Thursday 17 May 2012

Romantics Anonymous

Romantics Anonymous (2010)

(Les émotifs anonymes)
            Director Jean-Pierre Améris 
                     Romantics Anonymous

This film is cute in every way. Not only is it charming like 'Amelie', but it is also very funny.

Loving anything sweet and all things Parisian, the fact this film is set in a chocolate factory in France certainly suggested this would be my type of film! I was right!

Yes, it is a little sugary in the extremities of how timid the two characters Angelique and Jean-Rene are, but I could accept the extremes because it was portrayed with such delicate humour.

Essentially, this was a simple idea about two awkward people, burdened by their insecurities that try dating. Angelique and Jean-Rene's inability to express emotion and intimacy, forces them to use chocolate as a way of communicating with each other. Drawing such passion from the way a fine chocolate is assembled and daring to use this passion to ignite a romance.

A classic romance but told in a refreshing way. Showing how difficult portraying ones feelings can actually be. The story is nothing new but the way it was told was incredibly coy and sweet.

 Doux comme le sucre! 
“Sweet as sugar”

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Wednesday: practice writing


I’ve been reading again which is something I have missed. With deadlines at uni and my eagerness renting DVDs from lovefilm...I have not taken much time to read. Reading relaxes me before bedtime and leaves me with exciting dreams. Because I am reading more, I feel the urge to write more. I really want to improve my writing skills so as I waited for my train today I decided to do some fictional writing. I will post my work on here so I can see how I improve.




My train was 9 minutes delayed, but in an unusual way I enjoyed waiting.
Watching the people around as they realised the time expected was slowly getting longer, I felt a sense of excitement. Who would be the first to act out? Overcome with rage at the prospect of being late for work ? Who would refuse to wait any more and stalk off seeking other routes of transport?
A woman in a yellow coat caught my eye, she was dialling someone- would it be to tell them of her disrupted schedule?
I was right, it was.
Pam, its me. Listen I’m going to be late, the train is delayed and they haven’t given us reason why of course.....if I’m not there before ten can you let the client know...Thanks Pam, hopefully see you soon.”
The woman in yellow had been very efficient. She hadn't been angry or in any way distressed, she had simply spoken with a tone of exasperation that meant the situation was out of her control and this type of thing was a nuisance she was unfortunately familiar with.
I didn't have anyone to ring as I wasn't expected anywhere. In a sad way I wished I had the option to make someone aware of my delayed expectancy time.
I rarely made appointments any more.
I went through a stage of enjoying the doctors. I almost went on a weekly basis. Various reasons bought me there, mainly my nervous disposition and my unnatural fear of traffic.
Councilling seemed to be the option the doctors were keen to enforce on me. So I went to councilling for a while but the tasks Malcolm set me at the end of each session were always so ridiculous that I stopped attending after a few weeks.
Malcolm believed in dream therapy and was keen for me to try some of his methods. At the end of my second session with him he told me to go home that night and dream of the motorway. I told him Id never been on the motorway so therefore did not know what it was like. He told me to envision how I 'thought' the motorway looked. He then asked me to be very specific and even imagine how I thought the motorway smelt. Again I said I didn't know because Id never been on a motorway. He told me to use my imagination so I answered it would smell like burnt tyres. Then he told me to imagine I was standing in the middle of the motorway and the cars were comfortably passing by me and I was content. I asked him why I would be standing there and he told me 'it wasn't important'. Then he started telling me how I should be subconsciously controlling my breathing while I am dreaming but my mind wandered onto the reasons I would be standing in the middle of traffic. I concluded I must be trying to kill myself and that made me sad and anxious. Malcolm told me to calm down.
That night I tried dreaming of the motorway but found my dream interrupted by a 'little chef' that kept appearing and distracting me. Even though I’ve never been on the motorway, I still know there are stop-offs with motels and cafés and I know there is a place called 'little chef' because my friend once met a man from the internet in one. Janine had met this man on a dating website then arranged to meet him at a location that was equal distance between her house and his. This meeting in the middle fell on the A5 with the nearest pit-stop being that café. Apparently Janine had an apple pie then followed the man to the toilets where they had sex. After the pie and sex she got back in her car and drove back home. I didn't ask her if she saw him again but I’m pretty sure it was just a one off type acquaintance.

