Criterion Channel: Mad Women and Sad Men

I'm in a long sleeve shirt which means I'm too hot to think of an introduction to this post. Here's some cinema about women and men being woeful and miserable, like I am in this hot shirt.

The Life of Oharu

A great, depressing movie from the 50s about the shame based society of feudal japan, which must have seemed barbaric when the film was made, but now doesn't seem all that different from the shame based society of our current digital social media hellworld. 

Japanese movies from this era all look amazing. With great cinematography and directing. This one has some funny moments too, despite being a very bleak story about the lot of anyone not named Lord something or other.

It's about this chick who makes one decision percieved as shameful by her idiotic culture, which sets her down a path of increasing hardship from which there is no escape. It feels disturbingly timeless. 

She marries a guy from a lower class which gets him beheaded and her banished. Then she lucks out back into a castle as a babymaker for some Lord, only to again be discarded once she poops the baby out.

She tries marrying again, working in a pleasure house, working the corner, and finally ends up as a penniless beggar. Nothing works out for her.

She just keeps plummeting further down. No matter what she does or where she goes, she encounters jealous cunts, crushing failures, and horrible setbacks. Truly, it be's that way sometimes.

Drylongso

This is a sort of day-in-the-life hood movie, like Friday, or Do The Right Thing, but a bit more artsy and independent feeling.

It's about this chick struggling in her photography class cause she works a night shift and can't afford the camera that's required. She goes around the neighborhood taking Polaroids of black dudes because in her words "black men are an endangered species.” 

Point is she's actually doing something with some artistic intent behind it, but she cant get to class on time and the students with fancy cameras get to pass easy by taking pretentious pictures of bullshit. 

Meanwhile there's a serial killer going around stabbing her friends. Another character gets beat up by her man, and has to dress like a man herself to avoid getting harassed and catcalled. Basically, life in the hood sucks dick.

Like I said, it's a slice-of-life and these plot threads aren't really meant to go anywhere. Thematically, the film itself is like a snapshot of a time and place, the people and their struggles. A vision of hardship better captured by an affordable Polaroid than some expensive photography camera.

It all ends really abruptly. They just have a cookout and the credits role with nothing really being resolved. Even the serial killer is never mentioned again. The world doesn't seem to care, and life just goes on. Very artsy, and pretty decent.

Hearts of Darkness

A documentary about the hellish production of Apocalypse Now, which nearly killed its star, and which the director was convinced would be a horrific failure. It ended being a masterpiece so i guess there's some kind of lesson in there.

It's highly interesting, and the actual movie is also on here, so you can watch that, and then this. You'll want to because the movie kicks ass like you wouldn't believe. It's a classic for a reason.

You know a movie's good when even the Making Of documentary is itself a Criterion flick. You almost have to watch both to get the full experience. This film about the film completes the film.

My favorite part of the documentary is the stuff about Brando showing up as a big fat bloated fuck and refusing to memorize the script. When you're Marlon Brando you can do that and everyone else has to work around it, which i find hilarious and aspirational.

A Serious Man

A miserable, morose Coen Brothers movie about a Jewish man who's life falls apart. It's sort of a parable I guess, it describes itself as a modern retelling of the Book of Job. Oh yeah, sounds like a laugh riot.

In other words this is not one of the Coens' funny or pleasant films. It's about as enjoyable as getting kicked in the ass, but takes far longer.

It's hard to remember the details because it was so lifeless and boring that i struggled to pay attention. When it was over i felt like my time would have been better spent forcing out a hard shit. 

If there's a point to this film, my non-Jewish brain can't decipher it and doesn't care.