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emmathornston
Reviews
The Last Boy (2019)
Blown away...
From some of the reviews a few people don't like or get this film but that's fine, everyone's entitled to their opinion as I'm sure they don't have a problem with people who do like the film expressing their opinion. For me, The Last Boy, is a great story told very well and personally I was deeply affected by this film.
I've read the poetry of Kahlil Gabron and discovered Rumi watching this film.I'm no new age hippy but I have an open mind and don't buy the usual human origin BS. This movie took me down the rabbit hole.
So lots of references to Birdbox, Happening, the 100 and so-on which I think are way off the mark once you look beyond the group of people/journey/danger similarities. Tarkovsky's stalker is a better comparison but is still way different from the world Bhandal has created.
First is the wind really a killer wind? Because let's face it when people are turned to ash where do they go? Are they dead? Apperently not because three of them come back at the end in the place that grants wishes.
Bhandals playing with some pretty esoteric themes here, energy fields, portals to other worlds, the displacement of humanity but what I think this film is about is the power of Love.
The religious tones in this film are overt with the priest and his church (why did Bhandal choose that over any number of different bad guys) and subliminal with the place that grants wishes. I got the whole character motivaton thing Sira wants his mum back, Lilly wants her father back, Jesse wants the world back to the way it was (but she wants something else as the end) and Jay wants his wife back all compelling reasons to risk a journey to a place that grants wishes.
So they band together and in true selfish scientist fashion its Jesse who causes Lilly to be taken by the wind by her obsession with trying to find a scientific explanation for the wind and trying to replicate Sira's power. We find early on that he can deflect the wind with his mind. The question is where did this power come from? Is it a natural evolution of the human species to be able to survive the wind or has been changed somehow.
So Lilly gone and Jesse gets her equipment that will help her explain/control the wind and the three get to the place that grants wishes. That place is a field...yep a field. And it connects right back to the beginning of the film with the quote from Rumi 'beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field I will meet you there'. This suggests Bhandal knows exactly what he's doing. But wait when Rumi says 'field' does he mean a 'physical field' the field of grass or an 'energy field' or both?
When they arrive the field (of grass) transforms, the sky changes, church bells sound out, all very overtly religous. All the colours of the world change. Then the wind arrives, but not for them but to create a barrier before them.
Jay, Jesse and Sira are trying to work out what's going on and why the wind isn't attacking when a figure appears bang smack in the middle of the wind protected by an 'energy field' surrounding them! Is this what Bhandal meant by 'field' from the quote by Rumi.
The figure is Jays wife. So he sees his wife, the woman he has been grieving for and uppermost in his thoughts, materialised and he can't get to her because of the wind surrounding her. Now put yourself in this position the person you have wished for stands just a short distance away what would you do?
Well they have Sira who uses his power to create a tunnel of the arches like a cathedral presumably made of the same energy protecting Jay's wife.
Jesse tries to analyse what Sira's doing as Sira tries to keep the arches intact as the wind gets stronger (is it alive, does it know?). As the arches collapse Jay runs to his wife but is caught before he can get to her. And he's turned to ash and his wife's protective field collapses and she's turned to ash for the second time. So what's the energy field? Is Bhandal alluding to what Gregg Braden talks about the energy field that emanates from all humans. Could it be 'Love'? The most powerful energy field that emanates from humans. Because Love is the only explanation that makes sense to me. Jay's wife's Love/Field keeps her alive in the wind and when Jay doesn't reach her in time and he's turned to ash, the Love turns to Grief and her Field collapses and she too is taken by the wind.
So Jesse and Sira and the wind are left. Then another figure appears Sira's mum and she too is enveloped in a Field (of Love). Jesse has learnt about the wind so can help him cross and he begins the walk through the tunnel, again the wind increases in power (to test his Love).
Sira redoubles his efforts and another figure appears beside his Mother, Lilly. And that is when we find out that what Jesse really wants is to atone for Lilly's death and wishes her back into life 'She was my wish'.
So Sira approaches his Mother and Sira both in their separate fields, unaware of each other.
They both hold out their hands to him and his mother tells him he has to decide. Presumably if he picks one the other will turn to ash again like with Jays wife.
Then. Sira's mother quotes from the same Rumi poem that Lilly read at an abandoned house they stayed again. A quote about portals, and moving back and forth across two worlds. Is that what they are doing? Is that where everyone has disappeared to.
