in a mansion outside town the three smiles of a summer night- one for the young, the other for the dissapointed and the thrid for the old in a beautiful sequence of floricking in the half light making love in haystacks. the servants watch as their masters betray one another. an older man's son elopes with his wife and falls into the arms of an actress lover. gorgeous film about love and aging. in another such mansion more complications in 'the rules of the game'. this time when the classes intermingle tragedy strikes. the hierarchy cannot be disturbed. the elite, the bourgeois, the middle classes, the servant class, the vagrants and lastly the animals in a great rabbit hunt sequence. but in reality everyone is prey in this tragicomedy. a third mansion- this time in the clouds where eva braun waits for her lover. as she waits she dances naked in stone corridors and listens listlessly to music on the gramophone. when he does arrive with acolytes in tow, the politics and backbiting between the cronies and the delirious rants of the madman are both amusing and frightening. hitler is humanized but not forgiven. this is the second of sokurov's trilogy. i have only seen the third and final one on emperor hirohito. that was fantastic. in 'moloch' the claustrophobia of the house on the mountain top is frightening. and so is the strangely distorted picnic scene. half seen landscapes and lengthened limbs.
for my theory of design course i am showing films to the kids. last week was 'chungking express'. which i really loved only this time. the noir first half with the bangladeshi smugglers and the woman in a raincoat was more fun than the sweet love story of the second. still the jittery staccato rhythms and the music- all electro pop mash-up- was terrific. and for this friday the plan is to show 'mirror' - for now my favourite tarkovsky film. identities blur through the mirror as mother becomes wife and father becomes sun. personal and political history intermingle. the images are unforgettable.
