I suppose what it all boils down to are preconceived notions and expectations.

Although Michel Gondry's latest feature film, The Science of Sleep, received relatively good reviews, a fine share of critics; as well as moviegoers; were left disappointed. Many of 'em probably expected another Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a collaborative effort between Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, and what they got in return, however, was pure Gondry.

This is not to say that Eternal Sunshine does not bear any Michel Gondry trademarks. A number of visual tricks Gondry utilized in his music videos, including forced perspective and time-lapse photography, were put to use once again. The biggest difference between Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep, nonetheless, appears to be the degree of Gondrian style used: in the former, Gondry's organically dream-like visuals merely reinforced Kaufman's sci-fi device of memory erasure and decay; whereas in the latter, Gondry's visuals convey a rambunctiously creative mindset; and to anyone not well-acquainted with Gondry's bold signature visuals in his music videos, it can be very overwhelming.

In Science of Sleep, the aforementioned mindset belongs to Stephane, a twentysomething year old man-child (played to earnest perfection by Gael Garcia Bernal), who returns home to his divorced mother and childhood Parisian apartment, following his father's death from cancer. During his stay, Stephane's mom promises him a job as an illustrator at a local calendar company. The job, however, turns out to be less than promising: it is a typical 9-to-5 office gopher slot, and Stephane, under such circumstances, is forced to comply.

Stephane has a habit of switching to dream mode when waking life is too banal, and work, it appears, is no exception. Gondry playfully concocts a dream life for his hero, replete with stop-motion animation, projection tricks and yes, familiar characters from his own waking life (Stéphane's boss, co-workers, and new next-door-love interest).

Some critics, whom were obviously less than enamored by Gondry's animated concoctions in Science of Sleep, have since expressed their concern about how "narcissistic" and "puerile" the film is at long stretches. But I'd argue here that the dreams can only be deemed narcissistic if removable from any context, whatsoever. During the dream sequences, Gondry self-reflexively plays up its ego-centric nature to a comic effect (i.e. Stephane bossing his bosses around at work, the love interest delivering countless kisses upon both of his cheeks on a ski trip).

Science of Sleep is not so much an homage to dreaming as it is a bittersweet tale of what happens when an individual is unable to differentiate between the real and unreal, between what he wants to have and what he, ultimately, cannot have. For Gondry, the dream state is a double-edged sword: it may nourish Stephane's fragile, neurotic ego, for all that we know, but it can also, to a devastating effect, create an irreversible barrier between him and the outside world.

The unattainable object of Stephane's affections is Stephanie (Charlottte Gainsbourg, the lovely epitome of jolie-laide), who resides in the same apartment as he does (his mom is her landlord). Stephane and Stephanie both share a love for the creative and whimsical, and it is nowhere more apparent than in their playful interactions with Stephane's crafty toys. But the stars do not seem to align for the two; Stephane sends Stephanie mixed signals on two separate occasions. First, he falls head over heels for her friend, oblivious to the fact that Stephanie is, in fact, the one for him. And then, upon such a realization (call it "love at second sight"), he finds himself performing a series of embarrassing missteps that alienate the once enchanted Stephanie.

In light of Science of Sleep's sad ending, it is apt to say that for all of Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep's narrative and stylistic differences, the two converge at their bittersweet endings. I shall quote my much more articulate friend in his succinct description of why Gondry's romantic vision stands out: "Michel Gondry is quickly carving his own voice in the world of romantic filmmaking- that of an artist who understands as much about what destroys love as he does about what makes it so beautiful to be in to begin with."

In Eternal Sunshine, the opposites-attract match of Joel and Clementine disintegrate after they find one another's polar personalities (Joel is bland and reserved; Clementine, colorful and impulsive) to be unappealing with the passing of time.

The same can be said here in Science of Sleep; the similars-attract pairing of Stephane and Stephanie hit a nose-dive, once Stephanie realizes that Stephane's fanciful dreams are too spiraling for her tastes. As passive voyeurs, we are simply left with fragments of happy memories that in its uniquely bittersweet way; explain why these two people can no longer be together anymore.

Posted by Tram at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Our tactics are as varied as our genders, our activism as hot as our sex and our resistance as untethered as our desires.

An independent short film Homotopia follows radical queers "dedicated to exposing the trouble with gay marriage, dismantling the State, undoing Empire, while looking totally fierce." It'll be touring the Northeast US in October, spreading subversion with each screening.

