Orange, food or fashion*

“Tell me the truth!”

– choir

An allegorical, psychedelic retelling of Genesis 3 and the Fall of Man

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Celebrating Dia de Los Muertos [on November 1 and 2, of course]: a cemetery, coffin, or dead person*

“When we began to compare the typically American, typically European, and typically Russian films, we noticed that they were distinctly different from one another in their construction. We noticed that in a particular sequence of a Russian film there were, say, ten to fifteen splices, ten to fifteen different set-ups. In the European film there might be twenty to thirty such set-ups (one must not forget that this description pertains to the year 1916), while in the American film there would be from eighty, sometimes upward to a hundred, separate shots. The American films took first place in eliciting reactions from the audience; European films took second; and the Russian films, third. We became particularly intrigued by this, but in the beginning we did not understand it.”

– Lev Kuleshov, The Principles of Montage, from The Practice of Film Direction (pp. 183-195) (source)

Director Lev Kuleshov explains what happens when a scene is followed by a reaction shot. Depending on the preceding image, the viewer projects an emotion onto the performer's facial expression. In his most famous montage, made up of existing footage – because property is theft, we see matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine “react” to a bowl of soup, a little girl in a coffin, and a woman sprawled out on a divan.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Orange: a building or structure*

“Today is the first day of a life of sacrifice.”

– Moritoo Endō

Partially filmed near the 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Shrine) with its striking vermilion torii.

 

Shot on Eastmancolor, relatively cheap and globally available, and influenced by Hollywood colour melodramas of the time, in particularly Rudolph Maté's Mississippi Gambler (1953) (source), and in its turn greatly influenced the implementation of colour in global cinema to come.

 

Jigokumon won two Academy Awards in 1955, for Best Costume Design and Best Foreign Language Film.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Red: best use of red in food or fashion*

“She looked at the red shoes, for she thought there was no harm in looking. She put them on, for she thought there was no harm in that either. But then she went to the ball and began dancing. When she tried to turn to the right, the shoes turned to the left. When she wanted to dance up the ballroom, her shoes danced down. They danced down the stairs, into the street, and out through the gate of the town. Dance she did, and dance she must, straight into the dark woods.”

– Hans Christian Andersen, De røde Skoe (1845, tranl. Jean Hersholt, 1949), via

Another one of The Archers' #Technicolor extravaganzas. This time, not to wow the worn-down post-war black-and-white audience, but as an an active storytelling instrument.

 

Built around Hans Christian Andersen's haunting tale De røde Skoe (1845).

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

A kite in celebration of 浜松まつり, the Hamamatsu Kite Festival, which takes place on May 3–5*

 

Favela kids steal kites and sell them on in this Copacabana-set Nordic drama.

 

Toninho Carlos de Lima, Rico in the movie, was not a homeless kid from the favelas but lived in a house with his family when he was send to Sweden to promote Mitt hem är Copacabana. A wealthy Swedish couple offered to adopt him, and his natural mother reluctantly gave in hoping to prevent a life of crime for her son (source). That too, dear reader, is colonialism.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Red: a building or structure*

“It's just a dream, Agnes.”

– Anna

Red as an expression of inner and outer worlds. Even the scene transitions are red.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for August is not date-related but lists, for the most part, the colours of the rainbow.

Someone goes to work*

“Du, Wolf, nächsten Sonntag — ?”

– title card

Berliners rest on Sunday, we still do. People lounge in the many parks, and on the shores of the city's many lakes. And then, it's Monday.

 

Released in 1929, according to Atlas Film, who restored this important Weimar classic long before Criterion put their grubby hands on it.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Someone is sad, or cries*

 

A wealthy Athenian writer on holiday on Hydra falls for the morose Marina (Ellie Lambeti), one of the daughters of his widowed innkeeper, causing disruption in the close-knit island community.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

A character has a camera or takes photos*

 

It buzzes on the set of Le mépris. These mosquitos, the Italians say paparazzi, swarm La Bardot and making it merely impossible for anyone – themselves included – to do their job. But Bardot knows them, too well, and gives them what they want, when she wants it.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.

Local nightlife: people dancing or at a show*

“Don't know why There's no sun up in the sky Stormy weather Since my man and I ain't together Keeps raining all of the time

Oh, yeah Life is bad Gloom and misery everywhere Stormy weather, stormy weather And I just can get my poor self together Oh, I'm weary all of the time The time, so weary all of the time

When he went away The blues walked in and met me Oh, yeah if he stays away Old rocking chair's gonna get me All I do is pray The Lord will let me Walk in the sun once more

Oh, I can't go on, can't go on, can't go on Everything I have is gone Stormy weather, stormy weather Since my man and I, me and my daddy ain't together Keeps raining all of the time Oh, oh, keeps raining all of the time Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah raining all of the time Stormy stormy Stormy weather Yeah”

– Elisabeth Welch, Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler, 1933)

A radiant Goddess (Elisabeth Welch) performs the torch song Stormy Weather. Enchanted sailors dance.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for July is, for unknown reasons, mostly not date-related and follows some sort of vacation narrative.