Piter FM

Today's film, Piter FM, had its ups and downs. To me, this was more of a chick flick, which don't get me wrong are not bad, but it was a chick flick. You could kind of guess what was going to happen through out the whole movie so it did get boring from time to time. The city does bring these two, Masha and Maksim, together. I just think it was too predictable. You knew that as soon as he got her phone. She didn't seem interested in her boyfriend and he seemed like a little bit of a player after having two phones with two different girls at the same time. I did like how he would sit around and we would get some great views of St. Petersburg. I also like all the water in the movie with the rivers and also the restaurant that Maksim stares into. The ending of the film was also pretty good. When he dropped the phone in the water I was wondering how they were going to get together, but that was explained at the end when he calls into the radio station and she hears his voice. Overall, not a bad movie, just not my type that I would choose to watch. I'm also sadden that today was the last day of class. I have enjoyed watching films anywhere from the start of filming to the newer ones. I will miss this class.

Night Watch

Today's film, Night Watch, was a toss up for me. I'm really into action and thriller films, but this one really didn't do that for me. It was quite hard to understand from the start, but it did kind of explain it later on in the film. We later find out that the younger man in the start of the film is the dad of "The Other." I was surprised at the end of the film though that he chooses to go with the dark side. That was one scene that I wish would of been improved and added on to a bit. Another thing that really didn't get used a lot was the lady that was the owl. We saw her in the middle, but she never really did anything. I might just have to go find the next movie to see if any of these pop up in the next film and are explained more. The special effects were pretty good except for the truck doing the flip towards the start. The blood and the veins were pretty cool. 

The Return

Today, we watched the film, The Return, directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. The film was quite unique. To me, the whole film seemed to be about photography. Not only did it have a lot of photos in it, it seemed that even filming was based around photography. A lot of the shots extended on even after the "action" had left the scenes. For example, when the car would drive by, the camera would follow it, but even after the car was out of sight, the camera would stay and wouldn't move on to the next scene. It would pause there for a moment and then move on. The color blue comes to mind when thinking back on this film. The sky was almost always blue, as with the water. Time to time it would turn gray as it rained a lot in the film. 

I would not of guess that this film was made any where near St. Petersburg. Upon leaving the town where the boys lived, the towns get smaller and smaller and then there are no towns at all and its just the three of them. The island was quite beautiful if I do say so myself. The beaches looked untouched and fresh, as did the forests. The area was far from the film Brother, which we watched yesterday. Brother was based IN St. Petersburg. There was a constant source of people and buildings in Brother.

The mother seemed to be very caring of her boys. In the start after Ivan doesn't jump, she comes and comforts him and gets him down. When the father gets there, her attitude kind of drops off. She went from caring deeply about her boys to just letting them go without a fight or argument about there so called father taking them after being gone for 12 years. The building seems to be a normal living place. It seems to be "dorm" style like what we've seen in all the films.

The father is a tough one to describe. To me, he seems to be a negative character. He really doesn't have any manners towards either of his boys and is never really nice to them. He could, however, just not be use to having his kids around and treats them like he treats others where he lives or works. I still think that he knows the difference between the two though. Andrey seems happy throughout the whole movie, til the father dies. Ivan just gets picked on the whole movie. I don't think he was happy once in the movie.  Andrey really is interested in his father and does whatever he asks unlike Ivan. Ivan doesn't want to eat his soup and always wants things his way which he never gets unless he takes things into his own hands. I really didn't see a difference in the way the boys acted towards each other. Ivan makes fun of Andrey for sucking up to their father, but I did not see anything other than that. 

It never really shows what the fathers goals were on the trip. The box he retrieves is the only thing that is really brought up. We never do find out what happens to this case or whats in it. I really wanted to see what it had in it! Who knows what could be in a chest in a house like that. I also didn't see a reason to bring his sons along, unless the box had something to do with them. The box was never brought up again so I guess we never will know. 

The title, The Return, didn't really fit unless they were returning to the island again. It could also be about their father returning and coming back into their lives again. The boys didn't seem affected right away after their fathers death. I thought for sure we would see some crying after, but we never saw any reaction until the boat sank with their father still in it. 

Overall this film was quite good and I really enjoy the scenery in it. It left you hanging a little at the end, but I still enjoyed it. 