Self-consciously patterned after "radical feminist guerilla cinema of the 1970s" (or 1983... Born in Flames anyone?), you probably won't see this one at VIFF or NYFF or SIFF or TIFF - this is cinema in the streets!

"Set sometime in the future-present Homotopia chronicles a group of radical queers dedicated to exposing the trouble with gay marriage, dismantling the State, undoing Empire, while looking totally fierce. Woven into the story of Yoshi's adventures in love, resistance, and sex, is a critique of the crushing violence of homonormativity and its deadly perpetuation of US patriotism, conservative kinship structures and affective accumulation. Homotopia holds cinematic assumptions hostage through its motley assemblage of never-passing crew. Race, gender, ability and desire are reworked through an anti-colonial take of queer struggle creating a visual rhythm of melancholic utopianism that knows there may be no future but still hopes today is not their last. Love revolution, not State delusion, Homotopia."

More at the Homotopia website.

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In the latest issue of Clamor magazine, writer and activist Tamara K. Nopper speaks with filmmaker Aisha Shahidah Simmons about the politics of distribution, white liberal Hollywood and hip-hop. Simmons is currently distributing her documentary NO!, which chronicles rape and healing within the African American community and relates this violence to white supremacy, slavery, sexism, and homophobia.

The Power of NO!
An Interview with Black Lesbian Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons
By Tamara K. Nopper

It has taken rape and incest survivor, activist, and filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons 11 years to complete her documentary , which chronicles rape and healing within the African American community and relates this violence to white supremacy, slavery, sexism, and homophobia. Now that the film is finished, Simmons faces her next hurdle: getting NO! out to the public and navigating the politics of distribution. Although getting institutional support for a film is a normal challenge for any director, it is even more challenging for Simmons because NO! does what many films don't: centralizes Black women's experiences and analyses. Clamor talks to Simmons about this process.

In this interview we touch upon trying to get work out in film festivals, racism and liberal Hollywood, politics of talking about women in hip hop, and the power of naming one's own cultural and political community.

Read on at Clamor.

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Here it is the fifth anniversary of September 11th, 2001, and I'm thinking of the video store I work at, one of the few unmediated windows into the world I have these days. The store carries some sort of Kevin Costner-narrated patriotic number called On Native Soul, as well a handful of films more negative towards the Bush administration. Of all them, 9/11: In Plane Site, a conspiracy doc, is definitely the top renter.

Now, I don't know if there's anything to these 9/11 conspiracy theories. But frankly, I don't really care. Of course, it would be great to know what happened on that fateful day. It'd be great to know who killed Kennedy too. It'd be great to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth about a million and one political events in history. But even if I did know the truth about all of them, it wouldn't impact my own little world.

This is what bugs me most about the conspiracy theorists (and also anyone single-mindedly anti-Bush): so preoccupied with the machinations and motivations of the powerful, they forget what makes movements for social justice the most effective. Not speaking truth to power — as if power didn't know what it was doing, as Ward Churchill likes to smugly quip — but organizing people, building power. When political struggle becomes part of peoples' daily lives, and not, say, a congressional hearing on a television screen, that's when it becomes the most dangerous.¹ I can see how conspiracy theories contribute to a great deal of cynicism, but not much else.

Peter Watkins' 1971 film Punishment Park is not a conspiracy theory, but its premise teeters on the brink. Filmed in the wake of 1968, the shootings at Kent State, and all that, the movie is a simulated documentary depicting what many — especially young people — had feared America had become at the time, and what conspiracy jockies fear looms today: a fascist state. The film's footage inter-cuts between a citizen tribunal trying a string of politically conscious twenty-somethings for "subversive activity," and another group of young people struggling to survive the tribunal's favorite sentence: punishment park, a hellish three-day obstacle course and training ground for law enforcement officials found somewhere in the deserts of the American southwest.

Because I've grown tired of the impotent mixture of political cynicism and paranoia of conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios — a recipe for apathy if there ever was one — I dreaded Punisher Park would be nothing but a gloomy, glory rendition of repression. I feared that, like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, we'd be treated to a hyperbolic harangue overly focused on the latest fascism at the expense of resistance to oppression, the social movements that ebb and flow in our midst on a daily basis. Thankfully, I found a film whose premise lies equally in the political resistance of the Sixties as it does on political repression.