The wind builds and the tunnel is collapsing and Sira must decide so he takes there outstretched hands and binds them together, his mum's in Lilly's, their fields merge together and they look at each other as if for the first time, the field getting bigger and then they turn and walk into a blinding light leaving sira to be taken by the wind as the tunnel collapses.
But the field (love) that surrounds Lilly and Siras mum as they walk into the light expands (is this because of the love for each other? for Sira?) and pushes all of the wind away, leaving Sira safe and returning the field back to normal.
So is the place that grants wishes a test of love? Why didn't Jay make it to his wife, was there doubt in his mind, why didn't his wifes field/love expand to encompass and protect him? Did she not love him enough? And are they all still alive in another world 'where the two worlds touch' and if they are how do they come back if there is no-one left to wish for them, are they forgotten forever?
The possibilities are endless and mind boggling. The is a film for our times. Maybe a little too soon. This film has played on my mind ever since I watched it. Judging from Bhandal's background and his previous film there's nothing to suggest any of this was intentional.
It's a beautiful story full of hope for us as a species, it's a brave film to make in these times.
I've given it an 8 but in my heart it's a 10.
Infinity: The Ultimate Trip - Journey Beyond Death (2009)
So much truth
Gregg Braden brings a perspective so compelling - so full of truth. We are a society that has had our third eye well and truly closed. Our spirituality caged and our potential capped. We are limitless beings, we just have lost the potential or I would believe it to be temporary. Now is a time of change for the human condition and for our true selves. We are more than our physical form and Gregg Baden explains how and provides proven and peer reviewed scientific research in support. People are waking up, we're ignoring the same old stories and search out the truth.
10/10
Heal (2017)
Amazing
The introduction of the concept positing that by re-arranging one's mental make-up and by re-directing one's frame of mind's accent and focus, one could acquire the capability to transform, re-shape and, by doing so, drastically improve one's existential well-being - i.e. financial and social circumstances is among the few most underrated scientific breakthroughs in human history.
Zerkalo (1975)
Utterly absorbing
Many films allow one immediate response; you know while watching how effective it is and at the end are geared for talking or writing about what you have just seen.
Others, you need to spend time with. This -- I am guessing here -- is because the truly great so lead our imagination that we need to heal or grow after the experience and only then assess what has happened. Surely when you are in this film, you know something special is going on: there are some true transcendences of the eye; very dimensional, surprising. Just as you have established the field of vision and registered the one thing you expect to see, the camera moves in an unexpected manner to reveal either a completely extra or contradictory reality.
Those moments thrill, but confuse at the same time because in lesser hands, this would be an excuse for noodling about with the 'story' in a superficially artsy-fartsy manner. Only after some time can you evaluate how effectively this might have slipped between the sheets of your minds. It is a matter of some interest to me how this happens when it does. Is it a matter of the artist knowing us better than we do ourselves and slipping into our dreams unawares? Or is a matter of creating an attractive castle that we are drawn to and inhabit?
Generally, when an artist is called 'personal,' it is thought to be the latter. But in this case, I think most of what he has done is find that universal manner of overlapping and merging that underlies the visual memory of us all. What confuses is the Soviet environment: the intensely uncoordinated industrial environment and the once fine but now dilapidated urban residences. They transport us to a different place: the unfamiliar described in a familiar way.
Surely this is not what he intended: he didn't make this for a comfortable American/European. And if not made just for himself it was for people who shared the same world. So at least as far as the content, we are attracted to an unfamiliar castle. But so far as the 'personal' form, I think he has found something strangely cosmic. This may be the best film (with Rublev) of one of the three most important filmmakers in history.
Stalker (1979)
One of my all time favourites
The characters at the heart of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" are people who embark on an arduous journey only to discover that they had no idea what they wanted to gain from it. The central character is a "stalker," a man who makes a living by illegally escorting people through a restricted area to The Room, a place where their greatest wish will supposedly come true. Exactly why the area is restricted is never made perfectly clear; in the novel this film is partially based on, "The Roadside Picnic," it was a site where aliens briefly landed, and The Room was an object they left behind almost as if it were refuse. But Tarkovsky would rather not settle for such a flat explanation. To him, The Room is a place that means different things to the people who journey there, and the stark, ravished landscape they must journey through consists of the phobias and anxieties that they can hardly bear to face. The expedition the men experience is a long and often maddening one, and there are many scenes where the camera lingers on a beautifully composed shot so that the viewer can take time to understand how the characters fit into the settings and how those settings form both natural and supernatural obstacles.
