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Il fiore delle mille e una notte [Arabian Nights] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
Aug
13
cerulean
Cerulean, or blue: a building or structure*
“Eh, i sogni a volte insegnano male, Dùnya, perché la verità intera non è mai in un solo sogno, la verità intera è in molti sogni.”
One of the many exotic locations is the مسجد شاه, [Masjed-e Shah, or Shah Mosque] in Iran with its otherworldly blue and blue-adjacent tiles.
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Il deserto rosso [Red Desert] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964)
Aug
12
green
Valerio (Valerio Bartoleschi) and his mother Giuliana (Monica Vitti) in an arid industrial landscape. Giuliana wears a brilliant green coat, its shade between pea green and moss green, depending on the drabness of the surroundings. DP: Carlo Di Palma.
Green, in food or fashion*
“She'd discovered a small beach far from town, with crystal-clear water and pink sand. She loved that spot. The colors of nature were so beautiful, and there was no noise. She'd leave only when the sun did too.”
– Giuliana
Antonioni's first film in colour beautifully utilises Vitti's brilliance – of her auburn hair, her porcelain teint, her vivid costumes (by Paola Carloni) – against the drab landscape.
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آداب بهاری [Adab-e Bahari / Rites of Spring] (Ali Asghar Agahbanaei, 1982)
Aug
11
spring
In a dewdrop hanging from a rose, the face of a smiling woman appears.
Dita e Verës, a pagan spring celebration from Albania, celebrated in March: a spring scene*
The restless anticipation of spring. Iran as it was before and after the 1979 toppling of the Shah. While the snow melts away, the Revolution takes place, and fresh buds appear on the rose bushes. A poem.
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Хлебный день [Khlebnyy den / Bread Day] (Sergei Dvortsevoy, 1998)
Aug
10
green
The old folks pushing the cart past the hamlet's name sign. With thick brush strokes, almost too much for the small rectangle, it reads TOWNSHIP NR. 3. DP: Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev.
Green: a building or structure*
“That's all the people we've got now. We'll get there somehow.”
As of 2002, only three people lived in Zhikharevo. I wonder how the wain comes home now.
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Du côté de la côte [Along the Coast] (Agnès Varda, 1958)
Aug
9
yellow
Yellow, in food or fashion*
“Tourists prefer the trendy colors, yellow and blue. Pacing fancies, hotels are painted yellow and blue. Blue wins. All women want to be fashionable. All women wear blue, except the English, those learning to swim, and the Germans, who are dedicated to green.”
– narrator
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墮落天使 [Do lok tin si / Fallen Angels] (Wong Kar-Wai, 1995)
Aug
7
yellow
The killer's agent (Michelle Reis) rides an escalator in a yellow and black underground station. She wears an all-black outfit and yellow nail polish (via). DP: Christopher Doyle.
Yellow: a building or structure*
“Just when I really needed a raincoat, he returned to my side. It would be so great if it could rain forever.”
– Punkie
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Ovoce stromů rajských jíme [We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise] (Věra Chytilová, 1970)
Aug
6
orange
Eva (Jitka Novákova) devouring oranges under a black umbrella (via). DP: Jaroslav Kučera.
Orange, food or fashion*
“Tell me the truth!”
– choir
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Эффект Кулешова [Kuleshov Effect] (Lev Kuleshov, 1918)
Aug
5
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.”
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地獄門 [Jigokumon / Gate of Hell] (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1953)
Aug
4
orange
The shrine's torii as seen in the film. Vermilion contains mercury, which not only acts as a preservative but is also believed to ward off evil. DP: Kōhei Sugiyama.
Orange: a building or structure*
“Today is the first day of a life of sacrifice.”
– Moritoo Endō
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.
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The Red Shoes (Michael Powell + Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Aug
3
red
A ballerina's lower body in focus. She wears a long tulle off-white dress, slightly sheer, with her white stockings showing through slightly. Part of her right lower arm is visible, the hand clutched, a turquoise bracelet on the wrist. What stands out most are her ruby red ballet shoes that appear to move away from her. The backdrop is a dull, washed out carpet. DP: Jack Cardiff.
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).