Much of this Peter Watkins' himself spells out in an introduction to the film appearing on New Yorker's DVD release. While many of the characters are modeled after real-life activists — in some cases, like the binding and gagging of a black militant ala Bobby Seale, quite obviously — Watkins apparently encouraged the young actors in the film to express their own opinions and views. This created an alternative media outlet for their radical ideas while at the same time testing the boundaries between documentary and fiction, much like Medium Cool had a few years prior.

In this way, Punishment Park is able to serve as an example, thirty years later, of the strengths and weaknesses of the political movement at the time, and a benchmark for movements today. The film is strong in demonstrating the institutional nature of oppression, and the ways in which repression is a reaction to resistance. In one scene, the tribunal takes offense at a young black militant's language, equating the hurt they feel at being called a "pig" with the oppression of racism. The militant quickly shoots back that the little power he has is in calling the tribunal bad names — and that the tribunal itself, all white and middle class with one important exception, will have to give up a whole lot more than their good names before anything truly changes. Soon after, the tribunal members take a lunch break, indulging their petty concerns to the camera over hamburgers and potato chips.

At other times, the concerns of the movement itself seem rather petty. When one hippie laments the police killed a young white kid "because they can't allow a poet to exist in this society," the absurdity of it illustrates how the white counterculture took itself too seriously. In another instance, another young white dude is brought before the tribunal for draft evasion, and in a doggedly stoic mumble, explains he who just wants to do "his own thing." Despite what Punishment Park suggests, these two dudes, white male poet loners — two poles of the Beat Generation prototype — were actually among the few to emerge from the Sixties as cultural victors. Which, in the big picture, really wasn't much of a victory at all, but more a recapitulation of everything America has always been, going back to Huck Finn and beyond: individualistic, irresponsible and eventually sold out. It would have been nice to see the film break from its fake documentary format in the final scene, to have the survivor's of the park don business suits in the manner of Yuppie-cum-stockbroker Jerry Rubin, marching off happy in the manner of Tim Robbins in Robert Altman's The Player - though I admit such a scene only seems appropriate because of the hindsight that the present affords.

Seeing Punishment Park today changes its meanings considerably, a fact that becomes especially evident when Watkins provides a short summary of critics' initial reactions to the film in his introduction. Many critics considered the picture a wild sadist's political dreams come true, ignoring — as coolly Watkins coolly observes — that much of what occurs on-screen in Punishment Park was happening in real life to the Vietnamese abroad and the Black Power and student movements at home, all at the hands of the American government.

With all these critics' talk of hard-to-watch, pain-inducing narrative — something I'm not a fan of — I tried to prepare myself to be uncomfortable and pissed off by Punishment Park. But the film's effect has clearly aged with time. I found Watkin's supposed sadism to be merely picking scabs compared to the "toilet-snake to the soul" cinema we know today, what with the likes of Von Trier and Asia Extreme². Perhaps it's that the "fake documentary" style has lost its Brechtian bite at the hands of Christopher Guest comedies and the Blair Witch bunch, I can't be sure.

While the visceral effect the film's violence once had on viewers may be lost, Punisher Park still has relevance today beyond historical significance. Watkins' introduction connects the dots to contemporary issues of repression, suggesting Gitmo and the PATRIOT Act among other things as possible analogies to the tribunals and punishment parks in the film. The comparisons are apt, certainly, but as I've said, I'm more interested in the resistance side of things — and thankfully the film comes through on this front as well. The credits of the film reveal what the narrative has already established: of the young people marching through the desert, some are "militants," some are "semi-militants," while others are "pacifists." When the law enforcement surrounding them increases the repression, each group decides to face it in a different way, and the result is intriguing.

Unfortunately, Watkins only takes this so far. By the final reel, he has subjected all these characters to a common fate. Though providing short vivid glimpses of a world outside, Punishment Park itself is trapped in a punishment park; its structure as a repressive fantasy ultimately muddies the film's greater intentions. Perhaps Watkin understands this; in the introduction, he critiques the film for adhering to the "monoform," though he never defines the term. No matter - not only does Punishment Park beat out Zabriskie Point as the best Sixties-counterculture-lost-in-the-desert movie, I'd also recommend it over a 9/11 conspiracy doc any day.

