#i like the plot but the permeating sense of doom make me sad

[bellaroles]

Jinyiwei might just be the saddest FTYX's work I've ever read. Still haven't read the twin jade of Jiangdong though, but this is just so sad on many levels.

[nitrateglow]

What are some movies you consider to be underrated?

There are sooooo many; I’m sad I only have time to list a few here. I think everyone who’s ever been on my blog, knows ofmy admiration for underrated work like Blast of Silence, The Old Dark House,The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Ball of Fire, The Black Cat, Horus Prince of theSun, Eyes Wide Shut, Battling Butler, and O Lucky Man! There are actually so many movies I find underrated, butI don’t want to bore everybody by detailing each one. So here are a few otherswhich I haven’t detailed as much, but they are underrated indeed:

Donkey Skin (dir. Jacques Demy, 1970)

Really all of Jacques Demy’s movies should be listed, but I’lljust settle for my favorite of his work, this borderline surreal musicaladaptation of Donkey Skin. If you haven’t heard of the original fairy tale,then the plot is basically about a princess whose father wants to marry her.Disguising her beauty with the skin of a donkey, she goes into hiding where hemeets a handsome prince and, well, you can figure the rest. This movie isunique in how it both adheres to and subverts fairy tale tropes. Unlike several18th and 19th century renditions of classic stories, theprincess here is given more agency in determining her fate and going after whatshe wants. The movie also includes uncomfortable musings about taboo desires,but most people don’t notice them right off the bat. The film also pays a lotof homage to Jean Cocteau’s 1946 classic Beauty and the Beast, from certainscenes to the casting of Jean Marais (who played the Beast in the older movie)as the incestuous king, so you may want to see that movie first, though it isn’tnecessary to enjoying Donkey Skin.

The Most Dangerous Game (dir. Pichel and Schoedsack, 1932)

I really dig this movie, which is a well-paced andatmospheric horror film from the genre’s first golden age in American cinema. Itstill reigns as the best adaptation of the short story, even as it expands uponit by adding sexual subtext into the mix. The giant jungle set gives the moviea claustrophobic, trapped feel, adding to the predicament of the maincharacters. It does have moments of camp, but that doesn’t stop the morechilling and thrilling moments from working. This is a movie I’ve seen so muchI memorized it beat for beat and I actually prefer it to the more epic KingKong, though that is also a damned good movie.

Young Mr. Lincoln (dir. John Ford, 1939)

My favorite John Ford movie. It follows a young Abraham Lincoln,back when he was a lawyer, dealing with a murder case. Because this takes placelong before Lincoln was involved in politics, he is not presented as thedemigod other movies tended to make him out to be; instead, we get a young manshowing signs of greatness, but also racked with moments of uncertainty anddoubt. While I often speak of great movies which shock and confront theaudience with their subject matter, Young Mr. Lincoln is a gentler movie,infused with low-key humor and humanistic compassion. No one really talks aboutthis one, I guess because it’s a non-Western Ford film, and that is a shame.

Scaramouche (dir. Rex Ingram, 1923)

Yeah drag me to the guillotine, but I much prefer this movieto the more famous 1952 talkie remake. It’s a great French Revolution eraadventure story about a lawyer who wants to avenge his best friend’s death atthe hands of a nobleman. Great fight scenes that feel like actual fights(unpopular opinion: I don’t care for the really long swordfight at the end ofthe remake; its over-choreographed nature felt like compensation for the movienot sporting that good of a hero/villain dynamic… kind of like Revenge of theSith’s ridiculous final battle), lots of epic sweep and spectacle! It’s not thedeepest movie in the world, but it has good characters and a story that keepsyou entertained all the way through.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (dir. Billy Wilder,1970)

This movie examines the mythos of Sherlock Holmes and theVictorian era with an almost elegiac gaze. It mixes dark and dry humor withmelancholy, though it is ultimately a great, if episodic, Holmes mystery.  When most people talk about this movie, whenthey talk about it at all, it’s because there is a scene where Holmes pretendshe and Watson are a couple in order to throw off the sexual advances of a primaballerina. When Watson later asks if Holmes is gay, he gets an ambiguous answerand the Watson/Sherlock shippers go insane as a result. This scene actuallydoes get to the heart of the film: it asks how much do we really know aboutHolmes as a man and why does he keep himself so detached from others? Like mostgreat movies, the film never gives you a definite answer and invites you tobring your own conclusions.

