Not great, but at least it tries
Five short films joined together. I guess they're all about Love and Anger but then just about any story could fit that vagueness.
'Indifference' by Lizzani shows people being indifferent to a woman being attacked, homeless people, and some car-crash victims. It has an unsatisfactory ending. Was probably pretty topical at the time - a woman called of Kitty Genovese was killed in New York in 1964 while others looked on.
'Agony' by Bertolucci is awful - just a bunch of people in a room dancing around and occasionally making cryptic statements. I strongly recommend you fast-forward this one and stop it only if you seem some interesting images. At this point in watching the film I started to get worried: pseudo-intellectual artsy stuff. And we hadn't even got to the Jean-Luc Godard segment yet.
'Sequence of the Paper Flower' by Pasolini shows an idiot wandering the streets of an Italian city (Rome?) and chatting to people. Double-exposed over him are shots of war and politicians so this is probably trying to say something deep but it wasn't clear to me what.
'L'Amore' by Godard is actually pretty good! Witty dialogue between a couple talking about another couple in a film, along with some striking images. This one warrants a second viewing.
'Talk, Talk' by Bellocchio and Tattoli is also good, showing a group of students acting out a protest against university establishment. In May '68 there were many student takeovers of universities in France and around the world so this was pretty topical. The arguments are great, tackling whether to reform the system from within or to strike at it from without. My guess is that the title implies that students were engaging in too much talk and not enough action.
So only two of the five films work but at least all the films try to say something interesting which is more than most films today do.
'Indifference' by Lizzani shows people being indifferent to a woman being attacked, homeless people, and some car-crash victims. It has an unsatisfactory ending. Was probably pretty topical at the time - a woman called of Kitty Genovese was killed in New York in 1964 while others looked on.
'Agony' by Bertolucci is awful - just a bunch of people in a room dancing around and occasionally making cryptic statements. I strongly recommend you fast-forward this one and stop it only if you seem some interesting images. At this point in watching the film I started to get worried: pseudo-intellectual artsy stuff. And we hadn't even got to the Jean-Luc Godard segment yet.
'Sequence of the Paper Flower' by Pasolini shows an idiot wandering the streets of an Italian city (Rome?) and chatting to people. Double-exposed over him are shots of war and politicians so this is probably trying to say something deep but it wasn't clear to me what.
'L'Amore' by Godard is actually pretty good! Witty dialogue between a couple talking about another couple in a film, along with some striking images. This one warrants a second viewing.
'Talk, Talk' by Bellocchio and Tattoli is also good, showing a group of students acting out a protest against university establishment. In May '68 there were many student takeovers of universities in France and around the world so this was pretty topical. The arguments are great, tackling whether to reform the system from within or to strike at it from without. My guess is that the title implies that students were engaging in too much talk and not enough action.
So only two of the five films work but at least all the films try to say something interesting which is more than most films today do.
- speedwaysmoke
- 24 sept 2011