SUBTITLES OFF: Ich - Dann eine Weile nichts (1979)

What a challenge this was! Not only did I struggle to understand what was going on due to the lack of an English dub or subtitles, which is the point of these posts, but the quality of my DVD copy is just terrible, which only served to exacerbate my poor eyesight. There are also, to untrained ears, apparently about a dozen things going on in the plot at once.

I shall attempt to interpret three of them, using only the blurry language of cinema as a tool.

My best guess is that Ich - Dann eine Weile nichts is about a short-tempered, motorbike-riding, adolescent tomboy struggling with: a) life at school, both with the other pupils and with her classwork; b) life at home with her divorced parents, fearing that neither faction wants her in their lives anymore; and c) with boys not showing her any interest, mostly due to her apparent lack of femininity. She decides to deal with the first problem by getting into arguments and being sent away as punishment to a farm for work detail. The second she deals with by stalking both parents and throwing rocks at the window of one of them. The third she deals with by trying to ditch her usual scruffy shirt and jeans for pretty dresses and tops

Fail, fail, fail.

She ends up just going back to dressing like herself, being more honest and understanding with her parents, and realising that maybe, just maybe, all those annoying boys she hates that keep following her around are actually following her around for a reason. Which makes sense, as I was just as clueless about such things when I was a teen. One boy in particular she bonds with over a similarly-disturbed home life and ends up snogging in a bush.

All pretty standard coming-of-age stuff, right? Right. Well, here’s where it gets weird. All of these plot elements are sprinkled with creepy moments where the girl is either experiencing flashbacks, fantasies, or dark psychic premonitions of the future, moments which are accompanied by truly-eerie horror music and visuals. It comes across like copies of Juno and The Shining got melded together somehow, and this is the result.

I guess an easier comparison would be to Carrie, but I’m sticking with my Juno-Shining mash-up. I mean, there are even shots that preempt Stanley Kubrick’s choices on The Shining! Well, there are elements of Brian De Palma’s own The Fury in there too, but let’s not muddy the waters any further.

Okay, just to reiterate, everything I’ve described above is based on my own ignorant interpretation of the events, so let’s go online and get some facts…

…one second…,

…ah okay, I was pretty much on the money! The only thing I didn’t pick up on is that the girl’s mum has left her husband for the family of the boy that the girl ends up connecting and becoming intimate with, which did not come across at all. This explains why the two kids end up bonding and why she feels excluded from all aspects of her daily life, not just because of the new hormones racing through her lanky body.

It still doesn’t explain the creepy visuals and music though. Or the farm stuff. Or where she’s buggering-off to on a train at the very end. But hey-ho

While released at the very end of the 1970s, it feels smack-bang in the middle of the decade that taste and style forgot, with everything just looking hideous and the fashion awkwardly leaving nothing to the imagination. Not that one would use their imagination, of course.

Overall, this is clearly a TV-movie that everyone involved put a lot of effort into, with the filmmaking in particular showing signs of great artistry. I’ll have to look into more works by the same director. Even our leading lady, Cornelia Voss, is fabulous at juggling so many complex emotions, which makes it even more tragic that this is one of only two projects she worked on. Her character “breaks the fourth wall” and talks to the screen three times in the film, which only serves to make the goings on even more unpredictable. Usually, such a technique would be used more consistently, but not here.

Oh and the only translation of the title I can find is: “Me - Then Nothing for a While”, which makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. If there are any fluent German speakers out there reading this, I’d love to be furnished with a more accurate version.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Framed to Perfection XLI

BOUND (1996)

Director: The Wachowski Sisters

Cinematographer: Bill Pope

Hot lesbians and Joe Pantoliana. That is all.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

The Littlest Drama Queen!

Aww, I guess we’ve all been there.

I don’t know who he is, but he’s fabulous and an artist and an anarchist who I believe will eventually create great things and change the world.

Based on some of his earlier videos, I reckon he may very well be mentally ill like myself, but he’s no less of a genius for it.

Please support him and his provocative output.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Framed to Perfection XL

TOMBOY (2011)

Director: Céline Sciamma

Cinematographer: Crystel Fournier

A cute French melodrama about a little girl unsure about her gender, so uses the opportunity of moving into a new area to reinvent herself as a boy. Whether she convinces anyone or not is open to interpretation, but she does capture the heart of a local girl in the process.

While generally very sensitive with its subject, the film loses me towards the end when Laure/Mickael’s initially-sweet mother goes batshit-crazy after finding out what her daughter has been up to. The sequence where mother drags child door-to-door to apologise for just being herself, humiliating her in the process, just doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.

No human would react this way, and the parents she encounters during her psychotic outburst would, in reality, tell her to be more understanding to her daughter and let it go.

Classic post-2000 illogical writing.

The film also has the girl actually answering the question about whether she’s a boy or girl at the end, rather than just having her lost in thought and cutting to black. It would’ve gotten a standing ovation and an extra star rating from critics if it’d done this, but hey-ho.

The tone of the film is generally very naturalistic and documentary-style, which I do enjoy, but it does have time for plenty of beauty shots, such as the one above.

A soon-to-be classic in the LGBT genre, with the fabulous Zoé Héran’s perpetually-sullen tomboy being a striking and memorable image.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Framed to Perfection XXXIX

PIXOTE (1980)

Director: Hector Babenco

Cinematographer: Rodolfo Sánchez

Worryingly, it feels indicative of my collapsing mental health that the world depicted in this film now feels somewhat positive.

