[Skuj]

(How do you put the fucken accent above the e in Noe?)

I have Irreversible and I'm about to view it, right after posting this. But in the meantime, what are your reactions to this film, as well as his others in the title of this thread?

Thanks.

[atsonicpark]

I find him extremely dull. Never got the hype. His stuff just seems so obvious, nothing unique or artistic about it, I don't see anything particularly special about his work. Even though I'm a fan of cinema that's dark, I'm not even compelled by the constant nihilistic vibe in his work. No bright moments at all, and yet it just seems so dull to me. To me, he's kinda like a Von Trier or Haneke type, more "infamous".. fun to talk about.. than actually a creator of enjoyable films (unlike, say, Phillipe Grandrieu... whose films Somber and La Vie Nouvelle are modern masterpieces of dark, cynical, unforgiving cinema that are likewise beautiful and compelling; also, as for the aforementioned directors, I find Haneke's "71 Fragments..." and "code Unknown" quite enjoyable, even though I find his work a bit silly overall). I think I Stand Alone is pretty fun, though, kinda having a vibe like that of the Pusher trilogy (which are great films), and who can forget the hilarious WARNING!!!!! YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO LEAVE THE THEATER! part. I'll see his new movie whenever it leaks, but eh. Not looking forward to it, since it's damn near 3 hours long and the trailer looks horrible. My ratings of what I've seen...

carne - 5/10
i stand alone - 6/10
irreversilbe - 4/10
sodomites - 3/10
we fuck alone (segment from destricted) - 1/10

I've also seen some of his music videos, which are pretty fun. I saw a documentary he did once with this really obscure director who had AIDS, who had only made one 20 minute scifi film. I can't remember the title... but that one's really good, worth seeing if you can track it down.

As for Irreversible, I kinda respect it on one hand, kinda find it nearly unwatchable on the other hand. The first 20 minutes is nauseating -- yeah, yeah, "that's the point", but a camera spinning around with screaming and low fi sounds... seems to be trying too hard... I honestly think the only thing I like about that movie is Monica Belluci's ass and the strobelight at the end. That 9 minute rape scene was garbage. I'm not offended by it or anything, it just was boring and ridiculous. "Unnecessary" comes to mind; that describes most of his work. There are some neat little bits if you look hard enough, like how the rape scene has a random passerby for a second, who doesn't try to help. A few cool details. But it's 2 hours of nauseating shakey cameras and unlikeable characters.


Skuj, I'd suggest checking out some Aki Kaurismaki (hilariously dark crime films), Jon Jost (supertalented independant auteur), Ming-Liang Tsai (a modern-day Antonioni; absurd, surreal, dark, hilarious), Gok Kim (whose film "Exhausted" is probably the darkest and most, uh, exhausting, film I've ever seen), and of course, THE MASTER Takeshi Kitano (who is simply my favorite director of all time; his poetic films carefully balance darkness and humor, reserved at times but stunningly beautiful at most times -- A Scene at the Sea, Achilles and the Tortoise, Kids Return, Violent Cop, Boiling Point are all depressing as hell yet touching, beautiful, mindblowing works).

[DeadDiscoDildo]

Like I said in the other thread, I was not impressed.

Enter the void was the first film by him I saw, it sucked.

[atsonicpark]

Since nihilistic films are my favorite kind of mvoies, and that's the kind Noe makes, I'm going to name a few films here I really like that people who are into Noe's style and content (even if they aren't in love with his films) might appreciate. I'm going to mainly name some recent films I HIGHLY reccomend, but I threw in some oldies but goodies too!!

- Frownland. Absolutely devestating, awkward, and insane.. this film took, like, 10 years to make. Despite being obscure as hell, Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs up! Anyway... if you'd like to see an utterly pointless waste of space, watch this film because the main character represents every creepy bizarre weirdo you've ever known. And yet it's compelling, even when there's about 10 minutes of him stretching his face with his hands and making himself cry. A brilliant piece of cinema, future classic.