Marie Antoinette (dir. Sofia Coppola, 2006)

A movie people tend to love or hate (much like all of Sofia Coppola’s movies). I obviously like it alot. It’s a character study of the doomed queen, particularly her alienation asa foreign consort at Versailles. The film is more about what happens inside thecourt than the revolution brewing outside it, though its threat is felt keenlytoward the end of the movie. There are several intentional anachronisms meantto highlight Marie Antoinette’s youth at the time of her ascension to thethrone, to make modern audiences understand she was still a child in many ways; the soundtrack is permeated with 1980s music, linking the decadence ofthe French aristocracy and royalty with the prosperity of 1980s America.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (dir. Jiri Trnka, 1959)

A stop-motion version of the Shakespeare play. It does makesome changes to the text, particularly to the Mechanicals, but I think theyactually add a sense of melancholy and reflection of the nature of art thatwasn’t in the original play. It’s my favorite movie version of the story and Iwould recommend it even to people who didn’t care for the source material. It’salso gorgeous to look at, a masterpiece of the stop-motion form.

Blood for Dracula (dir. Paul Morrisey, 1974)

A great 1970s cult hit. Set in 1920, Dracula is starvingbecause he finds it harder and harder to find virgins to feast on in the modernworld. He preys upon an aristocratic Italian family, assuming the marriageable daughtersare virginal. Boy is he in for a surprise! Also he has to contend with a hunkyCommunist handy man. This movie is incredibly goofy and gory, though it doesalso have some poignant moments that make you feel sorry for Dracula.

Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)

A LOT of people hate this movie and I won’t say I don’t getwhy. There is a lot of dumb stuff in it and it comes off as overindulgent attimes. Yet despite these flaws, I admire the movie’s ambition and what it doesget right. Gary Oldman is perfect as a sad yet ferocious vampire who defies Godto reunite with the woman he loved. The visuals are pure gothic, absolutelygorgeous. And I love how the movie is in some ways an homage to the earlycinema of George Melies and the Lumiere Brothers. There’s even a scene wherethey used an old turn of the century camera to film a crowd scene! That is socool!

[libralita]

Reread Review!

Title: The Hero of Ages

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Summary: Tricked into releasing the evil spirit Ruin while attempting to close the Well of Ascension, new emperor Elend Venture and his wife, the assassin Vin, are now hard-pressed to save the world. This adventure brings the Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy to a dramatic and surprising climax as Sanderson's saga offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.

Rating: ★★★★★

Original Review

Review:

I have finished rereading the original Mistborn trilogy! If you haven’t read the Wax and Wayne series or Secret History then I recommend you read my original review instead. I really enjoyed this book because I actually understood what was going on and it didn’t take like nine months to read. It was amazing!

“I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.”—Page 3

I just became an all-powerful god and I saved the world but holy me it sucks blue koloss balls!

Elend has grown up so much.

“The general wore well-used armor of leather and steel, his face bearing a scar on one cheek, the left side of his scalp missing a large patch of hair where a koloss blade had nearly taken his head.”—Page 76

Important.

“Black is so monotonous that you can forget about it, but red—you’d always be thinking, ‘Why, look at that. That hill is red. That evil force of doom trying to destroy me certainly has style’.”—Breeze (Of course), Page 86

Breeze would clearly be the best force of doom.

“‘I’m not convinced there is any ‘evil force of doom’, Breeze,’ Sazed said.”—Page 86

That’s the evil force of doom talking, Sazed.

“‘He didn’t recruit me,’ Cett pointed out. ‘I got pulled by my balls into this little fiasco.’”—Page 107

Like I said before, I do love this asshole.

“‘You’re one of us,’ Human said. Vin looked up. ‘Me?’ ‘You’re like us,’ he said. ‘Not like them.’ ‘Why do you say that?’ Vin asked. Human looked down at her. ‘Mist,’ he said.”—Page 141

Even Human knows.

And now Spook has been stabbed with a hemalurgic spike and sees Kelsier…or “Kelsier”.

“They should never have given children of a new generation to be raised by a Third.”—MeLaan, Page 178

I guess I totally misread MeLaan and TenSoon’s relationship the first time I read this because I thought it was romantic but apparently it’s more parent-child/teacher-student.

“For the greater good.”—Vin, Page 187

The greater good.

So apparently Slowswift is a homage to Tolkien. I also do love Cett use to write poetry.

