Filed under: film
Fantastic Planet is a French sci-fi animation (1973) directed by Rene Laloux. Humans are called “Oms” and, newly imported, are kept as pets for giant blue humanoid aliens called “Traags”. I had to watch it twice because it’s short and incredibly beautiful. The sound design is unique and the environment of the film is incredibly imaginative, with a wide array of surreal creatures and plants.
My favorite thing about Fantastic Planet, besides the music and visual beauty, is simply the economy with which animation is actually used. Most of the film consists of edited drawings that are quite static, with multiple layers moving in the foreground and background. The drawings are rich, colorful and sketchy. Besides being aesthetically wonderful, the story is really a pleasant allegory about coexistence and growth through knowledge and collaboration.
I highly recommend! It’s one of those animations that makes you think Damn, maybe I should start doing animation..
After a short period of hibernation, I had a pretty eventful weekend.
Oddly enough, Thursday and Friday were punctuated by two monkey-related events. The first being
Gorilla Thursdays at ghettogloss, a small gallery in Silver Lake. I saw some local art, watched a bit of planet of the apes, had my picture taken with a girl in a gorilla suit. What really sealed the deal though, was stumbling across the Red Lion, just up the street: a proper, campy, German beer garden. As soon as Doug and I walked in I thought to myself “oh hell yes.” The walls were wood-paneled, there were Germany decorations everywhere and a guy was playing jazz piano. Plus the waitresses were all wearing cute German dresses. Friday night found me at the third happy hour worldwide at the El Portal Theater in north Hollywood, which also featured some monkey shenanigans. It was basically a party in a movie theater that revolved around an hour-long screening of independent and commercial short films and videos of all shapes and sizes. The screening finished with a live clarinet/accordion/tuba band playing the Star Wars theme song while beach balls started flying everywhere. Believe it. We left around 11:30 which luckily left just enough time to speed over to this next gem:
At midnight, the Nuart Theater in Santa Monica screened, to a sold out crowd that we barely got into, Troll 2. This film is notoriously one of the worst-made, worst-acted and most preposterous B-horror movies of all time. All the funny reviews and second-hand accounts of it are dwarfed by the asphyxiating hilariousness of actually seeing it for ones self. To put things in further perspective, the neighboring artsy-video store has it listed in its “Holy f*cking sh*t!” section. Apparently, eighteen or so years after being made, Troll 2 is experiencing a camp renaissance. It’s got this huge cult following that became apparent to me when practically the entire theater recited all the funny lines and scenes (every line and scene). So its on a screening tour with the cast and director, who were there for an equally side-splitting Q&A afterwards. The child that played the protagonist of the film (now much older) is making a documentary about it called The Best Worst Movie.
Tonight was more laid back. I got to the MOMA downtown to see a performance from Saul Williams, the celebrated spoken word poet, singer/rapper, writer. I don’t usually go to see spoken word being performed, so in fairness, I don’t know how to judge it. But it was certainly enlightening and entertaining to watch. It’s always a pleasure to witness a really great orator and performer at work. Plus it’s just cool, in general, to see a bunch of hip, well-dressed people come out to watch poetry on a Saturday night in LA.
If there’s one thing i’ve learned about LA so far, it’s that if there’s a free event and it’s even mildly cool you’ve got to show up really…really early for it! The Hammer museum was having a screening of David Lynch’s new film Inland Empire tonight with a Q&A after. They’ve been having cool events all summer and I was so excited to go to this one. Well the screening filled up FAST so I didn’t get in, unfortunatly. But dammit, I came back for the Q&A session even though I hadn’t seen the film!
Seeing Lynch talk was a pleasure. He’s a really funny guy despite what you might gather from his aesthetic. I also learned that he’s got his own brand of coffee, and every morning he reads the weather forecast on Indie 103.1. The talk itself was pretty short but entertaining. I’m really looking forward to watching the film; it comes out on dvd in about 2 weeks and from what I gather, is rather unique because Lynch shot it all on digital video and (I think) did a lot of the camera work himself. It was interesting to hear him talk about how the project started with him just getting ideas for a scene and shooting it. Through this process happening several times, he started to get new ideas about piecing them together into a feature length. I like how that methodology mirrors art-making in a lot of ways. Not to say film isn’t art-making, of course, but…you know, usually films are more planned out.
At the end of the talk, 9 “valley girls” that appear in the movie came out onto the stage and did a choreographed dance to “The Locomotion”. God Bless America.
So, several film related events took place yesterday.
First and most significantly, both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni passed away. Bergman at the age of 89, Antonioni at 94. This is of course extremely tragic news; Two of the greatest filmmakers in history both gone. I’m not pretending to write a eulogy here. To be honest, I don’t know much about their personal lives, but I really loved their films. I’m much better educated about Bergman’s films than Antonioni’s. But still, one finds it impossible to deny the enormity of their contribution to their field. It’s really difficult to try writing about both of them at once, because they are very different and their films mean different things to me.
The legacy of these directors is just so beyond belief for me. When I think about Fellini and Kurosawa who are also already dead, It’s sad for me because it somewhat concretely symbolizes the end of a wonderful era; the death of a certain kind of making and viewing cinema. It’s really rare that you see films as thoughtful, introspective and heartbreakingly beautiful as theirs anymore. Rest in peace, fellas.
On a lighter note, something that is exciting to me was the announcement and trailer release of the new Wes Anderson film. It’s called Darjeeling Limited and seems to follow three brothers (Owen Wilson, Jason Shwartzman and Adrian Brody) on a journey through India. Looks promising.
And speaking of films, yesterday I watched one the strangest and most visually intriguing films I’ve probably ever seen. The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowski. Apparently this movie was financed almost entirely by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It’s totally beyond 
rational analysis and a thrill to watch. It’s full of really grotesque and interesting imagery, which reminded me a lot of watching some of the Cremaster Cycle films. Both are full of abject bodies, fluids, mysterious rituals and satirical characters. This movie constructs a loose narrative about a thief who meets and alchemist. The alchemist turns his shit into gold and then inducts the thief into a group of elite figures who are all giving up their money and power to seek immortality with the alchemist. They undergo a bunch of training and then travel to Lotus Island in search of the “Holy Mountain”. Wild stuff. Jodorowski is a really popular cult filmmaker now that this and his other most famous film El Topo (a psychedelic western) just got new prints and went on tour. I think i’m going to check out El Topo next.
