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Chronos (1985)
Bodes well for movies that aren't it.
This is my first time watching a movie like this. Some of the shots are quite pretty, mesmerizing, whatever word you want to use; but it's obvious to me why this is the most obscure in its tiny genre of "look at the world" movies. Images like those of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, the Pyramids of Egypt, etc., aren't just bland and familiar, they're plain boring, when they're trying so hard to feel awestriking. Shots like the people coming down the escalator or the slow-mo time lapses (oxymoron?) from inside buildings are worse then boring; they're bad, slowing the flow of the movie to a sticky crawl, and demanding you contemplate THEMES and BIG IDEAS and THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN CONDITION ITSELF... instead of showing you beautiful images and having their brilliance, thematic or otherwise hit you naturally. Structurally, it's weak as well. The movie repeatedly juxtaposes approx. ten minutes of plodding, slower images of nature, monuments, sculptures, etc., with three to four-minute long epileptic fits of humanity and the hustle-bustle of life, meant to exhilarate (whereas they really only fail to bore) only to end in something that sounds like an explosion and lapse back into neutral position. The movie doesn't really end, either, in the sense that it "concludes;" it finishes, it dones, it overs. Ultimately I know that this is a style of film I could enjoy if done very well. In that way, I feel much more excited at the prospect of watching Koyaanisqatsi or Samsara than I do at rewatching this movie.
Next Floor (2008)
Cute
"Next Floor" is a tidy little short I enjoyed. The story is simple and exists mostly to relay the theme. There isn't much to it, but it works for the film. It's peppered with enough existentialism to feel unique and abstract, but not so much as to become distracted by its premise. The real allure here is in the vile-looking food. This shines as an example of visual storytelling. It does more or less serve as one big attempt to demonstrate the strength of some set designer's work, and that's O.K. Almost all of the short centers around people gorging on food and collapsing through floors. I'm always impressed by a film which can tell its entire story with a few words. Is it repetitive? Yes. Are its insights on gluttony, greed, classism and a societal longing for distraction preachy and trite? Of course. What excuses the short, however, is that it's just that: a short. By the time gussied-up people creaking floorboards gets old, and by the time an audience member connects the dots and feels patronized, it's already over. It's a taut movie that isn't a waste of eleven minutes. You can find it on the Internet and understand it without knowing a word of French.