Brother

In class today we watched the film Brother by Aleksei Balabanov, which I think is the best film we have watched so far. The action and violence is the best ingredient for a great movie. In the beginning of the film, it seemed like he was just looking for trouble, but when he moved to see his brother, trouble came to him. Right from the start we know he is no stranger to violence. He sits next to one of the security guards from the set and asks if he really broke the other guards arm. He had also beat up a few others along with the guards. It just seemed like he had a rough child life and grew up around violence. He sharpened his skills even more by joining the army. He also seemed to be quite "street smart". He knew how to make a lot of little gadgets to help him along his way like the mini shot gun with "improved ammo" and the make shift silencer with a plastic bottle. I think he enjoys the violence. He does whatever his brother asks him to do without any hassle and he seems to enjoy the benefits that these jobs come with. The army seems to be a big part about his background. He seemed hardened by the army even though he never saw action, according to him. Multiple people ask about it through the movie, but we never really get the whole story behind it, just that he worked at HQ. I think there is more behind it than what he says. He is too street smart to have served at the HQ. He is fearless it seems and is looking to do anything to anybody if they mess with him or his family. Even his friends, as we saw with Sveta and her husband that beats her. She later does not want to be with Danila which surprised me. He did a lot for her and throughout the whole movie, she kept telling her husband to not come to the apartment anymore, but in the end stays with him and "dumps" Danila. He also hangs out with a young girl named Kat. He does not seem interested in her as much as Sveta. They both seem to be complete opposites of each other. Kat is young and likes to party and have a good time. Sveta is older and it does not seem to interested in the crazy party life style although we never see that.
Music in the movie was quite catchy! I personally like a good techno song then and now then and this movie didn't disappoint. Music played a big role in the film, but it never seemed to show in his emotions or at least the film never mentioned it. He has to have it in his life as it showed in almost every scene that music was important to him. Every place he went there was music. The club, the apartment when they were waiting to do the hit, and even at the end of the film when he hitchhiked out of town he asked the driver to turn the radio on.
The ending of the film really made Danlia seem like a total mafia member. He saves his brother, takes the brothers money and tell him to go get a job back in Moscow helping with the POLICE! Danila then heads to Moscow almost as he was going to look for more Mobster things to do.
Obviously, we have not seen the type of killing we saw in this film in any others we have watched. I also think that the killings added a different element to it and to me, made it better. Without these killings and the shooting, we don't get the action and mobster effect. And if your going to make a film about the mafia, you have to have hits and killings in them, other wise your just wasting your time!

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

Today's movie, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears by Vladimir Menshov reminded me a lot of our first movie we watch, Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath. The story lines were not the same but the music and a lot of the shots were the same. The ending scene with the building was also the same but I believe in Irony of Fate it was light out and not dark. I really liked how the film was divided up. Even though the film was quite long, I thought that there was a lot of wasted space in it. It explained everything very well and made it easier to understand. In the first part of the film, Lyudmila wants her life to be filled with riches. The easy way out. She was looking for a rich guy to give her everything she ever wanted. Antonina was a little more tricky to follow because she didn't seem to be a "main" person in the film. I felt that her relationship went alight throughout the whole movie. Even though Katya gets screwed over at the start of the film, she took it well and ending up doing well for herself at the end of the movie. I'm glad that she didn't take Rudolph back at the end! Gosha was quite a surprise! When he said he wants to move in and marry Katya after only knowing her for 44 hours and 22 minuets! He seemed to be shady about everything he did of his work, but I am glad that him and Katya ended up at the end.

Ivan's Childhood

Andrei Tarkovsky's film Ivan's Childhood is a great improvement over his last film we watched, Mirror. I thought the little boy in the film was a total bad ass. He did not take crap from anyone! All these soldiers would try to make him be quiet and he would stand up to them. He also did not want to go to school. He wanted to keep fighting at the front like he was use to. This film was a lot easier to understand because it had a true story to it. It was easy to follow and it did not flip back and forth like Mirror did. I was upset with the ending of the film and finding out what happened to Ivan. I'm sure Kholin and Katasonov were affected by this because of the talks of adopting him after the war was over. I found that the shots were just like the ones in Mirror and he added a lot of weird camera angles that I liked. Tarkovsky added scenes with a "first person" look. He also added a few twist to the few angles which I thought were cool and added a one of a kind feel to the movie.