“Vin said nothing. Belief in the Lord Ruler was misplaced. If he’d been a god, then he wouldn’t have been able to kill him. In her mind, it was rather simple matter.”—Page 230

Actually killing gods in the cosmere is surprisingly easy.

“She picked an informant on the other side of the spectrum—a beggar named Hoid whom Cett claimed could be found in a particular square late a night.”—Page 231

Hi, Hoid. Also Vin, leaving Hoid was a mistake. He could have given you important advice about how to handle Ruin or give the reader more information about the cosmere.

“Gunpowder, for instance, was so frowned upon by Rashek that knowledge of its use disappeared almost as quickly as knowledge of the Terris religion.”—Page 235

Ay, gun reference.

“‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’ ‘What?’ Vin asked. ‘Save the world,’ Elend said. ‘Stop the ash.’”—Page 238

A simple task.

“Oh, come on. You have to admit that you’re unusual, Vin. You’re like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you’ve managed—in our short three years together—to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancée. That’s kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It’s a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn’t you say?”—Elend, Page 239

This is the greatest and most accurate summary of Vin.

The ball scene is coming and I’m so excited.

“Rashek wore both black and white. I think he wanted to show that he was a duality, Preservation and Ruin. This, of course, was a lie. After all, he had only touched one of the powers—and only in a very small way at that.”—Page 268

Interesting.

“‘Ladies,’ Elend said to the women, ‘as Lady Vin herself will be quick to tell you, I’m rather ill-mannered. That, in itself, would be a very small sin. Unfortunately, I’m also quite unconcerned about my own disregard for propriety. So, therefore, I’m going to steal my wife away from you all and selfishly monopolize her time. I’d apologize, but that’s not the sort of thing we barbarians do.’”—Pages 290-291

I love Elend when he’s at these parties because he’s so sassy.

“At that moment—as the music began—Elend reached into his pocket and pulled out a book. He raised it with one hand, and the other one her waist, and began to read.”—Page 292

He’s also an adorable little shithead.

Allomancy is of Preservation, Hemalurgy is of Ruin and Feruchemy is a balance. Funny.

It’s interesting that Demoux is bring up the 16 number. Is he doing this deliberately? Because y’know worldhopper business.

“‘I am human,’ the large beast said quietly.”—Page 336

Chills.

“Even now, I can barely grasp the scope of all this. The events surrounding the end of the world seem even longer than the Final Empire and the people within it. I sense shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void. I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: Adonasium. Who, or what, it was, I do not yet know.”—Pages 344-345

This is why we reread.

Vin is really bad figuring out who’s a Mistborn. First she thought Cett was and now Yomen.

“I’ve always been with you. You’ve heard me in your mind since your first years of life.”—Page 406

This is such a good twist.

“He sat down at the table, opening his portfolio, taking out the next sheet in the line. It listed the tenets of the Nelazan people, who had worshipped the god Trell. Sazed had always been partial to this religion because of its focus on learning and study of mathematics and the heavens.  He’d saved it for near the end, but had done so more out of worry than anything else. He’d wanted to put off what he’d known would happen. Sure enough, as he read about the religion, he saw the holes in its doctrines. True, the Nelazan had known a great deal about astronomy, but their teachings on the afterlife were sketchy—almost whimsical. Their doctrine was purposefully vague, they’d taught, allowing all men to discover truth for themselves.”—Page 410

Trell has been mentioned again.

“‘Once we’re done, maybe you could introduce me to the emperor and empress,’ Beldre said. ‘They sound like interesting people.’”—Page 479

Oh, you will meet them…

“Kill him, Ruin’s voice whispered. You can do it. Take a weapon from one of those soldiers, the use it on Yomen.”—Page 489

Why is Ruin acting how he was with Zane? I think a more effective tactic would to still act more like Reen.

“These two minds were, of course, independent of the raw force of their powers. Actually, I am uncertain of how thoughts and personalities came to be attached to the powers in the first place—but I believe they were not there originally. For both powers could be detached from the minds that ruled them.”—Page 490

I guess the shards are corrupting the person who is using them. In Hoid’s letter in Way of Kings it mentions that Ati use to be really nice and then he became Ruin.

“I will kill you, the words said. Death, death, death. ‘Wel…that’s pleasant,’”—Page 495

I am Elend.

