Friday, May 08, 2009

CELINE AND JULIE LOVE TO GO BOATING WITH THE DEATH IS THE WINNER

My poll 54 ended with 8 votes. Thanks very much to everyone who participated in it. Here is the result:

I LOVE THESE FILMS AND THEIR TITLES. WHICH FILM TITLES DO YOU LIKE?

1.CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974, Jacques Rivette, France)
+LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH (1969, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
Each of them got 4 votes,or 50 %.

3. DON'T USE MICROWAVE TO WARM EGGS OR ELSE THEY WILL EXPLODE! (2005, Tossapol Boonsinsukh, Thailand)
+JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975, Chantal Akerman, Belgium)
+JOAN OF ARC OF MONGOLIA (1989, Ulrike Ottinger, West Germany)
Each of them got 3 votes, or 37 %.


6.A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION (1994, Edward Yang, Taiwan)
+IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE, THE SOLE OBJECT OF ATTENTION SHOULD BE THE TREACHERY OF THE MOON (2009, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Thailand)
+THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE (1996, Stephen Kay, USA)

+LIFE AS A FATAL SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE (2000, Krzysztof Zanussi, Poland)
+PRENOM CARMEN (1983, Jean-Luc Godard, France)
+UNPRONOUNCABLE IN THE LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM OF YOURS (2008, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Thailand)
Each of them got 2 votes, or 25 %.


12.ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE (1974, Martin Scorsese, USA)
+THE DUMB DIE FAST, THE SMART DIE SLOW (1991, Manop Udomdej, Thailand)
+THE SECOND AWAKENING OF CHRISTA KLAGES (1978, Margarethe von Trotta, West Germany)
+WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS (1960, Mikio Naruse, Japan)
+YESTERDAY'S TOMORROW (1978, Wolfgang Staudte, West Germany)
Each of them got 1 vote, or 12 %.


17.GARM (LUST) (กาม) (1978, Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol, Thailand)
+THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK (1971, Wim Wenders, West Germany)
+THE POSITIVELY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ALLEGED TEXAS CHEERLEADER-MURDERING MOM (1993, Michael Ritchie, USA)
+WHO WISHES TO REPRESENT AN ANGEL, MAKES A BEAST (2007, Christine Laquet, video installation)
Each of them got 0 vote.


--Actually in the title DON'T USE MICROWAVE TO WARM EGGS OR ELSE THEY WILL EXPLODE! the word "MICROWAVE" here should be spelled as MICOWAVE to truly correspond with the Thai title of this film. The Thai title of this film intentionally uses the word MICOWAVE instead of MICROWAVE. I guess it is because the Thai title of this film comes from a sentence someone once said to Tossapol, and Tossapol thought that that sentence conveyed the love, care, and warmth, so he used that sentence as the title of this film. I guess the person who said this sentence didn't pronounce the "r" sound when he/she said it, because that's what many Thai people do when they speak colloquially, so there's no "r" in the word MICOWAVE in the Thai title of this film. What's important in the title of this film is not the "meaning" of the sentence, but the intimate feelings between the speaker and the listener. So the grammatical correctness is not important here. What is more important here is the informal nature of the sentence to indicate how close the speaker and the listener are. That's why I think I should have spelled MICOWAVE in the English title of this film.

Another film title which may be compared to this case is THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (2006, Gabriele Muccino, A), because the grammatical error here is intentional and has some meanings in it.


--I like the meaning of LIFE AS A FATAL SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE, because it reflects the truth about life. Our lives begin when our mother and father have sexual intercourse, thus life is a sexually transmitted disease. Everyone must die one day, thus life is fatal.


--Reverse Shot at Indie Wire's blog imagined that JEANNE DIELMAN PART 2 should be titled "WHORES IN PRISON" and he described Delphine Seyrig as box-office queen. Hahaha
http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/sequels_currently_in_the_postproduction_house_of_our_minds/


--Though I pay attention to beautiful film titles in this poll, I want to add that great films don't have to have unique, strange titles. Great films which have simple titles include:

1.IF... (1968, Lindsay Anderson)

2.OR (2004, Keren Yedaya, Israel)
Or is the name of the heroine here.

3.AND THEN (1985, Yoshimitsu Morita)

4.TRASH (1970, Paul Morrissey)

5.HEAT (1972, Paul Morrissey)


--A group of film titles which I find interesting is the film title which uses the name of a minor character in the film, instead of a major character. These film titles include

1.OSCAR (1991, John Landis)

2.NATHALIE GRANGER (1972, Marguerite Duras)


--In the DVD of SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS (1971, Aldo Lado), there is an interview in which someone explains how the title of this film came about. I think it is interesting because I didn't understand the title of this film at first, but the interviewee explains that the original title of this film isn't like this, but they didn't use the original title of this film because it is too much alike the title of another film at that time. So they kept changing the title of this film until it came to this one.