Being a paranoid shut-in becoming more and more sceptical of the government and people around him, I bizarrely yearn for a breakdown of public services and order.

I’ll end up naked and starving in a ditch with cuts and bruises on my body, but at least I won’t be ravaged by letters and phone calls and text messages and emails about bureaucratic nonsense each day.

Crazy, huh?

Pixote is notable, not just for its graphic depictions of poverty, but for life-imitating-art. It’s diminutive star eventually turned to a life of crime and was allegedly murdered in the street by corrupt police, like a rabid dog.

The image of a child only able to smile and laugh whilst getting high is one of many that will surely touch the soul. This moment in particular echoes my own existence these days, as I consume box after box of cheap cider and wine. You know, just to feel something and forget everything.

Pixote is a vision of the free but grimy side of life, with the film’s patina matching its theme. Or perhaps it’s just my deteriorating eyesight at play. I’m too disabled to be free anymore, with my dependancy on handouts leaving me with a sense of impending dread 24/7. When will I finally get that letter taking away my home and livelihood?! They threaten it enough. I just want to be left alone, but that’s far too much to ask in our “caring” society that wants to fix everything, whether we like it or not.

The more I push my door closed, the more they try to push it back open.

According to some, the AI apocalypse is on the way, so I guess I’ll see you all in the wasteland. Maybe then I’ll be able to make some friends and have a sober laugh and maybe even find love. The internet certainly isn’t good for that anymore.

Yikes, I really need to speak to my doctor, don’t I?!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Coincidence or Conspiracy?!

The above video features an analysis of the character “James Wilson” from I Accuse My Parents, which is a film about a man who goes off the rails and blames everyone but himself and his own stupidity. The film includes denial of alcoholism, worldly naivety, and misplaced trust in human nature.

Cough.

I can’t imagine why this MST3K host segment should resonate so awkwardly with me, James Wilson, as much as it does.

Answers on a postcard.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Saru no gundan (1974)

I’m not sure whether to make no apologies for much of my viewing of late being influenced by MST3K, or flood you with them, but here we are regardless. This Japanese miniseries, the title of which I cannot find a convincing translation for, I discovered through its much, much, much shorter American film version, titled: “Time of the Apes”.

Perhaps one of my loyal readers can offer an English name that’s more accurate.

The Time of the Apes episode of MST3K is one of their funniest, but, like my experience with the Gamera and Hercules movies, I found myself enjoying what I saw on a deeper level. I wanted more! The idea of there being a UK (or anywhere in the west) hardcopy release of the original series or latter film is tragically laughable, so I have turned to YouTube for satisfaction. Thankfully, it has paid off, albeit with a seemingly unnaturally dimly-lit version. I have to assume this series has not been remastered. Still, it looks better than the MST3K print, in terms of overall clarity. I’m probably just struggling more due to my nyctalopia.

Oh golly, I’ve forgotten to even mention what the damn thing is all about! Well, it’s a Planet of the Apes rip-off, only with a woman and a boy and a girl taking the place of Chuck Heston. Being only on the fourth episode of thirteen, I’m not yet fully acquainted with the differences between it and the 1 hr 37 min Sandy Frank-distributed film version, but I’m slowly getting the idea. Basically, an entire fictional-day’s worth of action will happen, in the series, that is missing in between two shots in the film. I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of back-and-forth political stuff by the different ape factions, but everything is so fast-paced that I’m sure I won’t be bored.

The hows and whys of our three human protagonists getting to the future didn’t make much sense in Time of the Apes, so who knows how it’s fed to the audience in Saru no gundan. Perhaps it’s explained better, or different altogether. I’m hoping for the latter, as our protagonists simply lying down neatly on laboratory slabs and somehow having a cryogenic device activating itself during a destructive earthquake simply isn’t good enough.

For me, the thrill of the show is its machine gun editing and evocative “Spaghetti western” score. The music by itself must be of relative cult status, as there is a CD of it available on a certain well-known online department store. How legit that copy is, however, I do not know.

TV series or films like Saru no gundan are always allegories for real-world events, with actors prancing around in monkey masks just there to make the soap box ranting more fun and digestible. It’s fine. I doubt there’s anyone out there who truly loathes Planet of the Apes, in any of its many incarnations, for the same reason.

I’m a big fan of the plucky character of Jiro AKA Johnny, although some modern viewers may very well be embarrassed/offended/horrified by his dated 1970s hotpants. It was a different time. Anyway, he’s just adorable and does his best to heroically protect his two gal-pals, even though they’re really more capable than he realises.

Awww.

So, yeah, I’m enjoying the full series so far, even though I’m not paying attention to the hard-stamped English subtitles. As mentioned in previous posts, I find hearing humans speaking without fully being able to understand what they’re saying very therapeutic, with this being no exception. Even when there’s frenetic action happening onscreen. It must be to do with me feeling like I’m back in the womb or a clueless baby again.

Answers on a postcard!

Give the show a go and let me know if there are any better copies available that play in the UK. Our pickings are slim over here and getting slimmer by the day, thanks to covert censorship masquerading as protecting society.

But, for now…

Saru no gundan can be found here.

MST3K’s Time of the Apes can be found here.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!