- Back Against the Wall. James Fotopolous is my favorite no-budget independant filmmaker now than Giuseppe Andrews and Damon Packard have seemingly retired. He often gets compared to Cronenberg and Lynch, but that's unfair; his films have a lot more depth than either of those dudes, and that's saying something. This one is DARK AS HELL. The elliptical editing is absolutely genius, the camera work is topnotch, the soundtrack is the best I've ever heard (loooooooow drones, sickening bass crawling along, weird high pitched tones that ring out for miles). The most artistic framing I've seen in an independant film. Every scene looks like a painting. Basically, the film is a brutal and complex observation of a woman, as she fucks rich men, becomes a porn star, and gets disfigured. However, that does nothing to describe what the movie is about, as the movie doesn't ever show "important" details. It lets your mind fill in the blanks. The movie jumps ahead years without any warning. But.. wow.. just a brutal, amazing film, of the highest calibre.

- Kichiku Dai Enkai. The most nihilistic, disturbing, hard to watch film ever made. A masterpiece.

- Hole in My Heart. Took a few watches to appreciate this one, but now, I can't get enough of it. 4 people live together, fuck peices of meat with Barbie Dolls, and argue. And it's real. No script. The director basically just put these insanely fucked up people in a room together. At first, it irritated me -- lots of noise on the soundtrack, and the film felt messy and directionless. By the end, it felt like a really strange, shockingly real comment on our culture, and all of its hypocracies.

- Combat Shock. I know this isn't recent either, but it's still fairly unknown except amongst Grindhouse fanatics. People write it off cuz it's a "troma film", but uh.. yeah, it's incredible. Dark as hell.

- Eureka. While this is, at times, the most depressing film ever, it's -- at most times -- the most beautiful film ever. In its 4 hours, it does, well, everything. And it does it well. One of the only true masterpieces of cinema, one of the only perfect films (Taxi Driver and Hana-Bi would be on that list as well, and that's about it). Do whatever you can to see this film.

- Satantango. Not recent, but still underappreciated, even amongst hardcore cinephiles. 7 1/2 hours long, and never wastes a single second. I've watched this film 4 times, without fast forwarding, and all in one sitting except once. Frighteningly well-directed.

- The Bed You Sleep In. I already mentioned Jon Jost, but this is the most devestating film I've ever watched. Everything's going good.. kind of an awkward, odd little movie and then about 60 minutes in.. I've never seen anything like this... everything falls apart... it's hard to describe, but when THE MOMENT happens, you'll know. A mind destroyer. You can buy this dvd off of amazon.com for, seriously, like $1 used. Please buy this, if you don't buy anymore films in this list. But, really, Jost's "Sure Fire" "Bell Diamond" "Slow Moves" etc. are all similiarly complex and disturbing. But they're also impossible to find unless you've got good friends... or you could just get on surrealmoviez.

- Shura, the Toshio Matsumoto film. I'm not really into "samurai movies" but this is the bleakest, darkest samurai epic ever made. Should be up there with Kurosawa's films, but I think it has like 3 ratings on imdb. wow. Toshio Matsumoto is a HUGE influence on my work, check out Funeral Procession of Roses, an insanely depressing movie about homosexuality in Japan.. in 1968.

- The Diary of Ricardo Lopez. Okay, this is a documentary, and is BY FAR AND AWAY the sickest and most disturbing thing EVER MADE. It's 2 hours of an insane guy ranting about Bjork and his life. He cuts himself, he picks at scabs on his dick, he sets up a bomb that sprays acid to hurt Bjork. He rants about his life. he films cockroaches in his apartment. You will never, EVER be able to get this film out of your mind. Damn... THE ONLY FILM TO MAKE ME THROW UP. This has never been officially released, so it's fine to "Share" it. "Enjoy": http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W1TRJX7S

- Naked by Mike Leigh. Not new, but it is probably the bleakest film I've ever seen. There is a good 15 minute argument about planets aligning. This one's all about the dialogue.

