#and beyond the beauty of the award the technical skill put into it is absolutely stunning

[coldcanadianwinters]

just looking at this from a purely technical perspective, as someone who's had the opportunity to blow glass before (I'm terrible at it but it is incredibly fun lmao), these forms are truly impressive. I'm looking specifically at that second to last one there - the fact that it is still clearly hollow all the way through, despite the incredible obstruction to the shape and the necessity to lay the molten glass while still on the blowpipe onto the mold they had to make before the glass (cooled-off) could ever touch the stone seen in the picture is remarkable. Getting that fold in the top part of the glass without losing the structural integrity of the overall form while it was still able to be shaped without shattering probably took multiple attempts, and the fact that the outside of the shape is still so rounded and flawless overall, without any part of the entire shape looking overblown or thinned, or even way too thick, speaks to some good skill.

I love glassblowing. It's so neat. If you ever get a chance to, I recommend trying it out haha

Erik Olovsson (Swedish, b.1982)

INDEFINITE VASES - various types of marble, granite and onyx combined with mouth blown glass - 2016

“The project is an exploration of the relationship between geometric and organic forms – transparent and opaque. Indefinite melting materia interacts with definite angular forms and gravity determines the relationship in between. Indefinite Vases are sculptures or containers. Functional or decorative. The contrast between the cut stone and the form of the hand blown glass emphasizes the relation between space and object, an interplay between a fragile material and its solid counterpart.”

https://studioeo.com/p/infinite-vases

[nclkafilms]

The power of stillness

(Review of ‘Sound of Metal’)

*Warning: contains minor spoilers*

“The world does keep moving, and it can be a damn cruel place.  But for me, those moments of stillness, that place, that's the kingdom of God.”

- Joe (Paul Raci)

What is an addiction? That is in many ways one of the central questions asked by ‘Sound of Metal’, the six time Academy Award nominated feature film debut by Darius Marder. On the surface the film seems like a tale as old as time with a protagonist who all of a sudden loses the ability to do what defines him. This storyline is the recipe for a classic tale: the athlete who suffers a career-ending injury, the surgeon who loses his fine motor skills or in the case of ‘Sound of Metal’, a heavy-metal drummer who loses his hearing. But what makes ‘Sound of Metal’ reach above the bar of this recipe - apart from a stunning technical side - is the fact that it is not as much about losing an ability as it is about facing an addiction. It is in this personal discovery for our main character, Ruben, that the film proves itself deserving of its six Oscar nominations.

As described, we follow Ruben, who is the drummer of a heavy metal band in which his girlfriend through four years, Lou, is the lead singer. However, during a tour, he is suddenly faced with a deteriorating ability to hear. Initially showing itself as a tinitus-like sound, which quickly develops into a deep, humming “lack of sound” making it impossible for Ruben to not only play his drums but simply to keep a conversation. As he is presented with the cold facts that the hearing already lost will never return, he is spiralled towards a tumultuous past of drug addiction. As Lou becomes worried for him she helps set up a meeting - through Ruben’s sponsor - with Joe, who leads a support group for addicts with hearing loss as part of a much larger deaf community. Ruben’s stay with the group is equally conflicting and eye-opening as he is forced apart from Lou, faced with the consequences of his hearing loss and presented with new opportunities under the firm but endearing leadership of Joe. 

As Ruben, Riz Ahmed delivers a career-best turn moving himself further up the Hollywood food chain. It is an extremely nuanced and touching performance. One moment he burns through the screen with a powerful and/or frustrated presence only to almost hide himself in the next sequence as he gives space to Ruben’s vulnerability and inability to fully accept his new reality. Ahmed embodies all these feelings close to perfection and it is topped off by an authenticity in his performance and chemistry with the film’s many deaf actors that underlines his dedication to Ruben’s character arc. Ahmed spent a lot of time in the lead-in to the production within the deaf community and it pays off as Ruben’s growing acceptance of and inclusion in said community feels immensely real.

At the centre of the film’s heartfelt portrayal of the deaf community stands Paul Raci, however. He creates one of the most endearing characters of the year as Joe, a Vietnam War veteran  (where he lost his hearing) and former alcoholic, who now hosts the support group for hearing impaired former addicts. Raci brings the role a natural authenticity as he himself is no stranger to the American deaf community as the child of two deaf parents. He clearly uses this to create a fully fleshed character, who you come to both care for and respect. Because, make no mistake, as heart-warming as many of Joe’s scenes are, he is also at the centre of one of the film’s most heart-breaking scenes towards the end, in which he gives a profound and touching message to a desperate Ruben. Raci plays this scene with such heart and presence that Joe’s emotional reaction towards the end of it feels as if it was Raci’s own reaction to the scene. A stunning performance that would and should have earned Raci many more awards had it not been for a certain Daniel Kaluuya.