“If Elend had waited just a few more minutes on that ashen field, he would have seen a body—short of stature, black hair, prominent nose—fall from the mists and slump dead into the ash. As it was, the corpse was left alone to be buried in ash. The world was dying. Its gods had to die with it.”—Page 499

Bye, Fuzz.

“I have come to see that each power has three aspects: a physical one, which can be seen in the creations made by Ruin and Preservation; a spiritual one in the unseen energy that permeates all of the world; and a cognitive one in the minds which controlled that energy.”—Page 507

Cosmere things!

“Survive!”—Page 525

Hey, Kell.

Elend don’t you dare attack, this is a bad idea.

“So, what if Ruin couldn’t find the storages on his own because of the metal shielding them? He would have needed someone to lead him. Someone to visit each one, read the map it contained, then lead him on… Lord Ruler! We’ve made the same mistake again! We did exactly what he wanted. No wonder he’s let us live!”—Page 571

I literally face-palmed at this realization. God, Ruin is so clever.

“Good lad. You did well, Spook. I’m proud.”—Page 577

Chapter 64 makes a lot more sense after Secret History.

“‘Lady Vin saved my life,’ Goradel said. ‘The night of the Survivor’s rebellion, she could have left me to die at the hands of the mob. She could have killed me herself. But she took the time to tell me that she understood what I’d been through, and convinced me to switch sides. If she needs this information, Survivor, then I will get it to her, or I will die trying.’”—Page 579

Aw, that’s so sad. He’s such a good man.

I can already tell watching Elend and Vin die for a second time…well third if you count Secret History, is going to be a depressing experience.

“‘We will be asking the questions here, Terrisman!’ said one of the aristocratic kandra. Sazed paused, turning. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you will not.’”—Page 604

Oh snap.

“The question remains, where did the original prophecies about the Hero of Ages come from? I now know that Ruin changed them, but did not fabricate them. Who first taught that a Hero would come, one who would be an emperor of all mankind, yet would be rejected by his own people? Who first state he would carry the future of the world on his arms, or that he would repair that which had been sundered? And who decided to use the neutral pronoun, so that we wouldn’t know if the Hero was a woman or a man?”—Page 608

Good question. Do we know? Was it Hoid? It was probably Hoid...

“‘I apologize,’ Sazed said. ‘This is a personal problem, not related to the fate of the Hero of Ages.’ ‘Please, speak,’ one of the others said.”—Page 623

We’re a bunch of old farts, we’ll give you some advice to help with your faith crisis.

If the Terris religion is all about Preservation, then is there a religion that’s all about Ruin?

“‘The sliver remains,’ another reminded. ‘The shadow of self.’”—Page 660

Foreshadowing.

“Welcome, Ruin said, to godhood.”—Page 664

Becoming god. Like you do. Okay, this is the cosmere, so it’s not as uncommon as you might think.

“[Ruin] must have known that by giving her a disguised Hemalurgic spike, he would keep the mists from investing themselves in her as they wished.”—Page 680

Invested as in Investiture?

“Then, with his free hand, the kandra reached toward his own shoulder.”—Page 685

I’m so bitter that Vin never got to see her puppy before she died.

“‘In the end, they will kill us,’ Elend said, voice loud, ringing in the cavern. ‘But first, they shall fear us!’”—Page 701

Yeah the second read through is going kill me.

“The axe took of Elend’s head.”—Page 710

Brandon is so evil.

“So few left of the original crew, she thought. Kelsier dead so long ago. Dockson and Clubs slaughtered at the Battle of Luthadel. Yeden dead with his soldiers. OreSeur taken at Zane’s command. Marsh, fallen to become an Inquisitor. And the other who joined us, now gone as well. Tindwyl, TenSoon, Elend…”—Page 711

Brandon does like killing his characters. Also TenSoon aint dead!

“You created the thing that can kill you, Ruin, Vin said. And you just made one huge final mistake. You shouldn’t have killed Elend. You see, he was the only reason I had left to live.”—Page 712

Goodbye world, I’m so depressed.

“Beside her, atop the pile of dead koloss, lay another body. It was that of a man with red hair, one whom Sazed did not recognize, but he ignored it.”—Page 713

Hey, Ati.

“There had been a people known as the Nelazan. They had worshipped the stars, had called them the Thousand Eyes of their god, Trell, watching them.”—Page 716

Trell, again.

“Ruin and Preservation were dead, and their powers had been joined together. In fact, they belonged together. How had they been split?”—Page 718

Ask Hoid, he was there.