Andrei Tarkovsky was an artist who did not like giving solid answers to the questions his films posed. He sculpted his stories so that viewers who had the patience and self-discipline to stay attentive all the way through could draw their own conclusions. If there is any specific meaning to "Stalker," it is that we have to fully understand anything for which we are willing to alter our lives.
Solyaris (1972)
So much subtext - amazing
It's now been some years since I last watched it. Still, I can't get rid of the impressions of emptiness, absurdity and impossibility to understand (the world, and the human mind) that this movie left into me. It can be violent to your mind, without showing a single violent image (by the way, I often see this movie as a counterpart to Clockwork Orange, even more than to 2001). It can stun you, with ten or twenty minutes of incomprehensible silence. It can deprive you of any certainty in the laws of nature - such as, people only die once - and thus leave you vulnerable and naked.
I know that many friends to whom I've shown this move did not understand it. So I'm not saying you'll like it. But this is possibly the best (non-action) sci-fi movie ever made.
Watch it at night, alone, when everything out of your home is dark, silent, and cold.
Eraserhead (1977)
Metaphysical Masterpiece
Let's say it right here and now: David Lynch is a genius. I don't care if you love him or hate him, you can't take away that simple fact. "Eraserhead" is his masterpiece -- the most original and personal film ever created by any film maker. It's as far from the forgettable fluff of mainstream Hollywood as you can get, and as weird as it is, it strikes a chord deep in the human psyche. I don't think anyone could experience this film without being deeply moved. This beautiful, industrial nightmare comes as close to depicting a fever dream as any film ever could, or ever will! David Lynch pulled out all the stops to make "Eraserhead" as perfect as any film can be, and it shows. It is a great work of art in its own right. The characters and setting are unforgettable, and are as strange as they are familiar. The story is slow-moving, but steadily builds with the fury of a small hurricane. The film walks a tightrope somewhere between the reality of the world we know, and "someplace else." Where that is, only David Lynch knows for sure. Lynch is a fine example of a film maker who isn't afraid to take huge risks. That's how masterpieces are made. "Eraserhead" is the proof.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Definitive Lynch
This has always been a unique crime movie, like no story I have seen before or since. In numerous ways, it's a sick film...but utterly fascinating, even after a handful of viewings. It's a certainly a trademark of director David Lynch with its bizarre story and twists and strange characters.
This movie has one of the most evil characters ever put on screen: "Frank Booth," played by Dennis Hopper. The latter is known for playing psychotic killers and this role tops them all. Hopper was never sicker. Almost as bizarre as him is the female victim in here, "Dorothy Vallens," played a mysterious Isabella Rossellini.
Kyle MacLaclan is good as the nosy late-teen who just has to find out what is going on in Dorothy's apartment while girlfriend Laura Dern gets caught up in his curiosity.
In a movie that features strange characters, the strangest scene of them - and there are a number - is in Booth's apartment with Dean Stockwell and his friends. Stockwell's lip-synching to an old Roy Orbison song is really freaky. Make no mistake, though: as bizarre as this film can get, it's mostly a very suspenseful crime story that can get very uncomfortable to watch at times. The language in this film was surprisingly tame.....until Hopper enters the scene. He's about the only character who uses profanity but he makes up for the others by using the f-word in about every sentence. He is so over-the-top, though, that after the initial shock seeing this movie once or twice, I know almost laugh out loud at him and way he acts.
Visually and audibly, this is another interesting Lynch movie with superb colors, creepy camera angles and a diverse soundtrack. You hear everything from lush classical music to old rock 'n roll songs, and a bunch of bizarre noises (sound effects).
From discussions I've had, this seems to be a film people love or hate. There is not much room for middle ground. Lynch has done much "nicer" films such as "The Straight Story," crazier films ("Wild At Heart," "Eraserhead") and classier movies ("The Elephant Man") but this will be his trademark film: the one above others he will be remembered for, good or bad.
Dune (1984)
Amazing
This film is one of the most lavish and elegant science fiction movies ever made. I think it's wonderful, and am happy to have it in my collection.
The movie itself inspired me to read the next couple of books in the series.
I do agree however that there are some scenes that need to be added in a definitive collection. There are a couple of sequences from the Alan Smithee bootleg version - such as when the water of the Fremen warrior that Paul defeated in combat is re-absorbed into the collective water supply - that are absolutely vital to the story. Yet scenes like this were cut out of the final movie version that we all see on DVD.