Probably. Obv it was intentional, tho I'm not sure if the choice helped Carrutth's directorial vision or not. I found it tedious after a while, and felt the same way about the film as a whole :\
― Millsner, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 19:37 (eleven years ago) link
the soft focus look is sometimes a way of making a cheap production look less cheap and more "stylish"
but sometimes you can see right through that and the effect is cloying
for a counterargument see the 1st 2/3 of roy andersson's love story which is all shallow focus long lens stuff and boy is it amazing
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 08:46 (eleven years ago) link
I wonder if the shallow dof is a way of masking budgetary constraints wrt locations/sets
― ヘイシグ・ブローズ (MaresNest), Tuesday, April 30, 2013 12:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
sorry just saw this. answer is "yes" i think
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, May 1, 2013 4:46 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark
otm
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 12:54 (eleven years ago) link
also filmmakers like lucrecia martel use it super well
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 12:55 (eleven years ago) link
there has been a real shallow DOF explosion with the advent of DSLR cinema cuz finally you could get that look with a cheap camera and it made your video look way more film-like
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 12:56 (eleven years ago) link
that piglet at the end was her "baby" wasn't it?
― ryan, Friday, April 26, 2013 11:11 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
so tired of people asking this question after films
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, April 27, 2013 1:18 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
^ lol
my capsule reviews of this movie are "tim henman should stick to tennis" & "is this the indie matrix". thought this was pretty bad? morbs otm on its reach for profundity; i thought it might cohere well enough to work as some sort of allegory for the ills of antibiotic overuse or something, but it was just kind of uninterestingly diffuse, i think, & suffered additionally for being so in light of recent, more successful broad films like post tenebras lux, the new malick, &c - when this careened into the guy's work history or tepid subway conversation i didn't really feel anything was gained. i can't specifically locate a source well enough to call it cliched, but was a movie ever as likely to feature swimming pool sequences, or strip-lit photocopying montages? wearied post-nolan use of ~charged talismans~. it was so student. the mechanically administered twinkling wonder of the synth score was kinda oppressive, too.
pigs, starlings & haircuts excellent throughout though.
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 22:08 (eleven years ago) link
did i say everybody in it looked like a tennis player, i meant to, this was a very tennisy cast
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 22:09 (eleven years ago) link
I can't totally disagree with any of that after one viewing; but I do think Carruth is a talent and look forward to more from him. And perhaps in the future this will open up for me.
Kinda prefer to take this as an allegory about addiction for now...
― ryan, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:01 (eleven years ago) link
i haven't seen primer, & have it set aside to catch somenight soon. but to just ad-hom psychologise for a moment i kinda thought that this came from a sorta uninteresting place - it seemed sorta enamored with some pretty superficial elements of what it was trying to do, cf the mood of the score, the well maintained monotone of the first half, its affectless characters. this stuff is swimming pool montages to me, like it's pretty & appealing but its made optically & just accessorised with fixtures, with walden & terse relationship conflict (i thought the relationship stuff - with maybe maybe maybe the exception of their memory arguments - was uniformly p bad/unconvincing/sorta thoughtless). idk, i don't feel super charitable toward this anyhow.
ps i keep throwing gangsigns at you in different threads to see if you've seen the reygadas flick, ryan, cause i'm interested to hear your take. i will fund half your cinema ticket if you haven't caught it but go instead of reliving upstream color.
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:22 (eleven years ago) link
plan to see it very soon! Like tomorrow hopefully
― ryan, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:34 (eleven years ago) link
some sort of allegory for the ills of antibiotic overuse or something
haha what
― resulting paste of mashed cheez poops (silby), Thursday, 2 May 2013 01:15 (eleven years ago) link
the guy is no good at relationships, it's true
― brb buying poppers w/my employee discount (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 2 May 2013 06:24 (eleven years ago) link
schlump totally otm
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 3 May 2013 05:57 (eleven years ago) link
the conversation around this film is mostly more enjoyable than the film itself
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 3 May 2013 05:58 (eleven years ago) link
i believe that the parasite is an adaptation of nature evolved to dismantle humanity's techno-industrial complex thereby preventing the destruction of earth
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 3 May 2013 06:02 (eleven years ago) link
I kept thinking of that fungus that infects ants and takes over their bodies. Or Invasion Of The Body Snatchers as told from the p.o.v. of the pod people - only they don't know they're pod people. Or that group of people who refer to themselves as Targeted Individuals - people who believe they're the victims of continued assault from government mind-control weapons.
Probably all of the above. Phase IV seems to be a huge influence on this too.
I dug it quite a bit, but will pass on seeing it again. Nobody is wrong in this thread.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 3 May 2013 08:01 (eleven years ago) link
No Ken Middleham, no cred!
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Friday, 3 May 2013 12:54 (eleven years ago) link
Shane Carruth is things that make you go hmmm.
― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Friday, 3 May 2013 14:55 (eleven years ago) link
as exasperating as I found this, I did think the style and mood carried it. sufficiently.
