It does appear that Feb. 28th will be our last wintry day, though we have had a few severe days lately. But the cold spells have become shorter and less intense, and the thaw days warmer and more frequent. Starting Tuesday we should be in the clear, with room for occasional setbacks.
I have only been reporting lately on movies with some special interest, ignoring several that might have been worth seeing but not talking about. We are amidst the end of month film festival, my choices this month. I have chosen two Czech New Wave films, and two by Guillermo del Toro, a short and a feature, both with Criterion produced extras.
Before that we watched two of Deb's choices, showing on the Roku channel. The first was Farinelli, a 1994 film about the famous 18th C castrato and his composer brother. While much of the film is a delicious soap opera with outlandish period costumes, the best parts show action inside the opera halls, with singing. The great Handel is in the plot, which gets stirred nicely from time to time. The interior of period opera houses is shown in jaw dropping splendour, and the performances are first rate. Costumes are out of this world, giving a pretty strong hint of what great 18th C opera was all about--the spectacle. Of course Farinelli's singing changed a lot of that, as people came out to hear him sing (along with the costumes and outlandish stage sets). Definitely worth a look for lovers of Baroque opera.
Deb's next choice was also showing on Roku. Called A Ghost Story (2017), it stars Rooney Mara again. This was almost a really good movie, but sadly it lost its way in the latter half. A young couple buy a house in the suburbs. However, their life barely gets started before the man is killed in a car accident. His ghost survives the ordeal, and he returns to the house. The woman lives alone for a time before selling the house, finding a new lover, and moving on with her life. But the ghost remains. The ghost is one of the more interesting manifestations i have seen. He wears a full length white sheet with two holes cut out for eyes. The funny thing is, it works! He is mostly passive, just standing around watching things happen. A single Hispanic woman and her two small children move into the house. However, he violently haunts them in a fit of rage, and they soon move out. Next come a party crowd. Finally, the house is demolished and the ghost is left standing in the rubble.
The camera moves very little some of the time, remaining so still that viewers become anxious and restless. However, this mostly works. Sometimes there is music and sometimes no sounds are heard. Where the picture loses its way is when the ghost tries to commit suicide, by jumping off the roof of a tall building. From that point on the film becomes not only obscure, but loses track of where it was heading. During the party scene in the house a man talks at a table about why all human endeavour that attempts to immortalize is ultimately pointless, whether it's publishing a book, having children, or writing a great symphony. So much time is given over to this speech, to which the ghost listens, that one assumes that it will have something to do with the remaining section of film. So the movie is ultimately very stylish and moody, but it lets us down with its rather pointless ending, and even more pointless trip to the past.
It's quite a gear shift to suddenly be watching The Joke, a Czech film from 1967. In a bid to get even with one of his former university classmates who betrayed him 20 or so years ago, getting him kicked out of school and forced into the army, a man seduces his wife in the hopes of destroying him and his marriage. Alas, the best laid plans never seem to go straight, at least in movies. The story is told partly in flashback, as we learn what the man had to go through because of a letter he wrote to his girlfriend one summer. She turned in the letter to the Communist Party, and the man's life and dreams were ruined from then on. Though a very embittered man (justifiably so), by the end some of his anger has been released, and he seems about to make the most of his remaining years. It's fascinating watching the historical scenes take place, as mindless optimism became the guiding rule for a country that thought it was marching into the future. We get to see the past and the future (present), and neither looks particularly appealing. If you wish to know what it really looks like to lose one's freedom, there is no better film to tell it like it is.
It's been a while since I featured some art from the DIA, so let's get right back to it. There are two magnificent paintings by Frederic Church in Detroit. This is the other one (the first is Cotopaxi). Syria By The Sea inspires awe when viewers stand before it. The painting is the size of a picture window, but it really feels as if the viewer is on location, standing above the sea and gazing on the ancient ruins. The sun can be felt, too, right through one's head. Despite it's realism, it is a very poetic picture, and the mix of poetry and a fanciful view (it's a montage of various sites, not one that was painted as is) is very convincing. Foreground, middle ground, and background all have something significant to say,and I honestly cannot say which part of the painting I like most. I hope someday soon to be able to stand in front of this, and other great masterpieces, again in Detroit.
I'll be back in a few days with the February reading summary. It's been a productive month for reading.
Mapman Mike
