Samsara

[shoulders]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/28/samsara-review-unlike-anything-else-you-will-experience-in-the-cinema-eyes-closed

I'm intrigued.

[BlodwynPig]

Ghostbuster 7 slated for being too woke

[BlodwynPig]

Stop getting reincarnation wrong

[Mister Six]

Super interesting, thanks @Shoulders?-Stomach!, I'll have to keep my eyes opens for this. Ironically.

[Norton Canes]

I had my eyes closed for quite a lot of Saltburn

[Mister Six]

Trying not to cum?

[madhair60]

what a  fucking racket. yeah come to the cinema mate and close your eyes. give me back the equivalent ticket price to the percentage of the film i spent with my fucking eyes closed then. honestly this "world cinema" shit takes the piss. you know the last "world cinema" i saw? Y Tu Mama Tambien. and i came a hundred, two hundred times from that movie, masturbating to it over and over again. sometimes i didn't even need to watch the movie, i would just close my eyes and... holy shit. i get it. i get it.

[Butchers Blind]

Are they showing this in 3D?

[Small Man Big Horse]

I really do want to see this but I was amused by the quotes "It's unlike anything else you can experience in the cinema", "a strikingly original and profound artwork" and "See it (and hear it) in a cinema, if at all possible" but then it only getting a four star rating.

[The F Bomb]

I thought this was about the Ron Fricke film, Samsara (2011), which is also mega meditative.

[shoulders]

I really do want to see this but I was amused by the quotes "It's unlike anything else you can experience in the cinema", "a strikingly original and profound artwork" and "See it (and hear it) in a cinema, if at all possible" but then it only getting a four star rating.

Likewise. A bit of hedging on the reviewer's part I think. Not wanting to be the tall poppy?

I suppose Under The Skin is another film where that happened leading to some rather undeserved ratings.

These are love/hate works. I can think of a few people that wouldn't pay to watch a film where not looking at the screen is encouraged (ironically several of those people frequently fall asleep while watching films).

[El Unicornio, mang]

There's quite a few films I'd describe that way but wouldn't give full marks to. Enter the Void, for example would tick those boxes but I'd probably give it 3 out of 5.

[shoulders]

Yes there's a difficulty here as of course some experimental cinema deserves that rating.

Although if a film reviewer felt the film was a profound experience I'd expect it to get 5 stars rather than 4 because the critic also thought "it's not for everyone". Not saying that's what happened here but the words don't quite match the score

[Herbert Ashe]

Caught up with this the other day & in the end found it frustrating, maybe because I don't think it was bold enough. The Laos segment, fair enough, probably necessary to set up the bridge. Tanzania, on the other hand, once the initial (pleasant) novelty of the change wore off just felt like banal enthnological slow cinema stuff, and I'm not sure there was much to take away from it apart from a few vague contrasting points (animists/maasai vs majorities; the students vs the women seaweed workers?), or some handwaving gestures towards syncretism.

Seen a few of Patino's films before and found them bit variable in how they mesh his visual experiments with the subjects. One of them was co-directed with Matias Piniero whose very different to him (an Argentinian who tends to make quite idiosyncratic talky, mannered films) and this made me wonder how this would have worked if the transition had a more obvious contrast, even something that moved away from international art house into genre somehow, or at least more conventional narrative stuff. Would have meant sacrificing unity and coherence, but maybe in return found something unexpected and more interesting.

Still worth seeing for the bridge & the 16mm looks pretty.

[madhair60]

my understanding is that during the 15 minute closed-eye segment, the director robs everyone in the audience