Information

Information spreads like wildfire across media platforms, simply because there are so many of them in these days. The information on the Japanese earthquake/tsunami has been a testament to that.
In fact, the prominence of Facebook has been key in this case, especially for people who have endured the disaster, as it can be used to inform family members that they are alive and well. This is something that was not available to the same extent in 2004, the year in which the Indian Ocean tsunami occurred.

Run Lola Run

Having been shown the opening segment of Run Lola Run in a class during year 1, I was marginally intrigued by the potential course the film could take. So I was quite pleased to see it being screened during a Thursday morning lecture this term.
Personally, I found that the tension and suspense was lifted after the first “run”. We see that the failure results in nothing more than another attempt by Lola to save her wimpy boyfriend Manni. It transpires that for some bizarre reason, Lola can press a mental “reset” button, and she goes back to her last checkpoint. This is all very reminiscent of a video game, and Roger Ebert actually got in there before me in noting the Lara Croft nature of the heroine. Unlike video games however, you have no control over the film. In video games, you could be stuck on the same level for infinite if you haven’t got the know-how or skill to advance through the game. In Run Lola Run however, the film progresses freely and you know that Lola will eventually solve the problem.
Another aspect of the film that is redolent of video games (albeit a small group of them), is the theme of small decisions and interactions shaping future events. I liken it to Heavy Rain, an interactive multi-format game in which many decisions effect the outcome of the storyline (such as the gruelling question of whether to cut off the main character’s fingers). This is depicted in Run Lola Run through the varying fate of a woman Lola continuously runs into, from remaining poor and kidnapping a child in one episode to winning the lottery in another.
The film explores many themes, and asks many questions, but it didn’t really pique my interest enough to answer them.

Marie Antoinette

Well, Marie Antoinette sure did cause a lot of Frenchies to get their tits stuck in the grinder at Cannes Film Festival, greeting it with boos and groans and inevitably throwing mouldy baguettes at the screen.
Ignoring the bare presumption from an America crew to film a movie about the French Revolution (Kirsten Dust admitted some Americans would be upset if a French crew came to American to shoot a film about Thomas Jefferson), the main focus here is the pure grandiloquence and frivolity, the so-called historical inaccuracy and the bizarre mingling of styles.
I didn’t enjoy this movie as much as other Sofia Copolla’s other hits (especially the wonderful Lost In Translation), but her endeavour here is something to be embraced rather than vilified.
Britain especially has had the flesh-eating cancer of bog-standard Period Dramas lurking in its bowels for decades. Full of characters with names like Tamara Pennyworth and Jeremiah Dewbottom, who eat too many lemon blueberry scones and who take an age to say the simplest thing. Though the story of Marie Antoinette possesses a lot more inherent richness, I still very much admire Copolla’s ability to glamorise it even further.
Most prominent in Copolla’s mindset would be the excessively pampered and ostentatious lifestyle of Marie Antoinette – and that was very colourfully blown out of proportion in the film in a delightful way. Nothing has to be taken literally – Copolla admitted that much of the film was based on clichés and myths – but I think of this as the basis of its charm. Leave the facts and figures to history books and documentaries, because this is a way of telling the story in a glamorous (albeit slightly playful) manner, which is much more entertaining.
Another question thrust in the direction of Coppola has been the topic of her choice of music, but this again I advocate. In the 21st century we have a wealth of musical textures, all of which create various atmospheres. I certainly don’t believe that this film should be bound by the one-dimensional music that was on offer during the film’s period setting, even if Mozart and Haydn did produce some great music. One of my favourite songs in the film is Tommib Help Bus by Squarepusher, a beautiful keyboard arrangement that just oozes atmosphere, and is such an appropriate song for this scene in which it plays (a peaceful montage of the corners of Marie Antoinette’s room). Hong Kong Garden by Siouxsie and The Banshees is also a great choice of music to accompany one of the party scenes.
The film may well present a mish-mash of accents, it may feature that debunked infamous line (“Let them eat cake”), and it may cut out (no pun intended) the gruelling trial and eventual beheading of the Queen. But I believe you can take what you want from stories, and Sofia Coppola has portrayed the story of Marie Antoinette in an enjoyable, accessible style. We’ve endless access to dull, bloaty period dramas – but in Marie Antoinette we have a classical tale with a much needed touch of glitz.

