An Attempt at Structure - Ironic

Well it certainly has been a while since I've done one of these. After spending a few months in London and attempting a weekly informal series about my thoughts of what is happening right now, everything kind of collapsed . I'm back at home, in another Lockdown and this one is taking its toll. There is a universal incredibly negative feeling going around, I'm exhausted and I know a lot of people are, the glimpses of hope are met daily by that feeling of absolutely nothing. Whilst there was a certain novelty last year to lockdown, now any sense of 'Blitz Spirit' has truly been lost. With the dark and cold winter and the depressing news day in and day out, I haven't exactly found the motivation to write, this was simply just because there was nothing I wanted to talk about. I used to say it a lot but I tend to be extremely negative on these posts, it is my forum to voice opinions and thoughts about what is going on and usually the 'what is going on' part was very rarely sprinkled with hope. There is hope now, there is an extremely positive light at the end of the tunnel, it just feels hard to focus on due to the fact we were talking about this light about a year ago. Constant whiplash and backpaddling means that every essence of freedom and some way out of this was immediately destroyed. Going to London and finally starting University was meant to be my life 'properly' starting, it was the goal for months and I was anxiously waiting until that moment. It was the fact I was leaving for independence that kept me going through last year's lockdown and now feels like we are back at square one. But I'm staying hopeful, I haven't been active on this blog because it was so exhausting to confront the repeated feeling of nothing week in and week out. So I took a break and I am well aware of the irony of the title.

So? What now? Well my plans are to post basically whenever I feel like it. Recently my course has had a slur of films I have found to be less than enthralling, proimarily films that arent exactly inspiring me to write and the workload has been overwhelming at times. And like most people, I'm turning to comfort entertainment, watching new things is a commitment for me so I'm not exactly searching for new things all the time. My course has shifted to being majority pre-1960 and I've found a lot of the films are historical documents rather than actually enthralling pieces of art. As of yesterday, we were given a 'roadmap' out of lockdown and the future is looking bright, University life might not be back to normal anytime soon but that much needed social contact will be refreshing when it comes. We will wait and see what happens, a phrase I've spent just under a year repeating to myself. As for reviews and stuff, I don't know! I'm thinking of just randomly doing little reviews here and there but I'm not 100 percent certain right now. You can follow me on Letterboxd for my stupid little reviews of whatever I am watching etc. For now though, here are a couple of things I've been watching!

The Beaches of Agnes

This was a film that I knew I'd love before I even began watching, which you may argue makes me biased but I was confident this was completely my thing. A few months ago I watched the iconic film Cleo From 5 to 7, a beautiful French New Wave film and when I found out we were studying the director, Agnes Varda, for a week I was more than excited. The Beaches of Agnes is an autobiographical look at Varda's life and her career, but it is 100 percent a film made by a pure artist. It is brimming with creativity, authenticity and is one of the most beautiful and entertaining things I have seen for a while. Varda was a rare soul, one with an uncompromising love for creating, the film follows her reflecting on her life and recreating a moment through a piece of art, whether it be a film she made at the time or an art exhibition on a beach that gives the film its name. I cant recommend this enough, she is a beautiful figure and this film is overwhelmingly beautiful.

L'Age D'Or

After several weeks of films that are lumped under that beautiful word: 'classic' it was so refreshing to watch a film that was just exciting and creative. My professors have a love for introducing a concept and going completely route one with the film choice for the topic, but when the topic was Surrealism I was excited to at least get something different. I wasn't disappointed at all, L'Age D'or is a surrealist masterpiece from acclaimed artist Luis Bunuel. It is just plain and simple a collection of anti-establishment anger and anti-secular beauty, just firing off provocative imagery and layered symbolism with a simple adherence to messing with those in authority. There is a lot to unpack throughout yet it remains energetic and entertaining, I love how so much of the imagery is constantly reinventing itself and playing with narrative. Of course its still a bit dated and I can understand not buying into the ideas, but Bunuel's love for the surreal is infectious and brilliant. 

Safe 

I am a big fan of the film I'm Not There , both as a Bob Dylan fan and a film fan, so when I was given the opportunity to watch one of Todd Haynes' first films I was more than excited. Safe falls into a genre I find quite inconsistent, it is the weird genre of 'films where not much happens but the protagonist slowly breaks down'. I often find them to be weirdly unfocused and often quite repetitive, a great example of my frustrations with this genre is the Lucrecia Martel film The Headless Woman However, Haynes manages to make Safe a thematically dense and uniquely captivating film, with an adherence to constructing a clear narrative with so many brilliant ideas brimming from the surface. I feel in love with this film, it is one of the most uncomfortable and harrowing things I have ever seen and I could not tell you why. You are best going in with no preconceptions and letting Safe tempt you in and take over you. 

And that about does it! I have no idea when I will be back, maybe I will watch a film that I fall in love with and have to write about or maybe something will actually happen in the film industry which isn't just the incoherent ramblings of Wandavision theories. Thanks for sticking with me, I want to keep this space as positive as possible and I hope you will all appreciate that, it's goodbye till I see you again!