Shorts #107

Today's shorts: Suspicion (1941), Super Dark Times (2017), I Am Not A Witch (2017), 6 Underground (2019), Doctor Sleep (2019), The Gentleman (2020), Cats (2019), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Hitchcock was always at his best when a sense of comedy and an explicit ambiguity pervaded his narrative.

Suspicion is as twisted as it is immersive. A pathological, psychologically driven thriller that could be compared to Mildred Pierce, this leaves us trapped in an unpalpable Freudian complex. The melodrama is tantalising, absurd and truly brilliant. Punchy, funny, suave and ballsy, this is one of my favourite Hitchcock films.

Incredible. Absolutely phenomenal.

Haptics are off the charts. Crisply textured, dense, twisted, funny, exuding photogenie, ingeniously shot, authentic as it gets... a perfect film. Incredible. I'm so grateful to have watched this.

I Am Not A Witch constructs a narrative with impressionist obfuscation, which is to say, through its structure, this is as confounding as our character is confused. Without reason and clarity, this puts into combat chance and coincidence with corruption and superstitious oppression by using an accusation of witchcraft to highlight those elements of nature - human nature, and the nature of the unfolding of life - that appear simultaneously consciously sadistic and benevolently bitter. It is hard to put into words the intent of this film beyond this, but it is not hard to recommend it.

I have a soft spot for Bay productions. I have seen this twice already. It is as clunky and unfunny as it is engaging and ludicrously joyful. No one is in great artistic form; the comedic acting is... fine... the sound design and soundtrack are... something to behold... the brutal CGI is... maybe respectable... the direction is intensely incoherent... and the cinematography is lush... in an epileptic kind of way. Seen alone and late at night, this is full of giggles and smiles. The magnet scene is ridiculous. Let's not make mention of the politics.

Really rather good.

Doctor Sleep holds its own as a sequel to Kubrick's behemoth. It is far more articulate and self-exploratory than the former film, and this lends it a unique edge. The Shining is an incredibly ambiguous descent into a hell of a questionably supernatural character. Doctor Sleep focuses on the downplayed supernatural elements of The Shining, simultaneously illuminating and expanding upon the previous narrative in a highly fascinating way. Though at moments a bit too intense (Stephen King horror adaptations really seem to want to push the line in regards to the depiction of child abuse and violence around adolescents these days), Doctor Sleep is a great companion piece to a classic that has not been impinged upon. I need to watch this again.

I'll say this for now and leave it at that... if I had a choice of re-watching either The Gentleman or The Irishman, I'd go for The Gentlemen 9 times out of 10.

Never have I been transported by a film like I was by Cats. I do not mean to suggest that this is either a good or bad quality of this incredibly strange... artefact... but every time I hear the ominous and anxious soundtrack of this film, I feel myself being sucked back into something like an undesirable psychedelic experience. Watching Cats, I truly found myself going places. Where I went, I do not know. What happened there, I cannot tell you. It was a strange and draining place, as meaningless as it was irritating. Self importantly inane, Cats is an incredible wonder. In 20 years, the world will look back with wonder. I hope it does.

Truly phenomenal. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the definition of sensuous; it masterfully establishes distance between characters before breaking this down and again building this up again. This oscillation between near and far, metaphorically, physically and existentially, manifest a purely powerful sensuality that I cannot recall any other film conjuring in such an impactful manner.

The cinematography and framing are simple and stunning; the way in which faces and eyes sit on the screen--truly overwhelming. And then imbued into this is an intricate story of the gaze, of memory and reality, freedom and fate. Incredibly nuanced, incredibly affective, masterfully directed by Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is magic.