Nameless Voice on 17/3/2009 at 21:43
Quote Posted by doctorfrog
It wasn't until after it was over that I found out online the basic mechanic of the machine itself.
Well, that's the thing for me. I hate stories, be they films or games (HL2, I'm looking at
you) or whatever, where you can't understand them without looking for an explanation online. Especially since I'm unlikely to like a film that left me totally confused enough to bother spending much time reading up an explanation of what it was about.
fett on 17/3/2009 at 22:59
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
I also saw this recently. It was one of those films that left me feeling that I was completely stupid because I couldn't make heads or tails of the plot after a certain point.
That's how I felt after watching Pulp Fiction 10 years ago. Turns out the problem was that the movie was just utter shite.
demagogue on 17/3/2009 at 23:12
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Well, that's the thing for me. I hate stories, be they films or games (HL2, I'm looking at
you) or whatever, where you can't understand them without looking for an explanation online. Especially since I'm unlikely to like a film that left me totally confused enough to bother spending much time reading up an explanation of what it was about.
I'm usually the opposite of this. I mean I agree with it for movies I'll only watch one time ... But those aren't always my favorite movies. The movies I really like are the ones I watch repeatedly, and for those I want some depth and complexity, which may or may not be totally understandable on the first run through ... It's ok
as long as (very important point) they are actually understandable
as something interesting once you've cracked it, not just hard-to-follow esoteric wanking for its own sake.
Perfect example: Syriana, or Mulholland Falls
But anymore, I've gotten into the habit of reading the script of a movie before I watch it anyway, esp if I know it's a mindfuck. So it's not as much an issue. You'd be surprised how doing that can really (unexpectedly) open a movie up to you, and doesn't ruin it like you might think.
Nameless Voice on 18/3/2009 at 00:25
Well, like I said, if a film just confuses me so much that I don't even care any more, I'm unlikely to watch it again!
Some amount of unclarity is all right, but I need to still be interested enough to want to know the answers. When the incomprehensible parts add up so much that I don't have a clue any more, I just lose interest in the film.
Note to self: don't watch "Syriana", whatever that is.
demagogue on 18/3/2009 at 00:43
For the record I haven't seen Primer, so I don't know what kind of "incomprehensibility" we're really talking about.
Syriana isn't really that bad. It just moves a little fast for all the characters and twists it has. There's nothing actually confusing about the plot itself.
Mulholland Falls is much worse in the sense that if you don't get that 1/2 of it is a dream, you just don't get it at all.
doctorfrog on 18/3/2009 at 00:43
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Well, that's the thing for me. I hate stories, be they films or games (HL2, I'm looking at
you) or whatever, where you can't understand them without looking for an explanation online. Especially since I'm unlikely to like a film that left me totally confused enough to bother spending much time reading up an explanation of what it was about.
I normally feel the same way about media myself (not about Half Life 2 though). There's usually no good reason why a polished bit of work such as this can't be self-contained and complex at the same time. I stopped playing Nethack for this reason, since it just isn't fun to go searching for hacks and howtos on building 'ascension kits,' it's more fun to 'discover' such things within the scope of the game itself.
Obviously, this rule doesn't work with every artistic work, and it's no requirement for a piece to be good, everything about it must be discoverable within itself. Some forms and some pieces need this self-sufficiency more than other, and some people need things to be more self-contained than others. And of course the curse of real life often leaves us without satisfying explanations for things, though we are driven to seek unified theories for everything.
All this blather aside, the explanation for the function of the machine is actually contained in the movie itself, I just missed it. I later found it online, and it shifted some of the movie into focus. However, I think such explanations are deliberately obscured or spoken about in muffled tones on purpose. It's not because the movie has some greater truth that's more important, but the obscuring of vital details adds to the haze that surrounds the movie, which is what I find so attractive about it in the first place.