The sky is blue and the grass is green.

“At the center of the flowers, he found two people. Vin lay wearing her customary mistcloak, shirt, and trousers. Elend was in a brilliant white uniform, complete with cape. They were holding hands as they lay amid the flowers. And they were both dead.”—Page 723

It’s so sad and beautiful. End me..

[vod19]

Day 59. “Attenberg” (2010), dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari

*** 

My main cinematic revelation of the past 19 days is that the family lunch scene in Wedding Crashers (2005) — with Christopher Walken as the head of the family — is potentially a quote from the family lunch scene in Annie Hall (1977) —with Christopher Walken as the mentally unstable brother. (“I can’t believe this family. Annie’s mother is really beautiful... And they're talkin' swap meets and boat basins. The old lady at the end of the table is a classic Jew-hater. They’re really American, really healthy, like they never get sick or anything”.) My other cinematic revelation is Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg, which is very good. 

***

Marina (Ariane Labed) does not find fellow humans as interesting as the animal world presented in Sir David Attenborough’s programmes. She tells her only friend, Bella (Evangelia Randou) about Attenborough, whom Bella mistakingly calls “Attenberg”. Athina Tsangari’s Attenberg is an eerie drama that combines plot elements of tragedy (the protagonist is taking care of her dying father, played by Vangelis Mourikis) with those of absurdism (the protagonist is trying to make sense of her body’s relation to the outside world, which does not come naturally to her).

Historically, the label of the absurd is ascribed to various literary works, from those of Kierkegaard and Camus to the collection of utterly different plays that constitute ‘the Theatre of the Absurd’, i.e. dramaturgy of Beckett, Ionesco, Adamov and others. Several films of what has been coined as ‘the Greek Weird Wave’ borrow elements of the theatre of the absurd, yet present them in a semi-realistic form of well-paced and traditionally edited sequences. Tsangari’s camera is largely static or at least unobtrusive, producing equally coldly detached representations of cosy interiors of Spyros’ and Marina’s home and the sterile spaciousness of the hospital in which Spyros’ receives treatments. (Yorgos Lanthimos plays the role of Marina’s love interest in Attenberg, which was released a year after Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, and the connection between the two — their matter-of-factly way of portraying oddly mechanistic relationships — can hardly be left unnoticed.)

It may seem that Marina’s unapologetic repulsion by actions that mostly come naturally to people — such as kissing or having sex — evokes the sense of discomfort and oddity in its viewer (aka me). However, I would argue that it is not merely the actions or emotions of the protagonist that appear strange, but the detached style of narration that produces a sense of unavoidable eeriness, permeating every space in Tsangari’s film. Unlike Roman Polanski’s psychological horror Repulsion (1965) — it depicts a woman (Catherine Deneuve) repulsed by the omnipresence of eroticism — which creates a sense of doom and horrific disorientation by means of form, Attenberg maintains straightforward cinematography and non-experimental editing. Instead of generating a diegetic world, she looks at that world with stranger’s eyes, unbiasedness of which only emphasises the mismatch between Marina and the world she inhabits.

More than that — this mode of narration results in the avoidance of manipulation of the viewer’s emotions, even when one is presented with the tender relationship between Marina and her dying father. Or, rather, it results in manipulation of the viewer to watch emotionlessly. This choice is reinforced by the script. While it is apparent that Spyros is terminally ill, the father and daughter continue to  casually play word games, where each of them has to say a word that rhymes with the previous one and eventually resort to nonsense and animal sounds. They also have conversations about sexuality, which undermine the seemingly stable notions of morality and social conventions — especially when Spyros explains to Marina that incest is bad because it will result in an unhealthy offspring (and not because it is simply wrong).

I am struggling to make up my mind as to whether Attenberg is utterly cynical [the world is as it is, your father will die and you will disperse his ashes over the sea, and there is nothing natural or unnatural as long as the offspring is healthy] or incredibly tender [the world is as it is, but even though people are no better than other mammals, you will find someone with whom previously repulsive activities will suddenly become pleasant]. In either case, Tsangari’s accomplishment is that her detached manner exhibits no Haneke-type haughtiness. All in all, I’d like to think it’s the latter. But even if it is, there is something quite sad about the fact that people are no better than animals in Sir David Attenborough’s programmes, where he says: “If there was ever a possibility to escape human condition and live imaginatively, it must be with a gorilla”.