Mirror

Today's film, Mirror, was quite an unusual one. I have understood most of the films we have watched so far, and if I could not understand a part, other parts of the movie would help connect it for me. This movie just seemed to take off in every direction. One second its black and white and then another its colored. Don't get me wrong here, it adds a one of kind feel to the movie. I just could not follow this movie. I got lost and once I was lost I could not figure out what was going on. One scene that really caught me was when the lady and the young boy go to the other Lady's house. Just everything about that scene I did not get. Then there was all the mirrors throughout the film. Obviously with the film being called Mirrors, there is going to be something in it that involves mirrors. Once again, I just could not connect the mirrors to the film. This is one of the only movies I have ever watched that I have been completely stumped on what was happening to who. Maybe someone who understands it more will be more positive about it, but I think most of us if not all of us would not put this film at the top of their lists.

Ivan the Terrible Part I

Upon watching the first part of Ivan the Terrible, I actually would not have guessed that this was an Eisenstein film. To be honest, I like Battleship Potemkin better than this film. The actors in this film were just too over bearing with their movements ecpecally Ivan. When he is "dying" he just has too much energy to be dying. He throwing himself all of the place which would be possible if he was really dying. Ivan also did not seem like the best leader. He was easily pursuaded to go a different way. You also could not really tell who his true friends are. Ivan seems to be loyal and he wants to make a different for Russia. The Boyars just want power. They want to control everything. They do not want to share power and when their chance comes to take over power they try with everything they have to take control.

Burnt by the Sun

For being made in 1994, I was a little disappointed in this film. It was slow at times and some parts didn't seem right for the movie. I didn't understand the glowing ball of whatever that kept coming into the movie. I could see it being the sun and it could of been showing being burnt by the sun, but I really didn't understand it moving around the house and then out to the field where it lit the tree on fire. I was thinking it was going to set the wheat on fire since, at the start of the movie, the "towns people" had a fit with all the tanks in the wheat fields. It just lit the tree on fire and they never came back to it. The song was also recurring. I think that "being burnt by the sun" means that if you mess with fire your going to get burned type of thing. I think that Kotov had gone against Stalin and there for messed with the fire, and at the end, he gets burned. It seemed like he let his guard down. I think that Kotov was more laid back than Chapaev was, but we also didn't see Kotov in action as much as we did Chapaev. Chapaev was more laid back towards the end of his film, but I don't think you can compare the two because these were two different types of movies. Mitya seemed to be in deep right from the start. As he said later in the film, this job had ruined his life and his profession. He wanted to kill himself at the start of the film! Once he got started in his killings, the government wouldn't let him go and give him what they promised. He had to do what he was told or be cut off and killed. When he arrests Kotov, I think he does it more for political reasons rather than personal ones. Even though he is in love with Marusia and gets along with Nadya well, I don't think he wanted to take him away from those two. He was told to do a job and that was to arrest Kotov. Kotov was trying to make a difference and maybe take a different route than Stalin. He tells Nadya about how travel will be better when they're in the boat. This was one part of his "plan". Kotov represents one side and Mitya represents Stalin's side. Lastly, since this film was made after the fall of the Soviet Union, I believe this film was made for an international audience more than a Russian one. The film shows how if you mess with the government, they will hunt you down and eliminate you with no regrets about it. Kotov was obviously an important figure, a hero, and made a good impression on everyone. Everyone noticed him, and yet he was still taken down because he thought differently than Stalin. The film just shows how the Soviets were behind closed doors.

Circus

The Circus started out confusing, but it worked its self out by the end of the movie. I don't know why I didn't catch on to it that fast, but to me it was just kind of confusing the start. I liked how the women were more of an important act in this film. All the films that we have watched up til this one has been mostly male dominated with some females in it. This movie seemed to have a women has a hero and an important figure rather than a man. The filmed had a decent amount of music in it once again and seemed like a musical by the end of the film. This wasn't a bad thing, but obviously music is a big thing in this early films. The good thing about these songs is that there not boring and they actually sound good even in Russian. I would place this film the the entertainment area.

Chapaev

I thought Chapaev was very good. It was almost like watching an old western with Clint Eastwood! The most obvious difference between this and Battleship Potemkin is the sound. The sound makes the movie better and doesn't make the audience guess what everyone is saying. I think that this movie wouldn't have been as good as it was if it would of been silent. The battles would of been good to watch, but the sound of the guns just make them so much better.I think the relationship between Chapaev and Petka is quite good, but I couldn't really say how close they were. Petka does go back to save him at the end of the film and helps him to the river. Petka and Anka "find" love through working on the mini gun. If he would of survived, it seemed like they would of been together. To me the hero was Chapaev. He lead the troops through the whole movie. Petka would of been a close second because of him going back to save Chapaev. It seemed like the Reds and Whites war was kind of like of Revolutionary War with the Reds being the new settlers and the Whites being the Red Coats. Even the fighting style were similar with the gorilla type war fare and the lines of the Red Coats.