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 3 May 2013 15:16 (eleven years ago) link
(it will of course be overvalued by the clarity-averse culties)
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 3 May 2013 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
Will be busy overvaluing Spring Breakers for awhile longer.
― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Friday, 3 May 2013 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
(Meaning, *I* will be busy ... not *they* will be busy.)
leggings, the "peter pan" look"They could be STARlings"
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 02:21 (eleven years ago) link
now available for digital download direct from the man himself: http://erbpfilm.com/store
― resulting paste of mashed cheez poops (silby), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 05:10 (eleven years ago) link
i had questions about her haircut tooand i agree, starlings are charming but the application was a shade twee for me.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 13:39 (eleven years ago) link
well her post-worm haircut is different, right? i thought it was funny b/c she wasn't supposed to be the type of person who had that haircut.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 8 May 2013 13:53 (eleven years ago) link
she had long undistinguishable hair before, then she got it cut post-trauma iirc?i think it was a pretty distinctive cut afterwards, and i thought it indicated that her personality had changed in some fundamental way.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 13:56 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i think that's right
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 8 May 2013 13:58 (eleven years ago) link
Don't bother solving it: http://www.avclub.com/articles/upstream-color-room-237-and-why-some-movie-mysteri,97371/
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:23 (eleven years ago) link
Mid-level movie critics all got different haircuts post-Room 237.
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:30 (eleven years ago) link
the "woman goes through a rape scenario and comes out the other side tougher, hunting for revenge and with a short haircut" trope was among the weakest elements of this film, i'd prefer not to think about it too much myself
― UTW, USA, ILX LIFER (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:32 (eleven years ago) link
i dunno, it's kinda schlocky but i like that.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:41 (eleven years ago) link
the schloc1ness is why it kinda feels forgivable but the gravitas he's trying to play with negates it imo
― UTW, USA, ILX LIFER (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:42 (eleven years ago) link
i thought maybe it was decorative faux gravitas
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:43 (eleven years ago) link
from the target collection
― UTW, USA, ILX LIFER (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 14:44 (eleven years ago) link
the "woman goes through a rape scenario and comes out the other side tougher, hunting for revenge and with a short haircut" trope
she didn't seem tougher to me, she seemed utterly lost and fragile? she had the gun before she was assaulted, and when she shot the pig farmer, it hardly seemed triumphant in any way at all.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
okay, you're probably right there. substitute "victimized" for "tougher"
― UTW, USA, ILX LIFER (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 16:15 (eleven years ago) link
i liked her hostile outbursts
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 16:34 (eleven years ago) link
i came out of this not thinking much of it, but i keep coming back to it + dwelling on certain parts. my favorite thing about Primer was the rhythm of the dialogue as the guys were figuring things out, in this movie you only really get that in the sequence where the lady and the dude start piecing things together. but i liked it anyway. the stuff with the kidnapping and the operation really made my skin crawl... some of the emotional material didn't really resonate, i think carruth as an actor may have bitten off more than he could chew, but i still sorta want to root him on for trying. i hope his next movie doesnt take another 9 years to get made
some of the reviews talk about how cold and mechanistic it is, i wonder if that'd occur to as many people if the narrative of carruth being an engineer wasnt already supplied (well, having made Primer doesn't hurt either). the film made me think more of Soderbergh and maybe Roeg than Malick
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:27 (eleven years ago) link
really, a week after seeing this, maybe a day, I had no idea who the fuck "the Orchid Mother and Daughter" were. Remember when individual films didn't have to be deep, impenetrable studies?
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:41 (eleven years ago) link
No.
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
yes... those were dark days
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
h4a I think he's said in interviews that he's planning on making "The Modern Ocean" on a much-sooner-than-nine-years schedule.
― resulting paste of mashed cheez poops (silby), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 17:50 (eleven years ago) link
my favorite thing about Primer was the rhythm of the dialogue as the guys were figuring things out, in this movie you only really get that in the sequence where the lady and the dude start piecing things together.
i have made a fan only kickstarter gift recut of this scene in which mark ruffalo & kirsten dunst begin the process of distributing the tapes to others, it is a striking climax that lends emotional punch to this otherwise monotonous student film
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 18:55 (eleven years ago) link
Remember when individual films didn't have to be deep, impenetrable studies?
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 1:41 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark
even years later, i still have no idea what you want from a film at all
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 21:05 (eleven years ago) link
A fight.
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 21:06 (eleven years ago) link
Men dressed for dinner
― resulting paste of mashed cheez poops (silby), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 23:30 (eleven years ago) link
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 2:55 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark
idgi
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 9 May 2013 02:06 (eleven years ago) link
i still have no idea what you want from a film at all
No one thing, dawg. I even like this film, sort of. I think the increasing contentment of filmmakers in making stuff comprehensible almost entirely to themselves is a bit insular tho.
pigs, Thoreau, Emerson etc:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/the-thoreau-poison.html
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 May 2013 15:34 (eleven years ago) link