- Out of the Blue by Dennis Hopper. In my top 15 favorite films ever. Underappreciated as hell, and absolutely, frighteningly beautiful. Shocking as hell. Lynch ripped it off a bit for Blue Velvet (Frank Booth is basically Dennis Hopper's character in this... well, at the end, anyway, when you find out who he really is).

- Pop Skull. This experimental film is a masterpiece. It's about a guy who is depressed and he drinks cough syrup. It accurately shows a robotrip -- not an easy feat; if you've ever done the stuff, you know how beautiful and amazing it can be and world-ending the next. What a film.

- Most High. The best "drug movie" ever that's not a straight documentary. The director lost like 150 lbs for this movie (he's also the star). It'd be the 2nd time in his life he did this -- the first time was when he really lost weight from meth. As such, this is REAL. Strangely overlooked, but by far, the most realistic, depressing, and genius drug movie ever made. No music video shit (though there is fast cutting, the editing is artistic, and not in a "LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM!" way). Dark, brilliant.

- Angel Dust. This is from 1997, and is a Sogo Ishii film. Mr. Ishii is one of my favorite directors. He is extremely versatile. This film is a shockingly dark depressing story about a serial killer. Memories of Murder seemed to be inspired by it, but there's something more to this one... hard to describe, with a vibe you won't be able to escape from.

- Schramm/Der Todesking/Nekromantik films. Often marketed as simple horror/exploitation films, these are shockingly complex, dark art-horror films, unlike anything else out there. Der Todesking made me really sick to my stomach; 7 short films shot in 7 completely different styles, all about suicide. In between each short is a sped-up timelapse video of a corpse rotting. Truly sick.

- Multipel Maniacs. I'm not much of a fanj of John Waters's films (gasp! shock! He's alright, just never been someone I go out of my way to watch, aside from maybe Desparate Living, Cecil B. Demented, and this film!). Typical Waters stuff at times, but a helluva lot stranger and more disturbing than anything else he's done... feels very very real.

- Stroszek. Depressing film that Ian Curtis watched before he offed himself. 'Nuff said.

- Pepperment Candy. Told backwards a la Irreversible and Memento, but implemented to a much greater degree...

- Last Life in the Universe. Bleak and hopeless film about "love".

- Bright future. Hopeless and bleak film about "Death".

- Clean Shaven. A bit hard to watch, this is the movie Cronenberg ripped off for Spider. Brilliant sound editing, and a truly disturbing performance make this a strange classic.



- Tokyo Fist. My favorite Tsukamoto film by far, this one always gets me. It's basically about some boxers and the rape of a girl. It's, ahem, a very unconventional tale after a certain point, with images you will not be able to get out of your head. An absolute masterpiece. Tsukamoto staring lifelessly into a camera is more depressing than just about anything I can think of.

Gotta make special mention of Bruno Dumont's films.. 29 Palms, L'Humanite... essentially plotless and pointless at times, these films will fuck with you. You either love 'em or hate 'em. He's a philosophy professor turned filmmaker, and in 29 Palms, there's, um, philosophy! Unsexy sex scenes, long moments of nothingness... and then it becomes one of the hardest movies you'll ever sit through!

Also...

 

Anything by Fassbinder, but especially the above movie. Fassbinder's movies might be a bit hard for peopel to take at first, as he has a very.. uh.. UNAPOLOGETIC style. He almost has no "style", conventionally speaking, since his 42 films are all so different, yet they're all fucking brilliant, and focus on the darkness of life.

Also, of course, late-period Godard is usually grumpy, dark, ugly, and depressing, which is why I prefer it to his poppy cutesy new wave films.

Just way too many great dark films out there. Check 'em all out! And if anyone has any reccomendations for me, fire away! (please don't reccomend Salo, I think it's boring as hell, though I love the book)

[demonrail666]

Irreversible really disturbed me. I've only seen it once all the way through but don't think I could handle it again. I do think that, in its way, it's brilliant but life's too short to endure that amount of misery again.