The Man with the Movie Camera

As the title shows, this films was exactly that, a man and his movie camera. Out of all the film I have ever seen, this one ranks up there for one of the most weirdest and most useless. This film has plenty of good use for people of that time and maybe some directors today's see this movie as inspiration, but to me, it was just image after image after image. Once again, I can see this film was maybe a video that new directors can learn of off by maybe using a certain shot or different background, but to make it into an entertainment movie? It just got boring after a while. It was not entertaining to me. I couldn't really tell if there were any characters in it, but there were people. Now I know I sound like the bad guy in this, but this is just what I thought of the film. Going back on how it can be good. As Mr.Isham stated in his handout, this film was an "experimental film" by a man named Dziga Vertov. He was out there trying all these different shots to try to open up the film world. He wanted to show his view on certain things rather than the normal way.

Battleship Potemkin

Today's film was better than the films we watched yesterday. There was more action and violence, which I believe can draw many more people to it. Just like in today's films, everyone loves a good action packed movie. Even though this was no James Bond film, it was good considering the time it was made and the technology during then. One thing I did notice was the RED flag that was flown and it did show up in the black and white as RED. People must of thought that was amazing that there was a color in their films. As a political film, I think it would of been a little borderline. You have a crew that over throws their senior officers and take control of a battleship with loads of ammunition and firepower. Even though they come back and show no mercy against the towns people, this could get the crowd thinking that taking over a battleship is possible. But also on the flip side, they scared them with the killings in town. As entertainment goes, I think Sergei Eisenstein hit it right on the head for that era and time. I'm not saying that the films we watched yesterday were boring, these film just portray to me more than those three did.

Three Silent Films by Evgeni Bauer

Upon watching the three films, A Child of the Big City, The 1002nd Ruse, and The Dying Swan, there were many things that were similar in all the short films. First and most obvious was all the films were silent films. These films are unique in their own way. These films make you guess what everyone is talking about and what is happening. You can kind of take what you know and make it your own story. One person might see it one way and another person might see it in a completely different way. A director might face obsacales with trying to make it so the audience can guess what is going on and not confusing them. With no words, you have to let the actors actions tell the story. You have to pay close attention to these films so you dont miss anything important that could throw the whole story off. Since there arn't any words that could be used to tell you what has already happened, you just have to pay close attention to the people and their body and facial movements.
In theses films, it seems like someone gets cheated on or their heart broken in some way. The first film has a girl that seems upset and lonely in her life til Viktor comes along and gives her whatever she wants. He then is going to "ruin". To me it seemed like she "kicked" him out with nothing and kept living the dream. Then when he tries to get her back, she denies him thus ending in him killing himself. At the very end, it seems that she didn't even care as she stepped over his dead body! The second film was a lot shorter. The husband was just wierd! She should of gave him the boot from day one!! The wife ends up having another man over, even with the husband knwoing he is in the room, she still brings him out once the husband leaves the room. The last film was easy to follow til the very end. After Viktor cheats on her, she leaves and becomes a famous ballerina dancer where Glinsky comes in. To me, it seemed like Viktor finally came back to her, she took him back, and when Glinsky finds out she is once again happy he kills her?? Either way, Glinsky is crazy! He just looks crazy and you can tell from the first time you see him he is obsessive.

Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! Part II

For part two of Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath, I had high hopes. Part one was surprisingly good and I was impressed with the film, but part two quickly turned that around. The first part of the movie that we watched on Money was funny and had its highs, but part two wasn't really funny at anytime. It just turned boring and drug out. It did have some highs to it though. I thought that the doorbell ringing every so often was good and kept the movie going. I also liked how Ippolit kept coming back to the room, but always ended up leaving in a rage because Zhenya was still there. One thing I did find different than some of our movies were all the songs that Zhenya and Nadya would sing. It really wasn't a musical type of movie, but there was a quite a lot of singing in it. That really didn't bother me and the songs were cool to listen to in Russian. Overall, I like how we started this class off. I'm now hooked and ready for more!