February 19, 2007

Viewings:
D'Est (Chantal Akerman, 16mm, color, sound, 110 min, 1993)

This film was very different from anything I have really ever seen before. I have never been to Europe before and couldn't really recognize the places shown. As we talked about in the discussion on Wednesday, this was rather a frustrating viewing experience for me. There were shots in this film where a single person was shown in a room. Most of the time the person didn't move. I sat there wondering if someone had hit pause or if it was just a still shot that was used. But then I realized that the curtains moved or something else moved. The part that was so painful about this, is that each time this happened, it seemed like eternity. This created some real suspense for me. I kept waiting for something to happen or develop during shots like these but nothing ever really happened. The next shot would simply appear and I was left wondering why that shot was included or what the point of the previous shot was. I found this took away from the following scene because I was still immersed in the previous one. This made me search for an explanation to myself, but not ever finding one. Carl explained to us during discussion that he was deeply offended by a student who walked out right past him saying "I don't think I can take anymore of this." I can relate to this student in a way, because of these painfully long, waiting scenes that produce this suspense that never really gets resolved. The difference between him and I though, is that I kept believing that if I kept watching it would all make sense in the end. This is partially true I guess. The conclusion that I came to was that it was all about the culture, the experience of being there, and the reality of being in a foreign land. The people in this film seemed sad or scared of something; I'm not sure what. No one really looks at the camera. In this country, I think people would have flocked to it to see what was happening. I really really like the concert experience at the end with the cello(?) player. I thought it was performed very well. I have an interest for live music and even music on film and this scene was one that I would like to see more of, and actually film a lot more of myself. I'm glad I viewed this film, but like I said earlier, the waiting scenes created such a suspense in me which was never really resolved. Honestly, this really got to me for some reason.