'I don't get it'.

[saltysnacks]

I recently watched Chytilová's Daisies.

I think I actually hated it. I understand that it is supposed to be satirising materialism, but it seems to me like a montage of uninteresting people doing and saying uninteresting things, with nothing to really grab the attention. For a film that is only 76 minutes long, it seemed to last an eternity.

Has anyone here seen it?

Also, post films that left you cold.

[zomgmouse]

Daisies is genius! I loved every second of it. Not sure what you mean by nothing to really grab your attention when even the opening credits are so in-your-face cool.

Godard's Contempt, on the other hand... yikes. Same with Vivre sa vie. I cannot get behind those films. At all.

[saltysnacks]

Daisies is genius! I loved every second of it. Not sure what you mean by nothing to really grab your attention when even the opening credits are so in-your-face cool.

Godard's Contempt, on the other hand... yikes. Same with Vivre sa vie. I cannot get behind those films. At all.

I think my tastes might be more realist, as I watched Godard's Breathless and felt that to be a far more assured execution of similar themes (to Daisies).

[Monsieur Verdoux]

For the life of me, I will never understand what people see in Blade Runner. I mean it's obviously not shit, but the fact that it's seen as some kind of masterpiece is a source of constant bafflement for me. It just seems like a lot of neon-lit sixth-form philosophy for people who think 'slow' automatically means 'art'. It would be safe to say that I don't get it.

[saltysnacks]

For the life of me, I will never understand what people see in Blade Runner. I mean it's obviously not shit, but the fact that it's seen as some kind of masterpiece is a source of constant bafflement for me.

It has a great opening, a good ending and a fun performance from Rutger Hauer, aside from that I agree.

I'm actually convinced that the sequel could be better.

[madhair60]

When I saw Alien. I was like yeah it's alright I mean let's not go mental.

[Mr Brightside]

Blade Runner is a load of shit.

[greenman]

I wouldn't say any overt pretentiousness in Blade Runner, sticking to fairly simple ideas and doing them well.

[Serge]

I loved 'Daisies'! And 'Vivre Sa Vie'!

I don't get the Star Wars films. I saw the original when I was six and thought it was great. For some reason, I never got around to seeing any of the others. Then they put out the reissues in 1997, so I thought I'd go and watch 'Star Wars' again, and then catch up with the other two on the big screen. Now, I know that those particular versions had been tampered with, with new CGI and reinserted scenes, but the basic films were the same. And I fucking hated it. It didn't help that there was an uber-fan sat behind me saying all of the dialogue about half a second ahead of the characters, but then it also didn't help that the dialogue was so bad and most of the acting so lousy. Luke Skywalker looks like he's about to burst into tears at any time, and I've never got what what people see in Harrison Ford. The only good thing about it was Darth Vader, and even he's, well, a bit silly. So, I never bothered watching the other two (or any of the prequels/sequels/spin-offs) and never will. See also: Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, most superhero movies.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the fucking Indiana Jones movies.

[Blumf]

For the life of me, I will never understand what people see in Blade Runner. I mean it's obviously not shit, but the fact that it's seen as some kind of masterpiece is a source of constant bafflement for me. It just seems like a lot of neon-lit...

For me, and I suspect most fans, it is that neon-lit atmosphere, the whole look and feel of the film that you can just wallow in (I get similar enjoyment out of Dune, that's even weaker on the philosophy side, surprisingly so, considering the source material and that Lynch must have known better)

[greenman]

For me, and I suspect most fans, it is that neon-lit atmosphere, the whole look and feel of the film that you can just wallow in (I get similar enjoyment out of Dune, that's even weaker on the philosophy side, surprisingly so, considering the source material and that Lynch must have known better)

Both end up switching the philosophy, Dune ends up as something you'd expect Pauls propaganda wing in the books to have created, the Replicants in Blade Runner end up as an affirmation of humanity rather than a warning against some kind of social decline.

Again I love the latter because it keeps the simple idea of presenting that with very appropriate atmosphere and performances plus of course simply on a technical level its very nice to look at.

[Obel]

I don't get Blade Runner either. I watched it once and it left me cold, but that was years ago. I'm aware there are about 50 different edits of it, what's supposed to be the best one?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I wouldn't say any overt pretentiousness in Blade Runner, sticking to fairly simple ideas and doing them well.

This. It really is a fairly simple hollywood film about a man slaying robots in the future, some of them are fit, some of them are hard. But the way some people go on about it you'd think it's a 3 hour black and white Czech film about a famine.

[Shit Good Nose]

This. It really is a fairly simple hollywood film about a man slaying robots in the future

It isn't.  There's a HELL of a lot more going on in it than that.  Lots of people criticised it for being all style and no substance, but it's full to the brim with much much deeper stuff.

