Author Archives: paulydeathwish

#9 Do-It-Yourself Mr. Bean [1994)

When you’re having a crappy night.

One thing after another.

Life is beating you with a one-two combination punch.

And a couple of jabs.

You must go to your contingencies.

When the situation is not good, you must move forward.

No laissez faire nor wu wei at this point.

So you push on.

And everywhere you go you get lame.  Rudeness.  Snobby.  Ageist.

Walking on hot coals for capitalism.

Which is to say that the two Starbucks I visited tonight were worse than lackluster.

Starbucks chokes the American market.

But there is variance from store to store.

There are a lot of problems to be witnessed.

As a daily customer.

With no better options.

But Starbucks isn’t improving.  They are happy where they’re at.

And so they are ripe to be made obsolete.

How would that happen?

Who?

What ideas?

Most importantly would be to hire Mr. Bean.

Not the actor.  But the real guy.  The character.

The inspiration.  The gaggle which became one.

And please test in San Antonio.

Because our fair city is lethargic and uninspiring.

We never have what we need.

How can we remain happy?

Mr. Bean.

I remember a time in my life that was so fair.

Humorous.  Laughful.  Lifefilled.

A time when a girl’s laugh meant ANYTHING IN THE WORLD’S POSSIBLE.

She’s married now for a second time.  Was never my wife.

But something much more.  A love.  A love for which Rembrandt or Van Gogh would have fought.

And so I must tell myself that maybe someone in this world will find me charming.

It’s a sad clown to be used up.

Limelight.

This is, of course, a great episode of Mr. Bean.

They’re all pretty damn good!

Nobody’s like him.

And nobody’s like me.

But I’ve been beaten.

You know the law enforcement dealing with the burkinis?

They are fashion police.  Not completely unprecedented.

But never nearly as absurd.

I’ve been beaten up.  And so I have a little pile of clothes.

The machinery has ripped into my forearms and tendons and screwed up my hands.

I already needed something happy.

And then it got bad.

And bad progressed to worse.

But I fought the good fight.

Reading in the dark.

Prussian blue.  Watteau.  Niantic.

Keyhole.  In-Q-Tel.  NGA.  KH recon.  Corona.

Pokémon Go.  And Google at every stage.

John Hanke.  “Foreign Service”.

School of hard NOCs.

Twigs dipped in Marmite.

 

-PD

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Stromboli, terra di Dio [1950)

Trying to get over that mountain.

A volcano.

Stumble, fall.

Not meant to be.

In this place.

A sadness of place.

But I’m just a simple fisherman now.

Pulling in tunas.

Folkways.

She’s had it.

Ingrid in her plain pattern dress.

The wind never stops messing with her hair.

And it’s painful just to look around.

Out to sea.

Mario Vitale.  Takes a simple job.

But the town surveils.

So that the empty winds blow like in L‘Avventura.

On an island.

Ingrid from Sweden playing Karin from Lithuania.

Argentina does not accept her.

And so she marries.

The best option of no options.

But she has her spirit broken.

By tradition.

By dumb muscle.

She’s a little flower crushed by the rock.

But it’s true.

She’s a mean melancholic.  A flailing tuna with one last whip of the tail.

Hoping to return to the ocean.

And she is pricked on all sides.

Hoisted.

And piled with the other creatures lengthwise.

My heart breaks for Ingrid.

Because of Roberto Rossellini.

A new style of filmmaking here.

Similar to his other film of 1950:  Francesco, giullare di Dio.

The flowers of introspection.

Existentialism.

Italy.

And now in Ginostra you might find Jacopo Fedi catching octopi or Marco Nicolosi relaxing.

In real life (away from celebrities), it is hard to make friends.

What Žižek might call “the desert of the real”.

Some turnovers you can eat, others you just have to live with.

 

-PD

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座頭市物語 [1962)

[THE TALE OF ZATOICHI (1962)]

How are we supposed to understand Nissan?

If we don’t understand Hokusai?

And Fukushima.

And Zatoichi.

This, here, is The Tale of Zatoichi.

Directed by Kenji Misumi.

Artful camera-pen pans to heightened senses.

But Shintaro Katsu is our humble warrior.

As you like it.

But you must have a keyhole.

You must have a way into this oeuvre.

And so we think Nissan.

But also Roland Kirk.

Forever, Roland Kirk.

Maybe Marcus Roberts at the piano.  Yes.  Computing.

And Art Tatum as a whirlwind.

Professional courtesy.

No one could understand me.

You must get deep to understand the soldier.

Stage 4.

All the world’s a Dutch proverb.