NOTES
¹ An entire strain of Marxist thought, "autonomous Marxism," is devoted to this idea. They consider most Marxist scholars to be far too concerned with capitalism's oppression , failing to recognize the "self-valorization," or self-organization, of the working class to resist capitalism. Now, I like the idea, they're a cool bunch of Marxists, and everything I've read by them has been intriguing. But ideologically speaking, I think anarchism has never had a need for a fancy qualifier like "autonomous" to prove its all about people organizing themselves.
²The toilet-snake quote is taken from a critic cited on the box of some Takashi Miike movie at my work.
³Though I'll admit I'm yet to see Roger Corman's post-apocalyptic hippie flick, Gas-s-s-s.

Posted by Andrew at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In the late 1960s, Hollywood produced a couple of films meant to capitalize on the youth counterculture, including Wild in the Streets and The Strawberry Statement. I've never seen them (though I'd love to), but have read they are laughably awful - and can only hope that Stuart Townsend's upcoming take on the WTO protests, "Battle in Seattle," is as forgettable, and at least worth a laugh.

But I won't hold my breath. My guess, particularly with Townsend's allusions to Crash, is that "Battle in Seattle" will amount to one big headache. Why this film, why now? The only reason I can imagine their being any interest in making a big-budget Hollywood A-list picture about the WTO protests is that it provides viscerally exciting subject matter. For what is their to say about the protests that hasn't been said already, in a different medium? This is probably just another occasion to return to some of the better documentaries on the protests, like This is What Democracy Looks Like or Breaking the Spell (even if both films are little more than rock videos or riot porn at times).

In print, Confronting Capitalism probably provides the most thorough accounting of the events and debates of the movement that Seattle brought to the media's attention. It expands the focus on the movement to a global level, and includes seminal articles from dicussions within the movement, like Elizabeth Martinez's Where Was the Color in Seattle? It also provides some interesting articles on how the Seattle protests not only made delegates uncomfortable, but also helped run the WTO's aspirations into the ground in future meetings.

Another question on my mind: if not even participants in the events can get the story right, what will Hollywood do? I'm referring to John Sellers' comment below about "50 scary-looking kids from Oregon," which plays into the old media myth about "Eugene anarchists" invading Seattle.

Unless this film miraculously pulls a Medium Cool, I'm in complete agreement with Nick Licata on this one: ""I think it's going to be real difficult in two hours to do a movie that makes any sense. I'm sure the movie will never touch on the 16 to 20 hours of public testimony we heard afterwards. Man, that was gruesome." Charlize's baby won't be the only thing lost in this movie.

Lights! Camera! Tear gas! WTO riots to be a movie

By Bob Young
Seattle Times staff reporter

Charlize Theron will play a pregnant bystander who loses her baby in Seattle's WTO riots. Susan Sarandon may take the part of a newscaster sympathetic to the protesters.

Former Mayor Paul Schell just hopes the movie re-enacting one of the worst chapters of his political life tells "the whole story about the 21st-century Boston Tea Party."

It's true: Academy Award winner Theron is set to star in a major motion picture about the 1999 anti-globalization protests against the World Trade Organization that rocked Seattle and put our tear-gas-drenched town in an international spotlight.

Written and directed by Theron's boyfriend, Irish actor Stuart Townsend, "Battle in Seattle" is scheduled to start shooting next month — in Vancouver, B.C, where Theron was spotted last weekend nibbling on sushi in a trendy restaurant.

"It's going to be the next 'Sleepless in Seattle,' " said James Keblas, head of Seattle City Hall's film office. "Once you capture a star like Charlize Theron, you are instantly a big picture."

Keblas said he is working hard to get more of the shooting done in Seattle. But industry economics, including cheaper labor and other financial incentives, are driving the production across the border.

Mary Aloe, one of the film's producers, said "Battle in Seattle" will be an independent film with a budget under $10 million. The crew may spend a week shooting in Seattle, Aloe said, and Townsend hopes to use real WTO protesters as extras.

Aloe compared it to last year's Oscar-winning "Crash," in that the script will weave together the stories of an ensemble cast while dealing with serious issues.

"The lead characters run from protesters to pedestrians to police to politicians," Aloe said. "We did not want to give one point of view. When you see the movie, you'll feel a lot of gray areas. It's neither sympathetic or unsympathetic to protesters and police."

Theron's character is "really the voice of an outsider and the most relatable role for the audience because she didn't have any agenda as a protester or political leader," Aloe added.

