Stiff and pedantic as it was, I was very impressed with DOGVILLE. As allegory it seemed more sophisticated and better fleshed out than ANTICHRIST. But if Antichrist erred on the side of too little, Dogville probably provided too much, feeling overlong. I've never seen Dancer in the Dark -- even though I don't mind Bjork, something about "the Bjork movie" has always turned me off -- but at this point I'll probably check it out. I think those are the only Von Triers I'm familiar with, though I know there's a few others ....


K

There's a difference between projecting something into a movie and it being there in its own right. If you're going to credit SPIT with that, I can just as surely say that HANNIBAL is about resisting the seductive power of evil.

I mean, if I told you there was a 90 minute long movie with a 30 minute car chase in it, a 30 minute sword fight or a 30 minute long dance number, the other 60 minutes would have to be pretty damn amazing for the film to not be about the case, the fight or the dancing. The other 60 minutes of SPIT is not amazing.

Mike

It's a big budget entry into the genre staring Kate Beckinsale and the Wilson brother who didn't date Kate Hudson. It's about a quarelling couple who check into a roadside hotel one night, only to discover video tapes in their room that turn out to be snuff films of people being murdered in that very room.

Mike

Whereas I just saw Vacancy a few months ago and already forgot it, until you recapped the plot. It's very much a by-the-numbers corn festival.

Mike, just because a movie doesn't explicitly telegraph it's meaning to you, personally, it says other things than a simple plot summary. I don't see that you'd be wrong to suggest Hannibal is about the seductive power of evil. In fact, it'd be pretty thickheaded to deny that.

Allen seems to remember stuff from the revenge portion of I Spit, as do I, so maybe it's just your reading.

Okay, Charles. Please present the evidence that Meir Zarchi is a storyteller of the complexity, depth, nuance and sophistication you imply. Don't just tell me that there's some ideas rattling around inside SPIT. There are ideas rattling around inside even the cheapest piece of crap ever committed to video.

Mike

SPIT does explicitly telegraph its meaning. It's selling rape as entertainment. Not in a titillating fashion, to be sure, but that's still what's being sold. That's why the criticism of the movie, while not accurate, is still fair.

Mike

I guess we're forgetting about the power of the drive-in theater in the 1970's. The drive-in gave audiences a level of privacy and anonymity that regular movie theaters never did. Besides the general loosening of moral standards in that decade, being able to sit in your own car contributed to a lot of unsavory subjects being put on film.

Not that I'm any expert on the subject of rape/revenge movies, but I guess I've seen a few. The earliest one I can remember is Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. ISoYG is significant in that it is probably the first that didn't require a male benefactor for the "revenge" part. In fact, it's the only one I can even think of at the moment.

I think you've hit it on the head with your last statement (there are). Charles definitely approaches movies from a film criticism perspective, as opposed to a movie review perspective. It's not to all tastes, but it is what it is. Criticism has a different function than reviews. Reviews are designed to familiarize the audience with the basic information and provide a subjective analysis as to the movie's entertainment value for the reviewer, and likely entertainment value for the reader. Criticism is designed to examine the dialogue that the object (film/book/painting/etc.) has with its audience at large, with what is going on in popular thought at the time of its creation, and with its antecedents in its own genre, among other things. Different types of criticism explore different aspects of that dialogue -- e.g. political criticism, feminist criticism, moral criticism, etc. But while Charles' writing may not be your cup of tea I just think it's important to understand the difference. He takes a film criticism approach, whereas you take a movie review approach. Neither way is right or wrong, they're just different things. In the case of film criticism, a movie's inherent level of depth is somewhat irrelevant; good criticism should be insightful regardless of the object's quality or lack thereof. Whether or not Charles is a good critic is of course a matter of opinion.

K

PS- Incidentally, I agree SPIT is shit; it's a really boring movie, to be honest. And I mean the old one; I can only imagine how insufferable the new is. Allen brought up STRAW DOGS, which I dunno is quite "rape revenge" per se, but which is definitely one of the best rape-centric films I've seen.

Luke? I kind of like Luke Wilson, but it is tough to picture him in a horror movie.

Then again, I guess it's easier than picturing Owen in a horror movie ....

K