 

-PD

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Shadows [1959)

Cassavetes…

Cool, grains here.

Beatnik bongos get entrance.

Waiting for the man to grow up.

Black leather jacket on streetcorner.

And sunglasses.  Smoking a cigarette.

John Cassavetes was a true auteur.

Maybe he was no Dreyer.  No Renoir.

But at least the level of Truffaut.

That’s the outerspace transmission I’m getting.

You can buy Le Tigre.  Or Fugazi.

Or make the mistake of thinking his turn in Rosemary’s Baby was important.

Cassavetes the director.

That’s the guy we click our fingers applauding the film in homage to.

It’s a bit drug film.

The $20 bucks.  For what?

I was groovin’ on Ben Carruthers.

In the lonely crowd.

 

-PD

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Zéro de conduite [1933)

Food fight.

Pillow fight.

I have hypnotized myself.

Just for fun.

A one-sentence plot.

Skull X.

Forget the world.

Leap frog.

On the rooftops.

Toulouse-Lautrec as principal.

Feminine balloons.

Young Chopin at school.

With his fine hair.

And Henri goes into midget Häxan mode like the birth of Cartman.

Upright piano bed.

Bix Beiderbecke sleeping in the newspaper stuffed sounding board housing compartment.

It’s my impression.

That Ken Griffin.  And Ger Griffin.  And Rollerskate Skinny.  Knew this haunting happiness.

That Mercury Rev.  Took also from this backmasking.  Maurice Jaubert.

But we have not even mentioned the genius director auteur.

Jean Vigo.

Beanpole will dance for R. Crumb.

The sleepwalker might drop dead.

A necessary risk.  Petard hoist.

T. Rex would say Children of the revolution.

 

-PD

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Marketa Lazarová [1967)

The epic of Czech film.

Its reputation precedes it.

And I have much to say about this gargantuan length of film.

For when last I delved into the canon, I was greeted with a short watch.

It was pleasant.  It was complete.  Everything which needed to be said was said.

This film is in some ways the opposite.

Two hours and 42 minutes.

I have not had such trouble viewing a film since Jeanne Dielman…

And I want to say this is the equal of that Belgian gem.

Marketa Lazarová is played by the stunningly-beautiful Magda Vášáryová.

Magdaléna if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

A Slovak actress.  Who lives!

But sadly Ms. Vášáryová is in this film far too little.

When she appears, she usurps the screen with her loveliness.

She is as fleeting as a lamb…

Visions fugitives…[…]

She is our lamb we try to save.

To no avail.

My beard is invisible.  I am twice my age.

Mostly from sitting through this film.

This is the Czech Gone with the Wind.

Overlong.  Underdone.

But there is a reward in its totality.

It’s as if Buñuel greets us upon the start of Part II.

Yes, there’s an intermission of sorts.

Good God…

The internal monologue of the Almighty.

When He’s least enamored with us.

Appreciates our simplicity.  And breaks the fourth wall with a critique of our oratory skills.

So director František Vláčil did have some truly genius tricks up his sleeve.

But most of this film is bleak.  Bare.  Plodding. More ennui than boredom.

Which is to say that misery sounds more artful in French.

The misery of a convoluted story told by a mediocre bard.

And so someone didn’t do somebody justice.

František Vláčil had real facility.

Then do we find fault with novelist Vladislav Vančura?

Perhaps it was just a bad match.

But it’s not a bad film.

It’s just not the greatness which so often accrues to length.

Long doesn’t necessarily mean important.

Did Kissinger really need 912 pages to relate Diplomacy?

I’m not even a fan of Tolstoy.

There are, in fact, few behemoths behind which I can get.

The Brothers Karamazov is one.

And I would argue that Marketa Lazarová has some of that pithy, earthy grit to it.

A little witchcraft.

Some battle-axes.

Missing limbs.

But Vláčil manages to add very faint, subtle hints of psychedelia to this story.

It was, after all, 1967.

But it’s more ergot than LSD.

Ennui/boredom.

A slight différance.

 

-PD

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Sběrné surovosti [1965)

I don’t usually review short films by themselves,

but this is such a gem.

A pearl, if you will.

The Junk Shop.

By director Juraj Herz.

Truth be told, I assumed it would be feature-length.

So when it ended, I was surprised.

But it was nice.

Just the right length.

It’s a very charming first film which delves into the depth only ragpickers can evoke.

There are, indeed, very few inventors who can claim to have “invented” the garbage can.

One (or the one) lends his name to the bin in French:  Eugène Poubelle.

Just like Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

But let’s back to director Herz.

It might be more proper to call him a Slovakian director.