Theron won the Best Actress Oscar for depicting a prostitute-turned-killer in the 2003 movie "Monster." She recently played a mineworker in "North Country."

In 1999, tens of thousands of activists halted the WTO's first ministerial meeting on U.S. soil. For five days, protests and the police response, including pepper spray and tear gas, dominated local news and brought downtown to a virtual standstill.

Political fallout from the event played a part in the resignation of former Police Chief Norm Stamper and the ouster of Schell, who failed to win re-election in 2001.

The film will explore the "power of the individual" in the face of powerful governments and global corporations, Townsend told The Observer, a British newspaper. He said he was drawn to the WTO protest because it "considers a lot of issues that were diffused somewhat by 9/11."

News of the film prompted jokes and anxiety among those close to the events.

John Sellers, who was then executive director of the Ruckus Society, one of the key organizers of the protests, said he'd like to be played by John Malkovich. City Council President Nick Licata said he'd advise Theron and offered up his personal cellphone number — with his wife's permission.

Schell had no comment on who should play him in the movie, but his wife suggested Robert Redford.

Schell, Sellers and local historian Walt Crowley all expressed concerns about how Hollywood would characterize the "Battle in Seattle."

For all the drama and conflict surrounding WTO, Schell noted that no one was hospitalized, and he said the media overplayed the role of rowdy anarchists from Oregon and "some police overreactions."

Crowley said he was concerned a movie will "overdramatize the berserkers who eclipsed the fact that 40,000 people marched peacefully to register serious concerns about globalization."

Sellers said he hopes the moviemakers give a thoughtful portrayal of protesters.

"I think the temptation will be to have the riot scenes be very provocative and sexy, and I was in the middle of them and they were extremely exciting, but they were without a doubt brought on by the Seattle Police Department. Except for 50 scary-looking kids from Oregon, the other 50,000 behaved in a real principled and disciplined way," Sellers said.

Theron's agent did not return a call, nor did Townsend's manager.

"I think it's going to be real difficult in two hours to do a movie that makes any sense," Licata said. "I'm sure the movie will never touch on the 16 to 20 hours of public testimony we heard afterwards. Man, that was gruesome."

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DIRECTOR JACQUES AUDIARD OPENS HIS FILM, Read My lips (Sur mes lèvres), in shallow focus, as a Parisian woman (played by Emmanuelle Devos) in the frame, appears to be anxiously grappling her hearing aid headphones, whilst manning the phone lines. Her name, as we eventually learn, is Carla, and she is not only physically handicapped, but socially handicapped as well.

Because of her deafness, Carla remains thoroughly underappreciated by her fellow co-workers, who casually mock her as a pity case and burden: a helpless individual who doesn't contribute much to the company. Carla has no choice, however, but to sit passively in her office cubicle, as she lip reads their supposedly discreet conversations.

After suffering from a mini-nervous breakdown, her concerned boss suggests an assistant to help her. At first, Carla is less than flattered — this must be one of their condescending schemes to get rid of her, once and for all, she thought. But after some contemplation, Carla has run up a scheme of her own, and essentially, hires the first applicant interviewed on the spot: Paul, a handsome but roguish ex-convict (Vincent Cassel).

It is in Paul that the lonely Carla finds what she has been looking — and longing — for: a misfit with few alternatives. Carla wants to have a male sidekick in her office. Paul wants to start a new life, period.

A mutually symbiotic relationship grows between the two as they learn to empathize with one another's situation. Carla provides Paul with a job, an advance paycheck, and even an abandoned studio room (in an impending construction site) for Paul to temporarily live in. Paul, in turn, gives Carla something less tangible, but alas, more intimate — companionship and quite frankly, rejuvenated lust (in one later, rather telling, sequence, Carla takes home Paul's stained shirt — where she lives alone — and fondles it gently upon her thigh).

Audiard adds a Hitchcockian twist, as the duo's favors for one another are as sexually charged as they are violently pulsating (it is interesting to note that Audiard's 2004 follow-up, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, is Hitchcockian, in a similar respect, akin to the regard that it chronicles a sexually-frustrated gangster-turned-pianist's shenanigans).

Unlike Hitchcock, however, Audiard's characters — and his entire film — are largely amoral (consider this a contrast to Hitchcock, who slyly infused guilt and morality between the sexually violent frames). In fact, it is the duo's mutual amorality that draws the two even closer — and Audiard, it seems, is content to go along for the ride.

