Sunday, September 09, 2007

PRAP BOONPAN AND CHAI CHAIYACHIT'S BLOG

ตอนนี้คุณปราปต์ บุนปานและคุณชาย ไชยชิต (ผู้กำกับ “ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน”) ได้เปิดบล็อกของตัวเองแล้วค่ะ ถ้าใครสนใจจะพูดคุยแลกเปลี่ยนความคิดเห็นเกี่ยวกับผู้กำกับสองคนนี้ หรือยังมีข้อข้องใจอะไรเกี่ยวกับ “ความลักลั่นในงานรื่นเริง” ก็ขอเชิญให้ไปช่วยกันแสดงความคิดเห็นได้ที่ http://agonisticfilm.exteen.com/ นะคะ

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This is what I wrote in reply to Matthew Hunt in my blog below
http://celinejulie.blogspot.com/2007/08/kosit-juntaratips-ejaculation-on-canvas.html

Hahaha. I give EYES WITHOUT A FACE “A-“ just because it didn’t arouse strong feelings in me. I don’t find it scary, exciting, or sublime. My grade just reflects my feelings, and has nothing to do with how great any film is. And my feelings always have nothing to do with “reasons”. I’m not a critic, and I can’t analyze precisely what is good or bad in any film. But as an ordinary audience, I just know how I “feel” during or after seeing any film. Maybe I will change my mind after I see it for the second time.

I myself don’t understand why I don’t enjoy some great Classic horror films, especially the ones which some people call “poetic”. I don’t give A+ to THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943, Mark Robson, A), CAT PEOPLE (1942, Jacques Tourneur, A), THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944, Robert Wise, A-) and THE BODY SNATCHERS (1945, Robert Wise, A-). Somehow these films don’t arouse strong feelings in me, though these films may be very artistic or great. I prefer THE GHOST SHIP (1943, Mark Robson, A+), ISLE OF THE DEAD (1945, Mark Robson, A+), and BEDLAM (1946, Mark Robson, A+).

3 comments:

Matthew Hunt said...

I'd forgotten how good Robson was. I associate him only with Earthquake, one of his last (quite bad) films, but you reminded me of his much better very early horror films. I still think Tourneur is more poetic, though (but perhaps, unusually, producer Val Lewton is the auteur here, rather than Robson or Tourneur).

celinejulie said...

I have never seen Mark Robson’s films after the 1940’s. I think I have a video of VON RYAN’S EXPRESS (1965), but haven’t watched it yet.

Yes, I think it’s Val Lewton who is the auteur here. It’s a rare case for a producer to have such (good) influences over the directors like this.

I can’t think of movie producers nowadays who have distinct styles of their own. I like some producers, though I don’t think they have distinct styles of their own.

My favorite producers include:

1.Paolo Branco, who produces

1.1 THE INNER LIFE OF MARTIN FROST (2007, Paul Auster)

1.2 TRANCE (2006, Teresa Villaverde)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460034/

1.3 KLIMT (2006, Raoul Ruiz)

1.4 O FATALISTA (2005, Joao Botelho)

1.5 SEVEN INVISIBLE MEN (2005, Sharunas Bartas)
http://www.madragoafilmes.pt/seveninvisiblemen/

1.6 PAUL S'EN VA (2004, Alain Tanner)

1.7 ILLUMINATION (2004, Pascale Breton)

1.8 CHANGING TIMES (2004, Andre Techine, A)

1.9 A TALKING PICTURE (2003, Manoel de Oliveira, A+)

1.10 SALTIMBANK (2003, Jean-Claude Biette, A+)

1.11 IT'S EASIER FOR A CAMEL (2003, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, A+)

1.12 DEUX (2002, Werner Schroeter)

1.13 SHIPWRECKED ON ROUTE D 17 (2002, Luc Moullet)

1.14 SNOW WHITE (2000, Joao Cesar Monteiro)

1.15 LA CAPTIVE (2000, Chantal Akerman)

1.16 LA VIE MODERNE (2000, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa, A+)

1.17 L'ENNUI (1998, Cedric Kahn)

1.18 BONES (1997, Pedro Costa)

1.19 DIARY OF A SEDUCER (1996, Daniele Dubroux, A+)

1.20 LE COEUR FANTOME (1996, Philippe Garrel, A+)



2.ALAIN SARDE, who produces

2.1 OLIVER TWIST (2005, Roman Polanski, A+)

2.2 VERA DRAKE (2004, Mike Leigh, A+)

2.3 OUR MUSIC (2004, Jean-Luc Godard)

2.4 ONLY GIRLS (2003, Pierre Jolivet, A)

2.5 FEAR AND TREMBLING (2003, Alain Corneau, A-)

2.6 CHAOS (2001, Coline Serreau, A)

2.7 MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001, David Lynch, A+)

2.8 WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS (2000, Francois Ozon, A+/A)

2.9 IT ALL STARTS TODAY (1999, Bertrand Tavernier, A)

2.10 MY MAN (1996, Bertrand Blier, A+/A)

celinejulie said...

Of all the films produced by Paolo Branco, the one I would like to see the most is SNOW WHITE (75 min), because I have heard that this film is influenced by Marguerite Duras (my most favorite director) and Guy Debord, and has been released as a DVD since 2004, but I can't find this DVD in Bangkok. In this version of SNOW WHITE, Joao Cesar Monteiro uses only black screen for all scenes with dialogue,and in between-scenes he inserts images of the sky,clouds, and the graves.

This is a comment in imdb.com for SNOW WHITE (2000)

"It's original, provocative and tries to mess up with our most deeply concepts. Cesar Monteiro's filmography is full of these ingredients, but in this particular case, it goes to the extreme, because it changes one of the most important concepts of cinema: To Watch something! When you listen to a song, you don't expect to see anything, just listen to it… when you read a book, you know you will have to imagine all the characters' faces, all the colors, all the scenarios…When you watch a movie you're expecting to see all the story, what is really happening on the screen. But here you don't, you just watch a black screen almost all the time!:"

More information on SNOW WHITE can be read at:
http://www.ncncine.com/20052.html

Some films of Guy Debord can be watched at:
http://www.ubu.com/film/debord.html

I just saw a short film called REVOLUTIONARY SONG (2005, Istvan Kantor, A+), and this film also mentioned Guy Debord.