Blade Runner is my favourite film and I could completely hijack this thread and just talk about that.  But I won't.



Obligatory Scott Pilgrim mention.  I'm a huge film buff and have been from a very young age, and I like films of all different genres from all over the world - I can sit down and laugh my ass off at the first Deuce Bigelow and I can get totally engrossed and invested in Andrei Rublev and making it through the whole film without stopping.  But Scott Pilgrim...I think it's the only film I've ever seen that completely went over my head and just made me feel alienated. 

I'm also tempted to throw in most of Wes Anderson's films, but most of me feels like it's not me not getting them, rather a case of Anderson making films slightly odd and off-kilter just for the sake of it.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

It isn't.  There's a HELL of a lot more going on in it than that.  Lots of people criticised it for being all style and no substance, but it's full to the brim with much much deeper stuff.

Blade Runner is my favourite film and I could completely hijack this thread and just talk about that.  But I won't.

I'd genuinely love to hear at least some of your thoughts about it though, as I'm sincerely curious about the depths the film holds for its admirers.

Godard's Contempt, on the other hand... yikes. Same with Vivre sa vie. I cannot get behind those films. At all.

Both are great, in my view, and Contempt is a masterpiece. It's interesting that you didn't like them, however, because I know that you've got broad taste and certainly not averse to 'difficult' cinema.

[Hemulen]

Obligatory Scott Pilgrim mention.  I'm a huge film buff and have been from a very young age, and I like films of all different genres from all over the world - I can sit down and laugh my ass off at the first Deuce Bigelow and I can get totally engrossed and invested in Andrei Rublev and making it through the whole film without stopping.  But Scott Pilgrim...I think it's the only film I've ever seen that completely went over my head and just made me feel alienated. 

I've only seen the film the once, on initial release, but I recall it being about as good an adaptation as we were ever likely to get of a more or less unadaptable comic. Wright deserves a lot of credit for managing to pull that off, I reckon. The comic itself is wonderful, by the way, and I'd hate to think anyone has written it off on the strength of the film. Mind you, I encountered it during a really really low period in my life and it helped me to make some important choices that got me out of that state, so I have a rather particular attachment to it. Probably still good even if you're not deeply depressed, though.

[zomgmouse]

Both are great, in my view, and Contempt is a masterpiece. It's interesting that you didn't like them, however, because I know that you've got broad taste and certainly not averse to 'difficult' cinema.

I just really don't get on well with Godard. I don't find the frankly quite surface-level pseudophilosophical ramblings he insists on inserting at every corner in the least engaging or interesting. There's some intriguing elements to his films of course, and I'm a great admirer of Breathless and Bande à part, but on the whole I find him a giant bore. My views are more or less summed up by this quote from Orson Welles:

"His gifts as a director are enormous. I just can't take him very seriously as a thinker — and that's where we seem to differ, because he does."

Or this, much more acidic one from Ingmar Bergman:

"They have felt constructed, faux intellectual, and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring."

[saltysnacks]

With Daisies, I don't know if it went over my head or under my head.

I found the psychedelica, special effects, colour photography, trick shots and disjointed narrative in service of nothing. I previously mentioned Godard's Breathless and find that a much better and funnier portrayal of youth, especially in a context of mischief/ crime.

From the beginning I disliked the Maries, and we spend the film watching them partake in pranks with no seeming target. Maybe I am someone who cares too much about salad.

[billtheburger]

I do love Daises. What's not to love about two girls being naughty? But then again, I'm the type of person who calls it Sedmikrasky.

[hewantstolurkatad]

I didn't like Daisies but I'm pretty sure the primary reason I disliked it so much was how much it stunk of being the kind of thing a lot of people would like the idea of liking. It's very hard to be objective about it when your response to the onslaught of kitsch is "cuh, I bet some c*nts'd lap this up for that alone".

Blade Runner is pretty shit imo but I totally get how people can get swept up in its world. The sets and everything are ridiculously on point, can't really fault anyone for loving it purely for that alone, it's exceptional.
Now, going into any kind of philosophical debate about it as if it merits that is another thing entirely, as is ignoring just how shit Sean Young is

Someone mentioned Andrei Rublev up above. Saw it earlier this week and didn't like it at all, can absolutely see the kind of influence it could've had but it just felt like it has been passed by since.



I like Godard but that Welles quote is brilliant!

[ajsmith]

I recently watched Chytilová's Daisies.

I think I actually hated it. I understand that it is supposed to be satirising materialism, but it seems to me like a montage of uninteresting people doing and saying uninteresting things, with nothing to really grab the attention. For a film that is only 76 minutes long, it seemed to last an eternity.

Has anyone here seen it?

Also, post films that left you cold.

