Spoilers herein.
The two poles of my cinematic world are Greenaway and Rohmer. At the Greenaway end, the images are lush and overloaded. The story is deeply self-reflexive. Everything is saturated with intent. The world created is special, otherworldly.
And then there is Rohmer. The story here is arbitrary, one might as well tour a zoo or go on a shopping trip. The images and actor's impression is wholly unremarkable, invisible by design. The camera is as unpretentious as possible, and with study, one can see some significant effort went into this apparent effortlessness. The whole point with Greenaway is to create a skin around his work with paths into the interior.
The opposite is the case with Rohmer. He places his world squarely in the ordinary one you inhabit. Everything by its unremarkable nature points outward. All the meaning in this film comes not from the film, but from the world we live in with the film providing paths from itself to us.
Rohmer is all about framing -- framing in such a way that the picture is ostensibly framed, but actually everything _but_ the film is framed. So we have films that are parts of cycles, larger sets. Each set refers to something that exists beyond art and life: proverbs or seasons or such. Not love or any of the normal bumpf that is all invented for the sake of ordinary art -- instead the pure, simple ordinary stuff of life. There is no one at all with the courage to do this but Rohmer. Jarmusch does it but only for irony. Tarkovsky did it but only by beginning with dream images.
This is an intelligence that transcends ideas. Anyone who thinks this story has any content -- either sweet or profound -- is missing the point.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.
The two poles of my cinematic world are Greenaway and Rohmer. At the Greenaway end, the images are lush and overloaded. The story is deeply self-reflexive. Everything is saturated with intent. The world created is special, otherworldly.
And then there is Rohmer. The story here is arbitrary, one might as well tour a zoo or go on a shopping trip. The images and actor's impression is wholly unremarkable, invisible by design. The camera is as unpretentious as possible, and with study, one can see some significant effort went into this apparent effortlessness. The whole point with Greenaway is to create a skin around his work with paths into the interior.
The opposite is the case with Rohmer. He places his world squarely in the ordinary one you inhabit. Everything by its unremarkable nature points outward. All the meaning in this film comes not from the film, but from the world we live in with the film providing paths from itself to us.
Rohmer is all about framing -- framing in such a way that the picture is ostensibly framed, but actually everything _but_ the film is framed. So we have films that are parts of cycles, larger sets. Each set refers to something that exists beyond art and life: proverbs or seasons or such. Not love or any of the normal bumpf that is all invented for the sake of ordinary art -- instead the pure, simple ordinary stuff of life. There is no one at all with the courage to do this but Rohmer. Jarmusch does it but only for irony. Tarkovsky did it but only by beginning with dream images.
This is an intelligence that transcends ideas. Anyone who thinks this story has any content -- either sweet or profound -- is missing the point.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.