I like I Stand Alone, even if ultimately, it's just Falling Down without a sense of humour.

[atsonicpark]

That's a good point re: Falling Down.. and it's even funnier that Falling Down is sort of a remake of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, the only movie I posted a picture of above...

[Skuj]

atsonic, you are a wealth of very valuable information and opinion, and I thank you.

My viewing last night didn't happen haha...2yr old didn't want to sleep.

Perhaps tonight......

[demonrail666]

Some good films listed by ASP. I especially agree with his points about Combat Shock, Naked and Out of the Blue

I don't think Noe's films (with the exception (IMO) of Irreversible) are especially interesting in their own right. Although I do think they become more interesting when looked at as part of a broader trend within recent European films, marked by stuff like The Idiots, Baise-Moi, Ma Mere, L'Ennui, Romance, L'Humanite, Sitcom, Les choses secrets, Funny Games, etc, which appear to have tried to blur the bounderies between exploitation and art cinema, a tactic which I suppose can be traced back to filmmakers like Bunuel, Franju and Pasolini. It can also be related to the rise in recent years of novelists such as Michel Houellebecq, Melissa Parente and Catherine Millet, who seem to mark an equivalent kind of return to writers such as Bataille and Celine (and ultimately De Sade). As a cultural trend within Europe I find it fascinating, even if individually the films and novels associated with it haven't always stood up particularly well. (Although I certainly think that some have.) Either way, it certainly feels like a breath of fresh air from having had to endure years of stuff like Jean de Florette. It's wiped the smile off Amelie's face, and that's enough for me.

[jon boy]

i thought irreversible was good but quite depressing and the way the camera moves made me feel sea sick, not to mention the opening scene in the club with the guys arm and head.

[ann ashtray]

I thought Irreversible was good. I sort of interpreted as more of an anti-rape gesture more than anything else. Just the utter brutality and sickness of it all.

Not something I need to watch again. It had an effect, which means it was a success.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

meh.

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by jon boy

the way the camera moves made me feel sea sick

absolutely HATE shakey cameras for this same reason. It's like, wow, you're spending millions of dollars to get a film made, can't you at least have the camera be somewhat steady? Unfortunately, Irreversible not only has a shakey camera -- it has a SUPERSHAKEY, SUPER-SPINNING camera. Combine that with lots of cuts (at least in certain parts; other parts are really long takes) and it's just nearly unwatchable. Even those fucking hundred million dollar BOURNE films have super shakey cameras. It's so amateurish and ugly and difficult to watch. I'm not saying every film needs to be composed of static shots like Kitano or Ozu or Abbas Kiarostami or whatever.... I mean, all the early Godard films had constantly moving and shaking cameras, but they actually seemed to serve a point, and seemed to convey and inspire energy... made the film compelling. The shakey camera in Irreversible is just embarassing and makes the film look and feel even more amateurish.

Also, I'm not someone who thinks a film is automatically better when the camera is static -- look at Matthew Barney's awful films. That's the worst "static camera" use I've ever seen...

[Skuj]

Hmmmm....initial embryonic reactions:

This was a damn good film. Intense and disorienting. Beautiful ending (beginning), brutal middle and start (ending), leaves me feeling genuinely sad. Much has been made about camera movements in this thread....the static camera during the rape scene was brilliant....there it was, no breather, no getting away from it. The centerpiece anchored, and shakey cameras and livid beahaviour emanating. I must watch this again soon, and I do respectfully disagree that it is a "bad" film. The only thing that might be bothering me is a possible homophobic element....anything that was gay was evil and in dark dungeons. I'll consider/rethink this on a subsequent viewing.

But I'm left shocked and sad. I think the very ending (beginning) will be overlooked by many.