As Lou, Olivia Cooke is somewhat sidelined half way through the story, and knowing that the Marder brothers did write her story in full detail, I would have loved to see more of it and discover how she dealt with her own addiction(s). Admittedly, I guess that would have been at the cost of the film’s quite tight focus, but the main reason I wanted to see more of her story, is that Cooke manages to create a fascinating character with the limited screen presence she gets. Her scenes with Ahmed as their characters try to realise the extent of Ruben’s hearing loss both individually and as a couple are simply heartbreaking. Most of the film’s remaining supporting cast were found in the deaf community and it - once again - helps heightening the film’s anchor in reality. To highlight a few, Lauren Ridloff brings charm to a teacher in the deaf community school, Chelsea Lee brings life and heart to one of Ruben’s new-found friends and Jeremy Stone, who also worked as Ahmed’s personal ASL teacher and Marder’s creative assistent on the film, features in a specifically memorable scene as an - surprise - ASL teacher. 

This desire to include the deaf community as not only a focus point of the film, but as an active part of the production is a clever and brilliant move by director, Darius Marder. Not unlike the nomads in Nomadland, it creates a certain sense of some of it being close to documentary, although ‘Sound of Metal’ is much clearer in being a work of fiction. It is obvious that the story is deeply personal to the Marder brothers who co-wrote the script on from an original story by Derek Cianfrance (‘Blue Valentine’, ‘Place Beyond the Pines’) with the film being dedicated to their grandmother who went deaf herself. One of many personal touches is the choice to open caption the film, which - of course - can be seen as a statement to make more films accessible for the deaf community, but it also heightens the film’s creative vision to put the viewer in the shoes - or rather ears - of Ruben.

The main reason why this works, however, is the film’s absolute strongest asset: the daring creative choice to create a (with Marder’s own words) Point of Hearing (PoH) experience. Years of work has been put into the film’s work with its sound and how it connects with its imagery. In many situations the way they try to portray the sensation of deafness could have felt gimmicky and, thus, fallen flat. It doesn’t, however. From the first scene in which we experience Ruben’s auditory sensations, I bought it all the way and it truly heightened the film experience. An experience I would love to have in a cinema. It works thanks to the immaculate work by the Marder brothers in their script, the intimate cinematography by Daniël Bouquet and most of all the collaboration between Danish editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen and the sound department under the leadership of supervising sound editor Nicolas Becker. The way they first create some of the best concert footage of recent years (featuring only live performances by Ahmed and Cooke) and then one of the best realised depictions of a sensation so many of us never have had or will have is awe-inspiring.  

Ultimately, ‘Sound of Metal’ is just as much a film about facing your past and your ideas for the future as it is about a deaf drummer learning to live his new life. As such it features some the same thematic questions as other films of the year (‘Soul’ and ‘Another Round’ to name just two): what drives and what should drive your life. What is purpose, what is a meaningful life? As the quote in the beginning of this review hints at, life has a cruel tendency to roll on no matter where you are in your life. For Ruben, his journey reveals that while distancing himself from his drug addiction he might just have moved on to a new addiction: an addiction to sound and the world that sound opened up for him. The world of Lou, the world of love, the world of purpose. In a telling scene after Ruben has made a life-changing decision, a clearly hurt Joe calmly says to Ruben that he sounds like an addict. And he does. Ahmed delivers this scene with such necessity, such desperation and inconstancy that we feel his addiction to sound, to hearing. The following and final 30 minutes of the film end up being both hurtful and hauntingly beautiful as Ruben comes to terms with his addiction in a realistic and satisfying way. The final scene is up there with the best of the year; you can literally hear it and feel. The power of stillness. 

4,5/5

[timsim26]

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

Horizon Zero Dawn proves that developers who are known for one genre definitely have the ability to branch out and try new things. Guerrilla Games, well known for the Killzone series, have applied their knowledge and understanding of the Playstation brand to deliver one of the best open world role playing games available exclusively on the system. Horizon: Zero Dawn is an enormous game and is highly ambitious for a studio that is well known for making first person shooters. It is wonderful to see devs being given the trust and respect to try something new and take a risk that well and truly has paid off for gamers, the company and Playstation.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world role playing game with a science fiction hook that feels unique when compared with other fiction. Robot dinosaur like creatures roam the lands and the human race has been limited to living like tribes people before the ages of technology. It is clear that long before the current existence of animals, robots and humans that a deeply complex society developed remarkable technologies beyond our imagination. This society is hinted at making terrible mistakes and using this as a launching point, the game’s underlying narrative continues. We play as Aloy. An outcast who is raised by another outcast Rost. Early in the game it is revealed that outcasts are considered not worthy and should not even be addressed by people who do belong to a tribe.  Aloy fights for her survival and is guided by Rost throughout her life. We watch Aloy grow and begin her trials to join the tribes people and discover why she began her life as an outcast and who is responsible for her creation. The narrative of Horizon is well paced and often draws players into seeking out extra lore and information in the environment to piece together the mystery about Aloy’s past and also what happened to the society we currently know. The two narratives working together at the same time to introduce many interesting characters, surprising moments and a few predictable twists and turns along the way. The game left me satisfied with the end, however the big reveal was a little underwhelming and the game relies on the player listening to audio logs. I really can never excuse games for making the player wait and wait while a diary plays and Horizon does this consistently and towards the later stages of the game, it makes you wait for 5-10 minutes at a time and this is inexcusable for today’s standards. I remember being extremely frustrated by the original Bioshock as the content was so good, that engaging in combat and missing important story details was infuriating.

