IS the context. If I find that psychology, and the actions that stem from it, to be boring, inexplicable and randomly assigned, then I'm not going to like the movie, am I? How could I? And that's why I don't like the movie. The character is a poorly written husk of amateur psychology.Quoting MacGuffin (view post)
It's like the aliens in Indy IV. If I find them cheap, tacked-on and totally ill-fitting to the Indy universe, I'm not going to give two shits that they provide the motivation for Indy to do heroic shit at the end, or that they end up killing off one of the main characters. They are still a shitty choice for the movie.
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Except that they're not if you have the slightest empathy for the character, instead of viewing her as a crazy person acting out the symptoms of her illness.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
I'm still not sure what is particularly condescending about that. If he wants to equate the two wars, isn't that his right as an artist? You could argue any criticism of anything in a film is condescending, because criticism by its nature implys superiority. I'm not aware of any element within the film that expressly contrasts your political reading with a "superior", filmmaker-endorsed alternative.Quoting Qrazy (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Yes, kind of. We observe thrillers not because we want to see characters get hurt; usually we want them to survive the terrible ordeal. We can see this as a reaffirmation of our survival instincts, or we can see it as simply the journey of the hero overcoming obstacles, and violence is a pretty standard component of a quest's hurdles. Violence in fiction is typically a narrative drama issue, one that Haneke himself employs in this movie and others, and I really don't see that as being a propagation of a culture of violence in the media. I see it as a sign of heightened reality, where the violence is much more staged and far less grotesquely ugly than violence in real life, which are not drawn out, clever or planned.Quoting Spinal (view post)
Funny Games fails because, instead of just trusting its own story to reveal the difference or similarity between screen violence and real violence (the lingering shot of the bloody television is actually the most effective "point" for me), it constantly draws attention to the fact that it's a film, a sham, a made-up thing that's for all intents and purposes a cross between mere entertainment and punditry. Haneke makes the distinction more apparent, and therefore the connection groggier. Why should I feel bad about the peril of this family when the film reminds me time and again that it's all make-believe, whereas good straight thrillers do more to relate us to the characters and therefore make the violence a true turn-off?
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
Nope. I'm through here.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Am I right to infer from this that it is my job as a viewer to go into a film with already established empathy for a character I have never met before (or, more precisely, a screenplay I have never seen staged before) in order to forgive them (or more precisely, the screenplay) for acting in ways that irritate me?Quoting baby doll (view post)
Because I'm not prepared to do that.
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
No, you should infer that the character isn't sick, it's her situation that's sick, and the film clearly intends for us to empathize with her. It's not saying, "Look how crazy this woman is" (and if it were, it would be a bad film), it's saying, "Here's her situation, and this is why she behaves this way." You make it sound like she's acting out randomly, as if Haneke sat around trying to think of crazy things for Huppert to do just for his own amusement.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World
Actually, Qrazy, I think we need to express what we mean by the word condescending, as we might simply be battling semantics here.
To me, being condescending involves treating others as if they were deficient in some way and thus unable to accurately choose the correct (according to the person being condescending) course of action or state of being. It does not involve simply criticizing an equal for a perceived error of judgement.
Correct?
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
There are plenty of good, straight thrillers, and if that's all Haneke wanted to do, he could easily make a film like Winter's Bone; he certainly doesn't lack for craftsmanship. And despite all the Brechtian hijinks, I did empathize with the family's situation as it develops step-by-step, almost logically, and so on the one hand, I did have the Pavlovian response to it that other you get from a good, straight thriller, and in addition to that, the film forced me to think about how I was responding to the material. For instance, []Quoting number8 (view post)
Just because...
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild
The last book I read was...
The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain
The (New) World