[atsonicpark]

The end is the only part I liked. Camera panning up into the sky, beautiful... and the strobelight effect looks really good in a darkened room.

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

absolutely HATE shakey cameras for this same reason. It's like, wow, you're spending millions of dollars to get a film made, can't you at least have the camera be somewhat steady? Unfortunately, Irreversible not only has a shakey camera -- it has a SUPERSHAKEY, SUPER-SPINNING camera. Combine that with lots of cuts (at least in certain parts; other parts are really long takes) and it's just nearly unwatchable. Even those fucking hundred million dollar BOURNE films have super shakey cameras. It's so amateurish and ugly and difficult to watch. I'm not saying every film needs to be composed of static shots like Kitano or Ozu or Abbas Kiarostami or whatever.... I mean, all the early Godard films had constantly moving and shaking cameras, but they actually seemed to serve a point, and seemed to convey and inspire energy... made the film compelling. The shakey camera in Irreversible is just embarassing and makes the film look and feel even more amateurish.

Also, I'm not someone who thinks a film is automatically better when the camera is static -- look at Matthew Barney's awful films. That's the worst "static camera" use I've ever seen...

But Dude...the camera movements here reflect mental anguish and all. The crazy demented thirst for revenge, at any cost/risk....it worked for me, especially when contrasted with the "trapped" rape situation, and calm/loving situations. I respectfully disagree...the camera movements here were utilized brilliantly.

[atsonicpark]

The camera movement is not what I'm talking about, so much as just the camera, when it's supposed to be not making big dramatic moves, being unstable and all over the place. "Movements" are fine -- when they're moving to something (or away -- or, just, well, doing SOMETHING) -- SHAKINESS is what makes me physically ill. The film is too abrasive for me to enjoy it, it's a chore to sit through.

[davenotdead]

yr not the only person [whose film opinion i respect] that has said 'void' is terrible adam... i might not watch it now... or i don't know.

thanks for the recommendations though. i will check some of those out

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Hmmmm....initial embryonic reactions:

This was a damn good film. Intense and disorienting. Beautiful ending (beginning), brutal middle and start (ending), leaves me feeling genuinely sad. Much has been made about camera movements in this thread....the static camera during the rape scene was brilliant....there it was, no breather, no getting away from it. The centerpiece anchored, and shakey cameras and livid beahaviour emanating. I must watch this again soon, and I do respectfully disagree that it is a "bad" film. The only thing that might be bothering me is a possible homophobic element....anything that was gay was evil and in dark dungeons. I'll consider/rethink this on a subsequent viewing.

But I'm left shocked and sad. I think the very ending (beginning) will be overlooked by many.

I agree with everything you say here, particularly about the sadness of the ending (sad being the perfect word to describe it). I was really moved by the film and found it hard to talk about straight after seeing it - the same thing happened to me straight after seeing Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves. I've only been able to watch either film once, finding them both brilliant, but too traumatic to return to. They're probably the only two films I could say that about.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

The camera movement is not what I'm talking about, so much as just the camera, when it's supposed to be not making big dramatic moves, being unstable and all over the place. "Movements" are fine -- when they're moving to something (or away -- or, just, well, doing SOMETHING) -- SHAKINESS is what makes me physically ill. The film is too abrasive for me to enjoy it, it's a chore to sit through.

Your mentioning feeling physically ill is key to what I think he's all about. At one level he's a schlock merchant, little different to someone like William Castle - remember his 'you have ten seconds to leave the cinema' moment in I Stand Alone. Noe is all about mixing cheap shocks with more profound emotional responses. Irreversible confronts its audience on both levels in a way that reminds me of Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief. Another film that seeks to repulse its audience, as well as wear them down emotionally.

[batreleaser]

I like him. His shit is all about sex, drugs, violence and rock n roll. I loved "Irreversible" and "I Stand Alone", but "Enter the Void" I'm on the fence about. It was too long and I'll have to watch it again, perhaps after snorting some K or something.