Yesterday was the day that the only enemy vessel ever to be seized by New Zealand was captured – the Pamir. This is important to me because it was the ship my father’s father was on – if it hadn’t been captured, who knows whether my grandfather would have settled in Wellington?
Film #37: Barbara
One of the major things I noticed? It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the Communist past, and somewhere that’s simply run-down. It took me a while before realising/remembering that this film was set in East Germany, which made some things make a lot more sense. They conveyed the sense of everyone watching everyone well, and how invasive the state was allowed to be; but the pace was very measured, which meant I drifted a bit towards the end, despite being fortified by a strong cup of tea. I enjoyed it, but didn’t think it was outstanding.
Film #38: Searching For Sugarman
This was a fun, interesting, and generally uplifting film. I enjoyed the music, and enjoyed the personalities that were shown – and a happy ending doesn’t hurt. Watch it without Googling for maximum enjoyment.
But it touched on a pet peeve of mine, so that’s what I’m going to rant about now. Copyright law has been extended to a ridiculous number of years after the artist’s death, giving them an artificial monopoly in order to support them while they create more music. (How much new work even the most talented artists create after their death is not entirely clear, but that’s a different rant.) But whoever it was that got the money for 25 years of album sales, it definitely wasn’t the artist. And unless he’s willing to pour the money that he’s gotten from touring into the pockets of lawyers, there’s not much chance that he’ll ever see it, either.
I guess that’s less an argument against copyright law, and more a complaint about copyright law enforcement, and that the people arguing for copyright extension seem more interested in collecting money than disbursing it.
Film #39: The Taste of Money
This film doesn’t just want to chew the scenery, it wants to attack it with an axe. It is very melodramatic, a greed and lust for power salad with a light garnish of regular lust… er… croutons? I’m afraid my metaphor might have gotten away from me. Anyway, the main European actor was a bit poor, which was weird, given how much money it looked like had been poured into the rest of the film. It was satisfyingly bombastic, but I’m not sure it would be worth a second viewing.
Film #40: The Sunlit Path
A Mongolian man does something that he feels is unforgivable, and starts walking through the Mongolian desert; an old man joins him, and gets him to open up. I learned that you’re meant to tie a bit of wool to your milk tooth, and throw it over your tent, shouting, “Mr Sun! Mr Sun! Take this brown dog-tooth, and give me a conch-white tooth!”
I was worried – it was my last film, it was at the Film Archive, and I hadn’t had enough caffeine to guarantee that I would stay awake. As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad; but as I suspected, there were a lot of shots where we lingered a lot longer than would be traditional in a Western film. I wonder how much of this is deliberate stylistic choice, how much is a different film tradition, and how much is simply not knowing? I also noticed a few places where I realised that I was expecting foley-work – for example, a fight in the distance where I could see the punches, but they looked fake because we could hear the dialogue but not the impacts.
The film was all right, but the story was not that compelling, and I have no desire to watch it again.
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