Things Younger Than McCain

Please note the newest "Blog I Like": Things Younger than McCain.
My personal favorites are SPAM and both of Barack Obama's parents.

Love Songs

On Sunday I had the good fortune to go see Les Chansons d'Amour, the latest film from Christophe Honore. Part tragedy, part comedy, part love story, and all musical, this film is, at its most basic, an exploration of loss and confusion.

Though not a fan in general of the musical genre, I found this playful but melancholy romp through Paris benefited greatly from Alex Beaupain's low-key, melodious compositions, sung with those special French throaty vocals. Perhaps it is because songs allow a poetic lyricism that, when spoken without a tune, sounds merely kitschy if not downright absurd. This way, Chiara Mastroianni can describe returning to a park she once frequented with her dead sister and end with "et puis rien [and then nothing]", and the effect prompts your heart to break, not your eyes to roll.

This film is successful not only because of its ability to use music well, but for the reasons any narrative film is successful: a compelling and universal story, characters we can care about, actors who can make us care about them, pretty cinematography, a fresh style, and an inherent likeability. (A film critic whose name I don't recall put it best: "Christophe Honore's films aren't just films you like; you develop weird little crushes on them.") Basically, it's a good story relayed by good storytelling.

Really, though, I think the reason I like this movie so much is ultimately narcissistic: it speaks very eloquently to my generation. Recalling movies of another time that were aimed at confused and disenfranchised youth - the New Wave - "Les Chansons d'Amour" recognizes the confusion of fulfilled desires. In this film, the open sexuality the 68ers strove for has come to pass; everything is possible, allowed, even accepted by the parents, but nothing is easier. Loss is still loss, grief grief, and sorrow a big confusing mess that can't be shared nearly as easily as sex. In the end, all we might be able to do is stumble along until the person we wake up next to is someone we might want to see again when the night returns. And then hope that that person might "love us less, but love us for a long time" - because whatever else life and love are about, they are certainly about learning to compromise.

The Billy Letters

Courtesy of Radar Magazine (via Boing Boing), a story about a manchild soliciting advice from serial killers -- and getting it.

The Devil You Know is Better than the Devil You Don't

I can't think of a better way to describe Zoe Scofield's choreography than she does herself: "feral ballet". Her work, as I saw it in my first-ever zoejuniper show last night at On the Boards, is compelling, rigorous, intense, and never ever boring.

This show, like all other zoejuniper projects, is a collaboration between Scofield and Juniper Shuey, whose theater-influenced visuals nicely complement Scofield's choreography. Terrific music comes from composer Morgan Henderson. Altogether, this show is clean, vibrant, and disconcerting. The principles' jerky movements and extraordinarily toned bodies feel like ballet stuck into a pencil sharpener. Scofield's, and her dancers', extraordinary talents range from mind-boggling solos to skilful creation of highly affective stage pictures. If you're in town, go!

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't...
April 24-26, 2008, 8pm
On the Boards
100 West Roy Street Seattle, WA 98119
206.217.9888

Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul

The last two weeks featured two remarkably different programs of short films by Apichatpong (friends, and people interested in keeping their tongues untied, call him "Joe") Weerasethakul at Northwest Film Forum, my second home. After the first program, of muted colors, meandering narratives and a deliberate mix of the happenstance and the mythical, I thought I knew more or less what to expect. Joe's work in the second program, however, full of vivid hues and irrepressible Thai pop music, not to mention a dose of gorgeous animation, pleasantly surprised me. Don't get me wrong - I liked the first round - but the second has planted itself in my brain like a dream I might have had myself.

What all the films have in common is a playfulness with storytelling. Joe has a tendency to flip back and forth between verite-style street (or jungle!) scenes and highly constructed parables. Throw in a dash of music video, and you're in for a fun evening of thinking about theories of communication. Strikingly, the most accessible short was the one without subtitles (0116643225059), in which several still images and static shots are mixed to match the audio track of a conversation. I guess synesthesia has no borders...

"It may not be a lot, but he's large"

In 1980, Robert Altman took on the not-unformidable project of making a live action film of Popeye, one of the most cartoonish cartoons ever. Beyond great music by Harry Nilsson and a brilliant performance by Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, this bizarre film is a little unsettling to watch. Altman follows through with a 1:1 conversion of cartoon action into live action. The result is the disappearance of whimsy that usually mitigates the gruesome violence and slapstick with which Popeye, in particular, is so fraught. When it's a real flesh-and-blood face that Robin Williams is repeatedly pummeling with his gigantic forearms, it's more grotesque than funny. Similarly, spectacular falls, flips and tramplings leave you wincing instead of chuckling. In a way, it provides a cultural comment about the violence inherent in our supposedly "family-friendly" entertainment - but it's really more strange than moralizing.

"All that comes out are zeros"

Yesterday, I saw Jen Erickson's work at Punch for the second time. This time, the title, "Sad Math", really struck me. These works are sad. Something about the gravitational pull on the oil paint shapes, filled in with graphite zeros and visited by infrequent flying creatures, exerts weight on the brain. Perhaps it's the tension Bonnie noted between depth and flatness, but these pieces evoke absence and emptiness, reflecting the artist's statement about the Internet. It's full of information, but it leaves us none the wiser and empty more often than not. (Also, given binary, half this information is dependent on zeros...)

I was struck by the repetition of the "systems" in these works found on the gallery floor - coincidental, providential, chaotic or inevitable, or all of it. This is a nice show, that might leave you feeling a tiny bit hollow.