--I think that West German films have very interesting film titles. I want to see many West German films just because I like their titles. This is my film wish list for West German films with interesting titles:

1.DISORDER AND EARLY SORROW (1976, Franz Seitz)
This film is adapted from Thomas Mann's novel.

2.EVENINGS WHEN THE HEATHER DREAMS (1952, Paul Martin)

3.EYES DO NOT WANT TO CLOSE AT ALL TIMES, OR, PERHAPS ONE DAY ROME WILL ALLOW HERSELF TO CHOOSE IN HER TURN (1970, Jean-Marie Straub + Daniele Huillet)

4.FEAR IS A SECOND SHADOW (1974, Norbert Kueckelmann)

5.I LOVE YOU, I KILL YOU (1970, Uwe Brandner)

6.I SLEEP WITH MY MURDERER (1970, Wolfgang Becker)

7.LEAVING IN ORDER TO ARRIVE (1981, Alexandra von Grote)

8.LIFE IS INSANITY (1978, Petra Haffter)

9.LOVE IS THE BEGINNING OF ALL TERROR (1983, Helke Sander)
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke just told me that you can watch the dvd of this film with English subtitles at the library of the Goethe Institute, Bangkok. The library has the dvd boxset of Helke Sander's films, and also the dvd of AFTERNOON (2007, Angela Schanelec).

10.MARIE WARD – BETWEEN GALLOWS AND GLORY (1985, Angelika Weber)

11.MEN ARE THERE TO BE LOVED (1969, Eckhardt Schmidt)

12.1+1=3 (1979, Heidi Genee)

13.THE POWER OF MEN IS THE PATIENCE OF WOMEN (1978, Cristina Perincioli)

14.SCARABEA – HOW MUCH SPACE DOES ONE PERSON NEED (1968, Hans-Juergen Syberberg)

15.THAT'S ENOUGH FOR ME, I'M DROPPING OUT (1983, Gustav Ehmck)

16.THAT'S NO WAY TO LAND A MAN (1959, Hans Deppe)

17.TO BE A WOMAN THESE DAYS (1972, Roswitha vom Bruck + Denise De Boer)

18.UNREACHABLE NEARNESS (1983, Dagmar Hirtz)

19.VERA ROMEYKE IS NOT ACCEPTABLE (1976, Max Willutzki)

20.WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT DEATH? (1980, Elfi Mikesch)

21.A WOMAN WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE WANTS (1957, Arthur Maria Rabenalt)

22.YODELLING IS NO SIN (1974, Ulli Lommel)

23.ZUR SACHE, SCHATZCHEN (1967, May Spils)


--This is my wish list for films I want to see because of their interesting titles:


1.THE END OF THE WORLD IN OUR USUAL BED IN A NIGHT FULL OF RAIN (1978, Lina Wertmuller, Italy)

2.GIRLS WITHOUT TOMORROW (1988, Hong Kong)
It stars Maggie Cheung and deals with five prostitutes. If I remember it correctly, the Thai title of this film is พรุ่งนี้สวรรค์ช่วย (TOMORROW HEAVEN WILL HELP).

3.HER NAME IS VENICE UNDER CALCUTTA DESERT (1976, Marguerite Duras)

4.IT'S BETTER TO BE WEALTHY AND HEALTHY THAN POOR AND ILL (1992, Juraj Jakubisko, Czech)

5.IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN TO PLOW BY READING BOOKS (1988, Richard Linklater, USA)

6.I WAS, I AM, I SHALL BE (1974, Walter Heynowski + Gerhard Scheumann)

7.JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR 2000 (1976, Alain Tanner, Switzerland)
Synopsis from imdb.com:

" The European equivalent of "The Return of the Secaucus 7," this Swiss film looks at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future"


7.THE KEY TO DETERMINING DWARFS, OR THE LAST VOYAGE OF LEMUEL GULLIVER (2003, Martin Sulik, Czech)

8.LAST IMAGES OF THE SHIPWRECK (1959, Eliseo Subiela, Argentina)

9.A LOVELY WAY TO DIE (1968, David Lowell Rich, USA)

10.THE OPTIMISTS OF NINE ELMS (1973, Anthony Simmons, UK)

11.RAINWATER, DEW, HOT WATER (น้ำฝน, น้ำค้าง, น้ำร้อน)
This is the Thai title of a Hong Kong film. If I remember it correctly, that Hong Kong film is SUN, MOON, AND STAR (1988, Michael Mak), which stars Maggie Cheung, Cherie Chung (จงฉู่หง), and Dodo Cheng (เจิ้งอวี้หลิง).


12.REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME (2001, Yannick Bellon + Chris Marker)

13.WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY (1992, Nick Zed)
http://www.ubu.com/film/zedd_war.html

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