At the office, for example, Paul evens the score with one of Carla's bullying male colleagues by snatching commission documents right from that person's car (a simple task for Paul, who was arrested for theft).

Paul's commanding, masculine presence has given Carla more confidence and power — she no longer feels victimized at her own workplace. Whether or not the ends can justify the means is inconsequential to Carla, who seems to be occupied in a "nothin' to lose" kind of mindset.

The same sense of amorality can certainly be ascribed to Paul, as well, who intends to rob a nightclub owner, following a bloody, threatening visit from an acquaintance keen on getting the dough Paul owes him back. It is, to put it succinctly, a "I'll rob another guy-to-pay-for-my-debt" case scenario.

Carla, by now intensely drawn to Paul, feels compelled to help Paul out with this heist, which shall relieve him of his financial debt. After work, Carla spends her late evenings and nights, freezing outside, on top of a building, and channeling to the bartending Paul, via cellphone, the whereabouts — and verbal conversations, of which she can make out from lip-reading — of Merchand, the man whose money they are attempting to steal.

BY THE END OF THE FIRST ONE-THIRDS MARK, however, Audiard moves the storyline in another direction, as Paul's seedy background comes to haunt him.

One day, Carla walks into the unisex, office bathroom, only to find a bloody, battered Paul languishing upon the ground tiles, following a brutal fight with a debtor named Morel. The disheartened Carla feels compelled to help out Paul get out of this situation as soon as possible (after all, who will be protecting her in the office, if Paul leaves?). Soon enough, the two unhatch a plan: to commit a heist on a tycoon, whose nightclub Paul shall be tending for Morel.

After work, Carla spends her late evenings and nights, freezing outside, on top of a building, and channeling to the bartending Paul, via cellphone, the whereabouts — and verbal conversations, of which she can make out from lip-reading — of Merchand, the man whose money they are attempting to steal.

READ MY LIPS COULD HAVE BEEN ANOTHER BLAND ADDITION to the "one last score"-themed movies. But Audiard, it seems, does not want to settle for anything forgettable (how many heist films have ya seen that revolves around lip-reading?). Although Audiard is not ashamed of the roots of the heist genre (there are an abundant amount of eavesdropping-on-the-run sequences for the fanboys), Audiard makes it obvious to viewers that he's not just focusing on the gun, it's also pays close attention to what happens to the boy and the girl.

Psychological tension arises as the outcome of the heist becomes more uncertain. There's not only the question of whether Paul's heist will succeed (his future hinges upon the outcome), but whether Paul and Carla's relationship will prevail. There is an obvious psychological strain this heist has left upon the sleep-deprived, caffeine-dependent pair, as they spend their days working in the office and nights spying in clubs. And more importantly, are Carla and Paul just too different to make it through this mess?

Ironically, though, by the time, Read My Lips concludes, it is likely that you, the spectator, will think more about the journey than the outcome. The film's thrills are mostly dependent upon the sly, sexual energy lurking between Paul and Carla. Without the tension, there would be a plot, but ultimately, no story. And it just so happens that the story, about the romantic tension between two misfits of different ilks, is what makes Read My Lips stand head and shoulders from the other run-of-the-mill caper flicks.

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When I find myself considering A Clockwork Orange and I'm feeling especially generous — not often, mind you — I think of Kubrick's self-referential moments. As Alex and his hyper-styled band of hooligans descend upon a drunken man, their soon-to-be beating victim offers a decidedly sober critique of 2001: A Space Odyssey: "What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon, and men spinning around the earth, and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more."¹

Bela Tarr's 2000 Werckmeister Harmonies asks the same question, "What sort of a world is it at all?" Like Kubrick, Tarr answers himself with ambitious and ambiguous allegories. Though a very unique film, the world of Wreckmeister is not dissimilar from that of A Clockwork Orange. Though provincial rather than urban, and in Hungary rather than Britian, it is still a place where the politest folk either lock themselves up at home or have their heads in the clouds (or both), leaving responsibility for public affairs in the hands of others. Consequently, drunken male mobs rein in an amoral apocalypse, leaving only the State to step in with repressive measures.