Though this film hails from the Czechoslovak days.

Born in Kežmarok:  “cheese market”.

And so what is the difference between Czechia (the new name for the Czech Republic) and Slovakia?  Why the split?

Not to be confused with the city in Croatia.  Split.

1918-1993.  One country.  Czechoslovakia.

But you’re here for film.  Perhaps.

Long before The Holy Mountain in 1973.

Iconoclasts.  Plastic Jesus.  Flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.

I assume my audience knows when I am quoting.

If this had been a full-length film, it would have been neck-and-neck with Closely Watched Trains and A Report on the Party and the Guests.

But there’s also something “cute” about The Junk Shop.

It has a wry smile which is usually found only in children’s films.

Oh, to see her shake out her sheets.

To beat her rug.

Leaning over the railing.

An old man’s one joy.

Such priceless joys in the messy actuality of the everyday.

Anna Karina is on the wall.

She has been rescued from metric tons of paper.

She is recycled visually.  But not literally.

A poster.

Pin-up girls.

To keep the ragpicker company.

And the forerunner of American montage (by way of Eisenstein).

Stop motion Dadaism.

Synchronized on the beat.

 

-PD

 

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Každý den odvahu [1964)

I took a long time off.

Because the brain is delicate.

I have crammed so many facts into my noggin.

That a release valve was needed.

The escape of television.

Which is to say, I’m no better than anyone else.

In some ways, I’m no different.

And this film proves the point.

Courage for Every Day.

Goes nowhere.

Except to the sublime.

But you must work at it.

You just haven’t earned it yet, baby.

Maybe.

It’s not buddy holly.

But it bops along with capitalist incursion.

This isn’t Evald Schorm’s best work, but it showed his range.

For a first film, it’s damned good.

But it’s slow.

Not like slow cinema.

More like plodding.

Plotting clumsy Ulysses.

When all I ever want is Finnegans Wake.

Former makes too much sense.

For a first FICTION film.

Largely failure for first 50%.

And then the sublime emerges.

We’re not on TV anymore.

We’re in the realm of cinema.

And it’s a huge difference.

Time…to stretch out.

In which.

A bunch of boring communist functionaries.

Up against the magic of the feral masses.  Untamed.

Uneducated.  But free, almost.  Maybe.

Jana Brejchová just like Beth Behrs.

But there is heartbreak.

When she says, “Work it out for yourself.”

Something like that.

Human being lawnmower.

Morphs into Czech Breathless.  Existential vacuum of Antonioni.

He can’t be a normal person.

Because of the cause.

All causes are insane.

Including mine.

The cause…

Not to be confused with causal mechanism.

To be an idealist.  Circumspect.

There is no life outside commerce.  In the West.

We have lost.

But a sudden ray of hope…

Only defense against desperation.

Here I sit, over my Underwood.

Go talk to him…

He loves you.

Cook it and kill it!

Or vice versa.

At such a time that pulling rabbit from hat becomes the ultimate embarrassment.

Because ridicule has been wedged.

We are back to real films (if not standard criticism).

Can only be discussed in its own terms.

Every time.

Ekphrasis 24/7.  8 day s week.

Rachel Corrie is my inspiration.

As said Giles Corey:  “More weight!”

 

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Twin Peaks “Beyond Life and Death” [1991)

Epic failure.

Success of self-sabotage.

Keep cryptic the pearls before swine.

The end.

In 25 years.

Mona Lisa with more than a mustache.

L.H.O.O.Q.

Completely smeared to oblivion.

Lackluster.

Groping for meaning.

Strobe transcendence momentarily.

Largely garbage.

A big “fuck you” to the system which let it fail.

A sign off…a kiss off.

A dead mall of shoehorned narrative.

Masterpiece of world literature ending with the word “poop”.

It is Dodoism.

Bathos.

But there is redemption.

The most awkward dead air ever.

Shuffling bank manager.

Savings and loan.

A painful gait.  No edit.

No cutaway.

John Cage in primetime.

And in that redemption, mystery.

A most perverse incursion of prime time real estate.

There’s a différance.

A memetic virus.  A viral meme.  Scorched motor oil.  And coffee rainbows.

At such a time, you admit defeat.

You show the process.

You rage.

Falling well short of the mark.

Fire walk with me.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “Miss Twin Peaks” [1991)

Exploding plastic inevitable.

Factory strobo seizure.

A day.

Cross-dressing horror.

Bates.  Hoover.

A Bundy log.

A slick exterior.  Petrified.

We hold out hope.

Umbrellas.

Craven (brisure).

A strange look and a mystery.

 

-PD

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