Vagabond

“Travel, leave everything, copy the birds. The home is one of civilisations sadnesses. Ina few years humanity will go back to its nomadic state.”
-Gustave Flaubert

Having regrettably been absent during the screening of Agnes Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse, I duly checked out another recommended film by said director, known as Sans toit ni loi, or simply Vagabond.
The film didn’t particularly strike a chord with me, but what I admire about it is its boldness. The storyline isn’t so much of a tangled web that brings you to the edge of your seat – in fact the plot is fairly minimalist – but it paints a raw, homespun portrait of peoples’ lives through the eyes of an intriguing character. In this sense, Vagabond shares certain touchstones with films I’d consider amongst my favourites, such as Lost In Translation, Genova and various films by Harmony Korine.
Varda doesn’t particularly romanticise the concept of homelessness or travelling from place to place, in my opinion. The grizzly nature of the lifestyle is depicted from the word go, where we see that the heroine Mona is dead, and the events leading up to her demise are shown following the discovery of her body.
Throughout the course of the movie, we see her becoming more raggedy and frail, and by the time of her death, she has completely given up. This is not a happy-go-lucky Bohemian Gypsy lifestyle, full of tango and belly dancing, jewellery making and painting. The girl doesn’t have joie de vivre, she honed this way of life because she was disenchanted with her office job, and resigned herself to roaming rural France by herself. This is a tragic tale, because her way of life was born out of disillusion rather than brightness, and it leads to her untimely demise.
Vagabond did, however, portray a strong sense of community. The rural area of France she roams is very close knit and the people she encounters are all very accommodating. This is perhaps the aspect of the film that most idealises Mona’s lifestyle, as she runs into a goat farmer couple who allow her to stay during the night, a tree researcher who shows Mona her work, and others. This is probably the most heartwarming part of the film, as though her lifestyle may be questioned, it is also admired and even described as noble. Overall though, this film is certainly not an evangelist of a carefree, nomadic life.

Marx, use value, and the Colosseum

Reading through the likes of Karl Marx’s ‘The Fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof’ sheds a few glimmers of light on the trappings of use value. Here he presents us with the idea of a metaphysical conflict, a battle, between our grasp of the concept of ‘use value’. Is the value of a commodity marked by the labour, or even travails, expended in its production? Or is it simply marked by the use as perceived by the recipient?


If we look at the properties of certain objects or commodities “from the point that those properties are the product of human labour”, then a glittering example of toil and graft from a significant body of men producing something worth its weight in gold would be the construction of Rome’s Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum). Its construction commenced in 72AD and finished in 80AD, spanning 8 years in human labour and requiring thousands of skilled labourers and slaves to produce such a structure.
Though always an aesthetically pleasing amphitheatre (especially before devastating earthquakes and stone robbers left it partially ruined) it was neither originally nor primarily there for the public to bask in its splendorous structure or to admire the human labour exerted its construction. Never more so than when it housed mock sea battles, animal hunts and re-enactments of famous battles did it act as a true commodity, a source of entertainment, an object of desire; its value marked by recipients concept of its value towards their social lives.
In the present day, when the Colosseum no longer houses spectacles but is simply a spectacle itself, it draws in around 3.9 million tourists each year. Our concept of its value is now transferred to the rich fruits of labour involved, the iconoclastic nature of the architecture involved. It is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome, and whilst the people involved in its construction at the time were merely put upon slaves, they are now greatly admired and their architectural endeavour induces awe.
The value of commodities is perceived differently by everybody, but each perception is cut from the same cloth and is undoubtedly connected.

Coffee and Cigarettes

In laymen’s terms, film as a medium is the manifestation of theories; and therefore is a practice. Theory being a body of ideas or principles, and practice being any active usage of a theory.
Now that I’ve cut right through the baloney, I’m going to natter about the theories and subtext behind Jim Jarmush’s Coffee and Cigarettes. Alas, I must shun Jan Svanmejer’s Food, for it piqued my gag reflex more so than it did my interest.
I watched Coffee and Cigarettes no longer than one week prior to the screening of several clips from the film on Thursday 13th January. I really enjoyed observing the conversations and interactions on show, because due to the mise-en-scène being quite minimalist, the social relations were the most significant aspect of the movie. The communication, both verbal and physical, provided wit, charm and intrigue.
There were, however, two key props running throughout the course of the movie. Can you guess what they were?
Correctamundo, they were coffee and cigarettes. Two commodities which many of the characters desire and even need, and which shape the interactions greatly. The opening vignette, featuring Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni, is perhaps one of the most notable examples. Their encounter appears to be somewhat serendipitous and fairly unlikely, and it is indeed coffee and cigarettes that shape the very fabric of their meeting. Benigni is portrayed as a caffeine junky, having ordered several espressos and by shaking like a vibrating bed. Steven Wright spouts the to-be-recycled line about drinking coffee before bedtime. This is then thrown into an addictive conversational mixture that also includes a barmy idea regarding coffee popsicles and the discussion of smoking habits. In a relatively short scene, we see how coffee and cigarettes provide a true nucleus to an encounter that in many other contexts could be tepid at best.
Even when coffee is partly substituted for herbal tea, like in the Delirium story, the shorts are constant and inextricably linked. In the mentioned vignette, the commodities form the conversations, such as the discussion of the benefits of herbal tea and alternative medicine. As with many of the other shorts, there are quirks and amusements on show, most notably the unexplained oddity of Bill Murray hiding out as a waiter.
Overall, I’d say this is a fantastic series of films that effortlessly bounce off each other. By the end, you crave even more (well, after a crafty fag and cup of coffee) as you truly appreciate the subtle eccentricities of regular, stripped down conversations. Moreover, it alerts you to the unsavoury habits and addictions you may not even realise you have.