Werckmeister Harmonies follows a day in the life of Janos Valuska, a young night-owl paperboy who marvels at immensity, displaying a keen love for anything huge and ponderous. His very occupation requires he walk through the imposing stillness of the night. In his off-hours he is something of an amateur astronomer — illustrating a solar eclipse at a local tavern with a ballet of dancing drunks — and also looks after the affairs of his friend, a heady, reclusive and aging music theorist. When a Giant Whale attraction comes to town, Janos is the first - perhaps the only one — to come, to pay to see it, in wonder, he says, at the Lord's creations.

The film has the same feeling of immensity that so enthralls Janos, propelling it into a completely uncharted stylistic universe. A Clockwork Orange utilized razor-sharp edits and story arcs to pull the viewer into the film, either through identification with or repulsion from the amoral lead of Alex.² Werckmesiter Harmonies also seduces you, but requires your consent — your patience — in the seduction. It follows the path of a single individual, but its emphasis is on his environment, an atmosphere of brooding banality, shot in dark black and white. It is no doubt the slowest film I have ever seen. It is also one of the sparsest, famed for comprising no more than 39 shots.³ And much like the apocalypse it depicts, it is nearly impossible not to sink into.

Giant Whales, musical scales, solar eclipse — allegory abounds in Tarr's imagery, but what fascinates me most about the film has to do with questions of responsibility in the world. In the world of Werckmeister, everyone is hidden away out of fright or disinterest, from the working class clerks to the middle class intellectuals. One worried clerk on Janos' paper route carefully locks the door behind Jonas as he leaves, while Janos' friend, the music theorist, is a single-minded recluse with no time for anything but music. The old man's maid takes care of the rest, while the very threat of his estranged politicking wife moving back is enough to constitute blackmail. He solemnly dictates into a microphone as Janos looks on, considering musical arrangement as "Not a technical question, but a philosophical question," and talking in terms of"harmonies of the gods" and of course, "Werckmeister harmonies."

Janos, captivated by the theorist, is a young man whose thoughts are clearly in the clouds. According to Thoreau, that's where our thoughts belonged, so long as we built the foundation up from below. Unfortunately, Janos' thoughts are too high and events happen too quickly for any foundation to emerge — and he hardly acknowledges the reality that his cloud is darkening and the earth is falling away until it is too late. First, fearful townies drop small hints: a dangerous crowd of men has gathered in the square, followers of a demagogic "Prince" who tours with the Giant Whale. They complain that coal is in shortage, while the cold is encroaching and transportation no longer works. No one even leaves their homes for fear of violence — accept Janos, who wanders about the town from night 'til morning 'til night again as the apocalypse unfolds. At last, the world falls apart and he falls into it. Yet when law and order arrives, it brings no solution either, only cynical politicking — and a strange fate for Janos.

Speaking of cynical politicking - I can't help but think of the US of A. A certain mild belief in apocalypse holds sway over many in America today; it is a phenomenon as common on the Left as it is on the Right, though the religious trappings maybe absent on the Left. A certain cynicism — far too common — insists that capitalism (or even civilization) will soon collapse under its own weight. Given a decade or two, oil will peak, times are a-changing, a-going straight to hell. I think it matters little whether things will get better or get worse; what is important are opportunities for struggle. This is why the title of the book upon which Werckmeister Harmonies is based especially intrigues me, "The Melancholy of Resistance." I wonder to what that refers, because resistance is what interests me, and resistance is what Janos ultimately fails to muster.

In A Clockwork Orange, the end times arrive because everyone seems too shallow to realize they've come. Authority figures — from Alex's parents to politicians and so on — ignore their social responsibility for creating Alex by believing they can fix him. But in Werckmeister, it is not the shallow ones, but the smartest who disregard disaster. In Tarr's film, the apocalypse is not lived, it descends — the fact that we are left to wonder why makes it that much more horrible. The question to ask ourselves, then, is not how bad it is, or how bad it will be, but how much we're willing to fight to create the world we carry in our hearts. Not to ponder tides of evil, but our collective strength. The question is not "What sort of a world is it at all?" but rather — disregarding for a moment the asshole who phrased it this way⁴ — "What is to be done?"

NOTES:
¹And then of course there's 2001's soundtrack appearing behind Alex as he peruses a record store.
²An example of both: as a teenager growing up in a patriarchal world, I heard far too many friends proclaiming "This movie is fucking awesome!" for all the wrong reasons. Now that I like to think I of myself a feminist, I proclaim Orange "Fucking awful!" for what I hope are all the right reasons.
³Or so I've read; I lost count after 9 or 10.
⁴Lenin, in case you were wondering.

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