flannelgraph

Mulvey's Riddles of the Sphinx is as haunting as its title would suggest, a dizzy philosopher of a film, completely unique then and now.

The short consists of a number of short tableaux, each filmed "in the round", so to speak, by a 360 degree camera turn. Also short snippets of Mulvey herself wrestling with these "riddles" are interspersed in a few places.

The effect of these simple elements is striking--as are the colors of the cinematography. The 16mm film is as rich and deep as I've seen.

Her intent was to create an entirely new form of cinema, one made by women (hence the 360 degree shots instead of the very male, penetrating, zoom, for example). What she did create is ineffable and difficult, and important.

Normally in structuralist film (i.e. Riddles of the Sphinx, Wavelength) the comment is: "Easy to describe, but utterly difficult to explain its depth." With Lockhart's Goshogaoka, however, it is only what it portends to be: an "ethnographic film" devoid of truth, an avant-garde work in opposition to nothing, a 63-minute piece of choreographed basketball drills. Wait, even _that_ description makes this film sound like it's got more going for it than it actually does. Lockhart fails to look any deeper than the surface-level with these movements, and therefore extracts any meaning from the motion.

This is just another example of Americans fetishizing a foreign culture to an extent that any actual life is muted. By directing the basketball team's actions toward farce, Lockhart doesn't present us with how Japanese culture interprets and integrates our own, she presents us with how she wants Japanese girls to look, act, and behave--as imperialist as any film in the last 100 years exhibiting a complete disregard for its subjects.

Mostly, what saddened me as I left the showing was how film and video have become the last refuge of the bad artist.

Peter Watkins' Edvard Munch contains artistic innovations in editing and story that surely would have changed the face of how films are made--if only more people had seen it. Through an inspired stream-of-consciousness editing style, Watkins approximates the workings of the mind with greater success than ever before seen on screen. Because of this achievement, Watkins is able to convey, with vivid strokes, the intensity of Munch's emotions, and how they led to his tortured art. It is tragic that this film has not seen larger distribution, just as it is tragic that Watkins' other films are cloistered by the very companies that produce them. But then again, I cannot imagine going to the cineplex and watching a statement of life through art as soaring and original as Edvard Munch. For now, I'll continue to treasure it alone.