I made a point of buying the DVD of Daisies in Glasgow's oh so hep Monorail Records nearly a decade back cos I'd discovered it was the inspiration for The Yummy Fur (cult 90s Glasgow band I'm been fanboyishly obsessed with at some points) bargain basement DIY indie dance classic 'Stereo Girls' (love that octave apart riff) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tipFL8TkVI

I watched the film for the first time with my girlfriend, and another couple who we are pals with who were also Yummy Fur fans. End result: the 2 guys watching thought it was surreally entertaining fun , the 2 girls thought it was nonsensical pretentious cack that played up the glasgow indie boy's ideal of sexy childike safely 'bad' girls  acting out in an infantilised manner. I've never watched it since, but I do remember there being some amazing visuals in it, like them cutting each others heads off and dancing around and all the cutaway bits of butterflies and grass moving around insanely.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Mad Max Fury Road.

Yes yes, it's all done for real. My question is, so what?

[zomgmouse]

Daisies is illusorily light, I'd say. All the surreal fluffy antics are at heart greatly subversive, as so many films of the Czech new wave were. I don't think a surface-level reading of it just being two girls having cutesy fun gets to the core of the film or what makes it great.

I previously mentioned Godard's Breathless and find that a much better and funnier portrayal of youth, especially in a context of mischief/ crime.

Except it's not really about that, is it? It's about subverting the systems of authorities and communism and capitalism and patriarchy and so on. I hate to be the "you maybe didn't get it" but also you created the thread about not getting it and I think you maybe didn't get this. Or maybe you did and I'm being presumptive in which case I apologise.

pranks with no seeming target.

That no seeming target banned the film from being shown in Czechoslovakia on its release so I guess it worked.

the 2 girls thought it was nonsensical pretentious cack that played up the glasgow indie boy's ideal of sexy childike safely 'bad' girls  acting out in an infantilised manner.

Except the film was directed by a woman with a very firm idea about what she was achieving. There was nothing safe about their actions or indeed the film. The bit at the opening when they're acting doll-like and choose to "be bad" was the key to the whole film for me. And I guess the communist authorities didn't think there was anything "safe" about the film either.

[Shit Good Nose]

I'd genuinely love to hear at least some of your thoughts about it though, as I'm sincerely curious about the depths the film holds for its admirers.

The replicants literally being more human than human (genuine care for each other, calling each other by their first names as opposed to the human characters who are all known rather more impersonally by their surnames, Leon's "precious" photos being reminiscent of average family photos, etc);
They are super strong and/or super intelligent, yet are otherwise children (fascination with toys, child-like sadness when one of their number dies, child-like wonder at the universe around them - "if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes", "I've seen things..." etc);
Animal instincts (leader of the pack Batty howling when he is the last one alive) developed in tandem with their own emotions;
Tyrell's god complex;
Parental issues (Leon's mother, Batty giving his father the kiss of death with the look of utter horror on his face whilst he crushes his skull);
The notion of real and implanted memories, linking to whether or not Deckard is human or an even more advanced Nexus model;
Gaff's role, how much does he know, why does he let Rachel live, etc

That's just a very very abbreviated short list in a few minutes, and just stuff which is plainly there in the film and the script.  There's a whole lot more besides before you even start to think about what is suggested by the iconography, the interstitial non-music soundtrack, and what you start to read into it with your own thoughts.

It's a film which demands and rewards with many repeated viewings, hence why it took over 10 years before people started to realise that it was actually something a bit special and a bit more than a nice looking Ridley Scott commercial.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

That's really interesting stuff, Shit Good Nose, thank you for sharing. There's more than a few things there that hadn't really occurred to me at all. I think I'm going to have to dig the film out again and give it another watch now!

[Shit Good Nose]

It's all there, and much more, waiting to be discovered.

Ridders isn't the shallow visualist everyone has always proclaimed him to be - even his decidedly shit films of the last 15-ish years have quite a lot of subtle and not-so subtle text once you scratch the surface.  The fact that he has always got involved with the story as well, and has encouraged his actors to do the same with their own characters, puts paid to that assumption.

[newbridge]

I actually affirmatively dislike Breathless, and was about to post it even before seeing it mentioned above.

[Captain Z]

It's all there, and much more, waiting to be discovered.

You just have to zoom in, enhance, zoom in, enhance, rotate through 75 degrees, zoom in, enhance, flip the reflection in the mirror, zoom in and enhance.

[Shit Good Nose]

You just have to zoom in, enhance, zoom in, enhance, rotate through 75 degrees, zoom in, enhance, flip the reflection in the mirror, zoom in and enhance.

Wait, hold on a second...go back.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I get absolutely nothing from superhero movies. I guess if I was a fan of the comics then that would be different but no, zero connection for me.