I’m continuing my 80s arthouse cinema festival with this movie, which I saw at the Cinematheque back in the 80s, but remember exactly nothing about.

Is this the basis of a meme?

Ah, yes, twelve drawings… Which reminds me of The Falls, which I also saw at the Cinematheque. Which is a 92-part series of interviews with people who experienced the Violent Unexplained Event. It was really cool — more than half of the already thin audience disappeared during the viewing.

I mean, it’s more than three hours long, and while it does have a kind of cumulative effect, it’s a lot.

So this is scaling it down a bit.

This is a fascinating movie, but I’m not sure whether the fascination comes from what’s actually happening or because of the cod-Shakespearean dialogue which makes things hover on the edges of comprehensibility.

And, of course, Michael Nyman’s cod-Philip Glass soundtrack doesn’t hurt.

This restored blu ray edition is a bit weird? The white bits are really #fff — they seem digital and blown out. It might have been that way on the original film, but that would have been pretty odd.

And see? There’s like VHS-like artefacts on this, and of course this hasn’t been near a video, so that’s just weird.

It’s like they’ve over-sharpened the film when transferring to digital?

Ah:

In 2003 the BFI restored the film digitally and this restoration was released on DVD.

It was digitised in 2003? That was the worst possible time, because the tech around that time was just horrible.

Ah yeah. It’s extremely 80s, what with the sort of meta mystery embedded in the movie — and it’s also very unpleasant, what with all the sexual abuse the protagonist (well, perhaps not protagonist, but the main character) perpetrates with a presumed snicker from the audience.

So the Shocking Upper Class Ending falls flat, because I really wanted that guy to die, anyway. And their burning the artwork was supposed to be extra super shocking, but the artwork isn’t very good, so…

I’ve been wondering why there’s no Greenaway movies on the Best Of List, and now I kinda understand: This movie is brilliantly made, but it’s bullshit.

The Draughtman’s Contract. Peter Greenaway. 1982. ⚃

Oooh. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen that logo…

I got this bluray because I rewatched Smoke/Blue In The Face recently, and that reminded me that I’ve never really gotten into Wayne Wang’s movies — he was another one of those 80s hot shit indie directors that’s basically been forgotten now.

Weird. I mean, the aspect ratio. It’s aaaalmost 16:9, but no movies are shot in 16:9. And indeed imdb says 1.85:1, but it’s been cut down slightly for this bluray.

And the subtitles are weird! There are three of them! One translates from Cantonese to English, but whenever they’re talking in English, there’s nothing. The third subtitles the English, but when there’s Cantonese, it just says [speaking in Cantonese]. And I have no idea what the second does, but it’s not useful, either.

Because when they’re speaking in English, it needs subtitles, and when they’re speaking in Cantonese, it really needs subtitles.

Why do everybody in this movie have a perm?

I’ve never been upstairs in an airplane… do those even exist anymore? They do! Hm, I wanna do that once in my life… The -8 is allegedly the newest iteration (but it’s more than a decade old).

Yeah… Arthouse. There really was a separate genre of films in the 80s, wasn’t there? Movies that were shown in the local cinematheques all over the world: Think Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Peter Greenaway… Which was a separate “market” from the experimental movie market: Indie movies that are pretty conventional, really, but appeal to a slightly different market than the mainstream one.

I used to go to the cinematheque here all the time in the late 80s/early 90s, but I haven’t been in decades. I wonder what they’re showing now?

Oh! Lots of movies for children… and Goodfellas? OK. Cube!? That’s a horror movie… There’s a Woody Allen movie, which I’d guess would be there. And Cleo from 5 to 7, which is a stone cold classic. Heh, Ghost Dog — Jim Jarmusch, and Do The Right Thing — the Spike Lee movie people like.

Yeah, no. It’s old movies — 40 years older or more — and commercial movies. Doesn’t seem like they are showing new, interesting movies at all, which is a huge change from what it was like in the 80s. I guess those movies go on the festival circuit now, before being bought by Criterion for streaming?

Aaanyway. I really enjoyed this movie. I kept smiling the entire time. But it’s really… I’m not really gripped? So it’s really a kinda ⚃ movie? But I just really enjoyed letting it wash over me, so let’s go with:

Dim Sum: A Little Bit of HeartDim Sum. Wayne Wang. 1985. ⚄

I got this bluray because I read a joint interview between Alice Diop and Claire Denis in Sight & Sound, and Denis had many nice things to say about this movie.

And I understand why immediately — from the very first scene, it’s kinda gripping, and not completely unlike Denis’ films.

*gasp*

Wow. This movie is fantastic. It’s so … It’s not that it’s a subtle movie, because it tells you exactly what’s going on all the time — but not by having characters explain it at you, as most movies do. There’s these incredible shifts in where we suddenly realise something (like in the scene where Medea is mentioned) and everything shifts and you feel like shouting “DID YOU SEE THAT!” because if you’re looking at your phone while watching this, you’ll feel like nothing actually happened.

It feels like a movie in conversation not only with Claire Denis but Jeanne Dielman: It’s low key, but gripping and exciting.

And the actors in this are amazing. So many wonderful performances. Except, weirdly enough, the central character (but not the protagonist) — the woman accused of killing her child? I just didn’t buy her as the character she was portraying.

But on the other hand… perhaps that’s a very calculated move? Because that’s one of the mysteries of the movie.

Ah! It’s the second best film of 2022 according to Sight & Sound!

Saint Omer. Alice Diop. 2022. ☐ ⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