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L'eclisse [The Eclipse] (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Mar
20
natural phenomena
Vitti's blond hair shifts in front of Delon's dark coupe, quietly mimicking the eclipse. DP: Gianni Di Venanzo.
“There was a silence different from all other silences, an ashen light, and then darkness – total stillness. I thought that during an eclipse even our feelings stop. Out of this came part of the idea for L'eclisse.”
During several moments in the film, the main characters' mannerisms foreshadow the looming solar eclipse.
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Un soir, un train [One Night, a Train] (André Delvaux, 1968)
Mar
18
André Delvaux
Anouk Aimée and Yves Montand in character on a leaf-strewn floor, his head resting on her chest, with director André Delvaux and others surrounding them. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.
A favourite film, director, or producer for Luc Besson's birthday (1959).
Having only seen three of Delvaux's films, I feel I can safely say his work is hypnotic, but not in the common sense. We see a world through both Delvaux's and his protagonists eyes, and experience their duality as one. This displacement is a recurring theme in Delvaux's work, the work of a man raised in one world and speaking the language of another, both worlds bearing the same name, Belgium.
This slow tear is also the theme is his best known film, De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen [The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short] (1965), in which a schoolteacher loses himself after a pupil graduates. When we think we are firmly seated in Delvaux's universe, we fall back, like that moment just before sleep sets in. And again, in his tragically under-seen Belle from 1973. Now it's a poet who finds a woman living in a ramshackle hut in Belgium's peatland, her language an unknown. With only one main speaker, the duality forms in the poet's words, in his attempts to give her root.
And so do we, the viewers. We hang on to that root, Delvaux's, only to sink back into our own loss of words.
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L'immortelle (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1963)
Mar
12
National Hitchcock Day
A woman in silhouette (Françoise Brion) enters a building. The setup is perfectly symmetrical except a beam of light passing through the opened doors that highlight's the woman's presence, adding a sense of wrong to the scene. DP: Maurice Barry.
“You're a foreigner and you're lost.”
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Invasión [Invasion] (Hugo Santiago, 1969)
Mar
9
Bobby Fischer – 1943
Don Porfirio (Juan Carlos Paz) in front of a map of Aquileia. DP: Ricardo Aronovich.
Strategy for Bobby Fischer's birthday (1943).
People meticulously plan, move, and countermove in response to an invasion.
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สัตว์วิกาล [Sud Vikal / Vampire] (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2008)
Mar
2
Dr. Seuss' birthday
Applying blood to attract the Nok Phii. It's cold. DP: Chaisiri Jiwarangsan.
Imaginary animals or food for Theodor “Dr.” Seuss Geisel's birthday (1904).
“I like the settings where the lights and desire cross path. The desire to communicate with the invisibles in the darkness, or in memory, or in the future. It's always related to cinema and we as insects that are drawn to lights.”
– Apichatpong Weerasethakul, via
Villagers in the north of Thailand reported a rare sighting of a male and female Nok Phii, an elusive species of bird that feeds on animals' blood. It is unknown if the sighting was reliable, and if this vampire does, or ever did, exist.
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Тіні забутих предків [Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors] (Sergei Parajanov, 1965)
Feb
6
St. Dorothea of Caesarea
The childhood lovers to be newlyweds. During the wedding ceremony, the bride suddenly breaks out in smile. DPs: Yuri Ilyenko & Viktor Bestayev.
A wedding on the day of Dorothea of Caesarea, patron saint of horticulture, brewers, brides, florists, gardeners, midwives, newlyweds, and love.
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Případ pro začínajícího kata [Case for a Rookie Hangman] (Pavel Juráček, 1970)
Jan
30
doors
A man named Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) accidentally runs over a rabbit, who is dressed to the nines and carries a pocket watch. Slowly, the man finds himself in a sort of Wonderland.
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Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Jan
19
lights
Ben (Dean Stockwell) miming Roy Orbison's In Dreams with a work light for a microphone. DP: Frederick Elmes.
“A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
'Go to sleep, everything is alright'”
– Roy Orbison, In Dreams (1963)
David Lynch at his finest Anger, and Stockwell at his peak. The work light was improvised when Lynch noticed Stockwell handling it between shoots.
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Teorema [Theorem] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968)
Dec
29
Independence Day of Mongolia
The visitor (Terence Stamp) in intimate closeup. DP: Giuseppe Ruzzolini.
Someone finds their independence: Independence Day of Mongolia (Үндэсний эрх чөлөө, тусгаар тогтнолоо сэргээсний баярын өдөр).
“I no longer even recognize myself. What made me like the others has been destroyed. I was like everyone else, with many faults, perhaps, mine and those of the world around me. You made me different by taking me out of the natural order of things.”
– Pietro, the son
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Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (Robert Wiene, 1920)
Dec
25
Hanukkah + Christmas
Cesare (Conrad Veidt) escapes with Jane (Lil Dagover) in his arms. Composition and distribution of light and shadow – much of which was painted directly on the set pieces – strike a strong resemblance with the oldest known survived photograph by Nicéphore Niépce from ca. 1822 – 1827. DP: Willy Hameister.
A favourite scene featuring light for Hanukkah and Christmas.
Alan “How long will I live?”
Cesare “Till the break of dawn.”