Sunday 13 May 2012

April Images I forgot to post

Im always collecting images 
and here seems a good place for me to store them

 Helen Musselwhite

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This is an old moodboard I made

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama
Tate Modern: Exhibition

We visited Tate modern during the Easter break.
and......it has taken me this long to write about it
On previous visits to the Tate, I had taken an underground subway tunnel that linked Blackfriars train station to the museum. This time however, we walked from St.Paul's and over the bridge which made the journey alot grander. 
Taking in the cathedral, which served as a backdrop to the bustling city we stopped like tourists to photograph our city.
Yayoi Kusama had caught my eye in Time Out with photos of large polka dot spheres suspended from the ceiling. Alot of her art and photography was very playful, her relasionship with nature and colour was childlike and fun, especially in the simple shapes she used to decorate the human body. I got a heavy mystic influence from her work, along with an importance for performance art, self expression and the spirituality of gatherings.

me enjoying the inflatables

 photos of Yayoi Kusama on a timeline
  
A film made by Kusama that featured her adorning bodies with stickers also showed her decorating a horse in which she then rode around a forest. I liked how she dressed things up with these small neon stickers. Several installations featured similar methods. One room in the style of a living room had stickers covering the walls and floors that became illuminated under the uv light. 
Another room was filled with dangling lights and walls of mirror. I felt as if I were floating in a sea of fairy lights, totally surrounded. With every change of colour, a different sensation and atmosphere. I could have stayed standing in that room of lights for hours, I loved it. 
The exhibition was something I really enjoyed and I was happy to discover someone new whos work I found very inspiring. I hadn't heard of Kusama before seeing the timeout artical, but Im very interested in her work and have researched much since that day

We couldnt film in there (which was a shame) but I found some good photos online

 Photographs: Sarah Lee for the Guardian 
 

The Tates canteen had a beautiful wall covered with the Alighiero Boetti piece 'Aerei'
I loved this piece. However, I was a bit disappointed to realise this was my favourite piece
still after seeing the Boetti exhibition. 
Nothing better caught my eye in that exhibition and I wouldve been disappointed had I visited the tate especially for it.

Whilst at the museum, Jack took this opportunity to escape the stresses 
of modern life and indulge in some quiet reflection.

As he pondered by a substantially large tree, he realised he was being watched.
 He turned his back upon me and my posed camera and tried to enjoy the feeling of being 'one' with modern art


These pieces by Marcel Dzama were really nice

 
 
 

 Here is some more of his work that I like (that wasn't at the Tate)
 
  we wanted to stay more but the museum was closing 
and security men told us "please leave"
so we left

Then Jack proposed we go for dinner, which we did
Here is Jack seated by a lovely advert of a baby


Daisies: film review


Daisies (Sedmikrásky) (1966)

I had read a review that had said ‘daises’ was an a film full of ‘nonsense’ that featured nothing more than ‘ two girls dressing up, being silly and jumping around being cute’.
it all sounded like my type of film. Generally I find anything cute, decorative and dream-like irresistible and dressing-up is a favourite pastime of mine. 

 I was left very disappointed by the movie. It was quite sickly actually.
The two girls were incredibly bored… so decided to spend/waste their time by dressing up, running around with apples and going to dinner with different men.
The dinner parts could’ve been quite fun if that silly girl had stopped showing off and ordering too much food. The ‘playful’ acting was gross. The type you see at the theatre when 25 year olds are playing Wendy, John and Michael and Peter Pan is nearing 40.
 The baby voices that the 2 girls adopted irritated me as did the silly cross-eyed expression the brown haired one would pull. The choreographed way they would skip around, giggle and play fight…it was all rather embarrassing.

I allow this film to be bad for two reasons.

One, In spite of the two characters, it did have some lovely visuals. I have included some screen captures because they really were very nice. Some animation was used and it felt really fresh and exciting. I really liked the palette and experimentation of colour
 Two, it was made in 1966 but it didn’t feel at all dated. It all felt very contemporary