Monday, February 16, 2009

Rewind #3

The Submarines: Honeysuckle Weeks (2008)

Did I say that I like pop music? This is the year that the popilicious groove has been intravenously infused into my psychic self. I've found myself singing along with rainbows and the sounds of love. Maybe it's because we were blessed with a little girl and my dreams of a perfect family has become true. Maybe it's because I can't help but feel love bloom in my heart when I look over at my wife of ten years. Maybe it's because I'm still a romantic after all these years. Whatever the reason, I gravitate toward these sunny songs of light, these tiny grains of sand that reflect the beauty of the world, the crisp way that the beat washes over me. The Submarines embody this spirit. I love to bounce with these precious tunes and dream of my youth. They say that those who stay young at heart live a longer and happier life. I use music like this to help me feel young again, touch the child inside. Whenever I hear the refrain for the chorus from You, Me & The Bourgeoisie, "Every day we wake up we choose love, we choose light...", I realize that I'm searching for that uplifting youthful spirit when I listen to pop music. John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard grew from a couple to a breakup, then wrote about their heartache and dreams that they left behind and it helped them become partners in music. The Submarines have found a part of me that I love and they commune with me so succinctly that I look forward to listening for a very long time. Plus, the song 1940 was my absolute favorite song from last year.



Who's Camus Anyway?: Mitsuo Yanagimachi (2005)

There's a sequence in Who's Camus Anyway? shot in an atrium at the school where in random people begin playing instruments and though they aren't in any cohesive song structure, seemingly unconnected, the entire scene ends up in a creative blend of perfect harmony (I wish I could find it on youtube it's so incredible). It's a wonderful metaphor showing the necessary cooperation needed in order to make a good film. Camus is a movie about that very subject, a student film project loosely based on the famous book "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. As the students try to cope with all of the convolution in their lives as well as within the structure of making a film, things don't go exactly as they planned. Yet, the one area that eventually evolves in an amazing way is the film within the film. It's interesting how Camus wrote about the indifference of human nature and this movie reveals how, in the process of making a movie, the principal people involved actually divorce themselves from the actual content. The director guides and the actors perform and everyone else builds the structure that provide the necessary environment to make a film come alive but in the end none of it is real. Yet, the films that affect us the most are the ones that convey some reality within its subject. By the time it reaches the screen, all of those names of people at the end on the credits have moved on in some way and are completely removed from that final product. They've created a masterpiece but someone has to clean up the mess and break down the set and print the film and do all the necessary things that get it to the screen. In Who's Camus Anyway the students end up making such a good film that there's a part of you that isn't quite sure whether it is real or not. They cross the line and pull you in with such proficiency that you are completely wrapped up in the lives of those who are in the movie as well as those who are making the movie. We've seen these types of films before and they always seem to have the same type of essence to them. Camus is unique in its approach and it's far from indifferent.

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home