A Field In England (Ben Wheatley, 2013)

A Field In England is a very special movie. Ben wheatley its director is known for doing things different but this one is really unique. The name of the movie couln't be more accurate, all is happening in a field, in England. The action take space during the English Civil war in the 17th century, a few deserters meets in a field. Two characters are alchemist / astrologe and one is trying to use the other to find a treasure in the field. But there's also mushrooms in that fields. Magic, mystery, mushrooms, no wonder things derive into deep psychedelia... helped by the folk / post-rock / psych score. We could say the movie sit in an unexpected place between Monthy Pythons (the funny / absurd diologues) and Aguirre. Very surprising and cool stuff. I really recommend you try it.

Also recommended is the music by Teeth of the Sea inspired by the movie : https://rocketrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/a-field-in-england-re-imagined.

movie review : The Witch (2015)

Last time I reviewed a movie on Blasting days was more than four years ago (the excellent Balada Triste de Trompeta, read the review HERE). Also I usually review only things that I really like (got no time for the rest...). But the reason I'm reviewing this one is because it got me angry. Let me explain...
The Witch is not so bad, the main idea is good (and that's why the bad part makes it disapointing and frustrating) : the movie takes places in the seventeeth century New England, the characters are a deeply religious family that leave behind them the "corruption" of their town and goes into exile and isolation on a farm close to a dark forest. The movie does a quite good job in showing the struggle of the familly against the hardships that accumulates against them and their struggles to keep firm their faith and beliefs that are tested by the worsening of their situation and by their confrontation to what they fear might be witchcraft. These trials also loosen the ties beetween the family members and the role of each character in the family is also put to test. This, with a gloomy atmosphere and a growing feel of paranoia, is the successfull part of the movie, with some quite good acting, more subtle than the scenario. The characters marked by religious fanaticism are not showed as one sided and appears human. Even without sharing their beliefs the spectators cares about the characters. The dialogues in old english partly taken from texts of the time are also a good point. These elements would have made a good movie. What wastes for a large part the movie is that witchcraft is not just something that the characters suspects and fears, something in their ideology and psychology that alter their relations. No in The Witch witchcraft is a real thing, there's real witches and Satan for real. I'm not against withcraft and supernatural things in a movie, the problem is not that, the problem is that it is showed in the most simplistic, crude and caricatural way. Witchcraft and evil are depicted in a way that is as bigotted as the characters are. And while the movie manages to show the complexity in its characters, it fails completely to do so about witchcraft and even about the christian point of view about witchcraft. In the Witch witchcraft is what is is in the crudest puritanical christian ideology (same as in other religion by the way). What is evil is women and the flesh. Women fall into temptation and are led by Satan into human sacrifices, blahblah. the withches showed in the movie are just grotesque, and simplisticaly one sided, and not even frightening. I'm not complaining it's giving witchcraft a bad name, I don't care about witchcraft as, like religion, it exists only as ideology, existing only as long as it shapes the psychology and social relations of people bevieving in it (or taking profit from it...). Problem is that the christian war against "witchcraft" was in a large part a war against people being different and questionning the traditionnal social roles and hierarchies, and of course the power of the church itself. So showing witchcraft in the way the church depicts it is like renacting the christian fight against anyone questionning traditionnal hierarchies (male domination, the church, etc.).
A movie released in 2015 about witches that fails to question the puritanical religious take on witchcraft (and beyond that on women, traditionnal family, sex, etc.) is just completely wrong.
If you just edit the film and remove the few scenes with witches and "real" witchcraft you have a good movie, that's why it's a pity these scenes of "real (and caricatural) witchcraft" are just wasting the whole movie in such a way. What a shame...

After seeing the movie I read a few interviews of the director of the movie, Robert Eggers, his views on witches are not as simplistic as the movie could suggest and I suppose his purpose was not siding with the puritan christian ideology. But still the scenes of "real witchcraft", completely in line with the traditionnal ideology, are just clumsy and the movie would be a lot better without it...
Maybe you could say the absurdity of the kind of satan worshipping witchcraft showed and the absurdity of the beliefs of the characters are in itself a critique of this traditionnal point of view. Well... I maintain that removing these scenes would have made a far more subtler and convincing take on the subject.

Movie review : Balada triste de trompeta (2010)

This movie by Alex de la Iglesia (released in 2010) is one of the most intense that i've seen in the last couple of years. It is really emotionally violent, it's truly a shock. And at the same time it's truly beautiful. Rooted in the history of Spain, haunted by the violence of the civil war and the Franco regime but also a universal story about vengeance and desperate love. Remarkable characters, freaks but oh so human, flashy colors, deep red, blue, yellow, it has a kind of surrealistic quality. Clowns fighting for love and for their dignity in a world gone mad, a story of sensibility turning into violence. Its all about that and it's much more...

Bellflower

Bellflower, by Evan Glodell is a movie about love and friendship, loyalty and treason, and about flamethrower, muscle cars, the apocalypse, freedom, drinking a lot and doing silly things, Mad Max, fucking up your life or starting a new one.

And it is fucking intense and beautifull!

released this year, it is directed by Evan Glodell, who also produced it (with a budget of 17 000 dollars only!), and also played (quite well!) the main character. He also made the video camera (to have a special kind of image)! yes really DIY! it's his first movie, he's been thinking about it for eight years and finally made it with some friends, and it's brilliant!

                                                                                                                          

Sound of noise

This movie, released in 2010 by Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson is one of my favorite. It's about the power and joy of free creativity. It' tells the story of a band of musicians/percusionnists that don't play by the rules. In fact they don't even plays instruments, they plays everythings falls in their hand, they plays the city itself. During the movie they performs, as a kind of mucial terrorist/saboteur commando unit, a musical piece called Music for one apartment and six drummers. But it's more than music, it's also living poetry and freedom. It's like the sound ot the crushing down of authority, of the limits imposed on us and on our creativity. Of course they disturb and are chased by the police, by an officer that belongs to a family a musicians but suffer a music phobia. 

But I'm not gonna tell you more about the story.

You HAVE to see this movie.(I believe it's on youtube, but see it in better conditions).


and here is (thanks to American aftermath) the two drummers of the Melvins, Dale Crover and Coady Willis, playing live at the LA premiere of Sound of noise : http://americanaftermath.net/2012/03/11/melvins-drummers-battle-at-sound-of-noise-film-premiere/
 

Hedwig & the Angry inch

This time i post about a movie. A movie about the crazy story of the singer of a hard rock band (who changed sex to escape east Berlin in marrying an american soldier, his songs get ripped off by the new teenage mainstream rock star, his husband guitarist is fascinated by his blond wig, etc...). It's really funny and really original in its form and in it's content (and despite being all about fun it also contains reflections about identity and the oppression induced by the predefined roles that society impose on us. So its all about fun and all about liberty!). All that makes it a great movie. From 2001 and realised by John Cameron Mitchell. just watch it !