EDIT: If we're also bringing Lynch's Mulholland Drive into this, I don't think half of it is a dream. I think the schism halfway through is a deliberate mindfuck that can't be resolved, a crack in reality that causes mental discomfort. Lost Highway had a similar paradox. It's something you can force a solution onto, rail against it as lazy or smug writing, or revel in. I think that's why it closed with [spoiler]the lady saying "Silencio," in other words, "Shut up and don't try to figure this creepy shit out, just be creeped out."[/spoiler]
Stitch on 18/3/2009 at 03:33
I liked the Primer I read about on wikipedia a lot better than the Primer I actually saw. Good movies start once you first finish and grow in clarity with subsequent viewings, but Primer was utterly impenetrable without an accompanying road map. Filmmakers typically should at least attempt to meet viewers in the middle
Angel Dust on 18/3/2009 at 03:45
Quote Posted by doctorfrog
If we're also bringing Lynch's Mulholland Drive into this, I don't think half of it is a dream.
You don't even have to 'force' it into it because there are quite a few things that strongly suggest that the first half is a dream. The first shot after the credits is point of view of a head hitting a pillow and the line the cowboy guys says at the schism about waking up pretty much spells it out. The biggest thing for me though was the acting/lighting and plotting of the first half is quite odd and even hokey in an old school Hollywood way. The second half being fragmented, possible
parts of her life flashing before her eyes as she blows her head off , is quite jarring but fills in the details of why her dream world was like it was. That's not to say that it's a 100% water-tight explanation but I think more than a few pieces of the puzzle fit without even a hint of 'forcing'.
That all said I certainly enjoyed the film the first time through even when I had no idea what was going on so it works on that level too of just reveling in the mood.
demagogue on 18/3/2009 at 04:18
As long as we're talking about it (Mulholland Drive) ... In my reading, it all fit together pretty well.
There were clearly two worlds or parts ... You don't have to call the first a "dream" (although the opening and closing bed scenes push that idea), but the first world to me was clearly an idealized "pinkified" vision of living in Hollywood, where everything is fun and fresh "classic Hollywood", although uncomfortable things from the "real" world kept worming their way in to rock the boat ... the key, the bum, the club ... which she always tries to pinkify, some times better than others. And the second world was clearly a "cold hard reality" vision of how life really turned out (actually, still technically part of the dream IMO; it's more like 1st part censored memory then 2nd part direct memory until she only finally wakes up at the end).
And my interpretation of the "silencio" scene was when the pinkified vision was confronted face to face with the inconsistent reality in the most confrontational way possible, and the dream-lie simply was reduced to absolute silence before it, it had no real basis in reality (the band is gone), the curtain is ripped down, and its whole fake-reality just caves in on itself... It couldn't maintain the lie any longer.
But I could agree it's a little more than "only a dream", which implies it's not very real for her ... It's more like an idealized reality that she tries so desperately to structure her whole life around, and she'll lie to herself in any way possible until she literally can't any longer. And the 'dreaming' angle was just one mechanic to dramatize that deeper thing.
But it's all good. I like to read other interpretations, too. That's one thing I really like about these kinds of movies. You actually have something to talk about when you get out!
doctorfrog on 18/3/2009 at 05:22
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
You don't even have to 'force' it into it because there are quite a few things that strongly suggest that the first half is a dream. The first shot after the credits is point of view of a head hitting a pillow and the line the cowboy guys says at the schism about waking up pretty much spells it out. The biggest thing for me though was the acting/lighting and plotting of the first half is quite odd and even hokey in an old school Hollywood way. The second half being fragmented, possible
parts of her life flashing before her eyes as she blows her head off , is quite jarring but fills in the details of why her dream world was like it was. That's not to say that it's a 100% water-tight explanation but I think more than a few pieces of the puzzle fit without even a hint of 'forcing'.
That all said I certainly enjoyed the film the first time through even when I had no idea what was going on so it works on that level too of just reveling in the mood.
Hm, I had forgotten a few of those details. You've just given me a good reason to pick that movie up again, thanks!
