settima

bales2025filmchallenge

Sevmek Zamanı [Time to Love] (Metin Erksan, 1965)

Jan

6

Muslim-American Heritage Month

Sevmek Zamanı (1965)

The man, the woman, and her portrait. DP: Mengü Yeğin.

“Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”

– Rumi

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #MuslimAmericanHeritageMonth #MetinErksan #MüşfikKenter #SemaÖzcan #SüleymanTekcan #FadılGaran #MetinBükey #MengüYeğin #drama #romance #love #Sufism #religion #Istanbul #Turkey #1960s ★★★★☆

Space Is the Place (John Coney, 1974)

Jan

5

Space Shuttle

Space Is the Place (1974)

Ra's arrival. DP: Seth Hill.

A film about space travel on the day Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program in 1972.

“I came from a dream that the black man dreamed long ago. I’m actually a presence sent to you by your ancestors.”

– Sun Ra

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #SpaceShuttle #JohnConey #SunRa #SunRaArkestra #MarshallAllen #JuneTyson #RaymondJohnson #ChristopherBrooks #BarbaraDeloney #ErikaLeder #JackBaker #SethHill #SciFi #drama #politics #jazz #Afrofuturism #USA #1970s ★★★★½

Escrime [Fencing] (Étienne-Jules Marey, 1890)

Jan

4

revolvers

Escrime (1890)
Escrime (1890)

Footage of Marey at work. Note the mobility of his invention. (via).

A revolver to commemorate Samuel Colt's sale of 1 000 revolvers to butcher Captain Samuel Walker in 1847.

“Art and science encounter each other when they seek exactitude.”

– Étienne-Jules Marey

However, where there is bloodshed, there can be art. Scientist Étienne-Jules Marey studied movement, and further adapted an existing revolver-style camera gun invented by astronomer Jules Janssen in 1874. The revolution in Marey's invention was not in the least in its mobility. Unlike Muybridge, whose locomotion experiments required a huge, cumbersome setup, Marey could strap on his “gun”, and shoot moving footage while following his target around. His chronophotograph Escrime can be considered Marey's first successfully captured moving footage.

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #SamuelColt #revolver #ÉtienneJulesMarey #fencing #sports #guns #chronophotography #documentary #science #ShortFilm #SilentFilm #France #1890s

他人の顔 [Tanin no kao / The Face of Another] (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966)

Jan

3

Tutankhamun's tomb

他人の顔 (1966)

Mr. Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai). DP: Hiroshi Segawa.

Bandages for that day in 1924 when Howard Carter came across Tutankhamun's sarcophagus.

“You'll feel better soon. Once you're used to the mask, you'll be a new man — one with no records, no past. A mind invisible to the world.”

– psychiatrist

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #Tutankhamun #HiroshiTeshigahara #KōbōAbe #TatsuyaNakadai #MikijirōHira #KyōkoKishida #TōruTakemitsu #HiroshiSegawa #bandages #drama #SciFi #BookAdaptation #NūberuBāgu #Japan #1960s ★★★½

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924)

Jan

2

dragons

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924)

Siegfried (Paul Richter), seen from the back, bathing in the blood of the slain dragon. On his left shoulder blade, a linden leaf. DPs: Carl Hoffmann, Günther Rittau & Walter Ruttmann.

Dragons or lizards, January's soul symbol.

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #SoulSymbols #dragons #FritzLang #GottfriedHuppertz #RichardWagner #CarlHoffmann #GüntherRittau #WalterRuttmann #GertrudArnold #MargareteSchön #HannaRalph #PaulRichter #TheodorLoos #drama #epic #poem #SilentFilm #Germany #1920s

À propos de Nice – point de vue documenté [À propos de Nice] (Boris Kaufman + Jean Vigo, 1930)

Jan

1

New Year's Day

À propos de Nice - point de vue documenté (1930)

Exuberant prostitutes, Jean Vigo (5th from the left), and people who appear to be men in drag, dance on a landing with confetti all around them. In the moving footage they can be seen high-kicking with increased vulgarity, the camera posed below them. DP: Boris Kaufman.

Confetti for New Year's Day.

“In this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial… the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution.”

– Jean Vigo in his manifesto Vers un cinéma social

#Bales2025FilmChallenge #NewYear #confetti #BorisKaufman #JeanVigo #ShortFilm #SilentFilm #AvantGarde #documentary #satire #carnival #prostitution #Nice #France #1930s ★★★★☆

Who, why, and what

This film blog, which is part of the fediverse, compliments my Mastodon musings and to a degree my Letterboxd logs. It consists of three parts:

The oldest is the Bales 2023 Film Challenge. This was a 2023 fediverse challenge where the participants had to post about a film based on the daily theme. 2023 wasn't the kindest year, and at one point I had to skip a title. And then more. And more. And in 2024 I'm still catching up. Read about it on Letterboxd. Note that blog posts are timestamped on their corresponding daily challenge; you may have to scroll all the way back a year, or follow the #Bales2023FilmChallenge, #Bales2024FilmChallenge (December only) and #Bales2025FilmChallenge tags.

Then there is the Film du jour. This too once was a Letterboxd list until a blogger, backed by LB, blatantly copied my list and ran off with my gold medal. That list is now private and the titles – auto-posted on Mastodon on the day they take place – can be found here under the tag #FilmDuJour. The titles repeat yearly, with more and more ingredients added. It's like the soup of the day, but in celluloid form. Delicious!

Talking about food. Over time I announced my film-watching-during-dinner on Mastodon with the hashtag #FilmDinner. Initially just with a nice/interesting still, but then I decided to post a screenshot of a food-related moment in said movie.

The most recent addition is #Arcs, journaling those odd moments where I watch two or more films in a row with very similar scenes or setups. That happens, more often than anticipated.