This really impacted the pacing for me and I felt the storylines occurring in the moment between the tribes and the way the robot animals impacted society was far more engaging. The history of the ‘old ones’ became very technical and required reading through journals and piecing together a lot of what went on for yourself. This is fine, but the game’s break neck pace makes these moments stand out and the mission structure around these moments are the poorest quality within the game. There are so many memorable missions, however the simplistic climb to the top of a structure, listen to an audio log, watch a cut scene grew boring. It is a shame that this is the way the game ends, as Horizon is an absolute joy to play and explore the huge open world. The gameplay is really where Horizon stands out from other games of this nature, as it encourages you to experiment and learn how enemies react to your existence and also what weapon work best for combat scenarios. Playing on the normal difficulty the game was quite challenging and felt like a good fit for players that wanted to enjoy the story and be moderately challenged by the game’s enemies. Aloy is a skilled hunter and wields a number of weapons to take down machines.

Early in the game Aloy finds a piece of futuristic tech used by the previous generation of humans called a focus. This tech allows Aloy to track enemies movements, identify weak points, locate left over tracks and trails and also find points of interest. The mechanic is very similar to the vision that Geralt used in the Witcher 3 and similar to eagle vision from the Assassins Creed franchise. This promotes careful planning and approaching enemies very similar to the Far Cry games. Enemies put up a fight and will swarm you in a number of ways. They are very animalistic in their approach and will often run if they feel they are in danger. While enemies are deadly, you always have the upper hand due to the stealthy nature of Aloy. She can use the long grass and environment to take enemies down with takedowns or even gain the high grand advantage and rain down bombs or arrows. Aloy can also use trip wire traps and bait enemies into traps and even use a rope launcher to tie some of the larger creatures to the ground. These options when used together are extremely effective and allows Aloy to dispose some of the toughest creatures with ease.

Combat is the primary form of gameplay experience in Horizon and different combat arenas unclock different abilities and areas. Cauldrons and Bandit camps are two of the main arenas for combat outside of the game’s side quests and main story. Cauldrons are where machines are being produced and act as Dungeons. In cauldrons there will be a series of combat sequences and also puzzles. Cauldrons unlock the ability to control enemy machines and use them for your bidding. It is satisfying to sneak into an area and override a machine and watch it destroy machines that are none the wiser to the situation. While cauldrons are machine based, bandit camps are huge areas that need to be cleared of human enemies. While human enemies do offer a nice change to pace to the hulking machines, they offer no real challenge and are very dumb. It is easy to bait them into trip wires or sneak up behind them and spear them through the chest. When bandit camps are cleared they offer another fast travel point around the world and also a merchant to sell items and gear.

Fast travel points are extremely valuable in Horizon as the world is absolutely enormous. It is clear now that the team at Guerrilla are capable of making beautiful video games. While Shadowfall was a poor game it looked remarkable when launching for for ps4 back in 2013. The polish, time and effort that Horizon has been given is that off a sequel to a very successful original game. It is clear in the world’s attention to detail and overall style. There are a number of distinct and gorgeous areas to explore that range from Forests full of oak trees, huge mountains covered in snow and large open spaces cornered in sandstone surrounded by snowy peaks. The game’s environment feels unique and is continually surprising as you explore each corner of the map. Every where you look there is more great environmental story telling of the rise of humans after clearly something so terrible. The game’s environment is enhanced so greatly by the atmosphere created by the gorgeous visual design. Multiple times I stopped to take in what I was seeing and there are some truly breath taking vistas to behold as the sun rises and sets. The lighting is absolutely incredible and the game looks remarkable at all stages of the day. Playing on a normal PS4, my experience of the game was still very satisfying and I can’t imagine how stunning this game would look with a great TV and PS4 Pro.

Horizon’s great gameplay loop is also supported by a number of upgradeable and collectibles. The game gives you a lot to do and see as you journey through the campaign that will take you anywhere from 20-40 hours depending on how thorough you are. Every successful kill of enemy, collectible found or objective complete nets you XP and loot. Loot can be used very similarly to Far Cry Primal’s upgrade system, where certain materials are required to increase your carry capacity of weapons, loot and ammo. XP can be used to upgrade your 3 skill trees that make Aloy considerably more powerful with each and every addition. The game rewards you for every single battle and the XP rewards are quite generous. Without completing all of the game’s hunting lodge quests I was still around level 44 of 50 when I finished the game. Strolling through the environment and taking your time to takedown enemies and then craft new arrows, bombs and trip wires is satisfying and consistently rewarding.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an impressive title for Sony to begin 2017 with and put Guerrilla Games on the map as a developer with a huge amount of talent. The writing and characters are well developed and strong enough to support a sequel to a franchise that is clearly setting itself up to be Sony’s next go to platform. The engaging combat, breath taking world and striking visuals are great selling points and Horizon delivered on a lot of the promise and hype that earned multiple E3 game of the show awards. This game is well worth your time and yet another impressive game added to the open world role playing game genre.

8.5/10