The is an incredible “scene” of Mekas and his wife at Cape Cod during a storm and as images flash before us of trees and grass whipped up into churning, flowing masses by the elemental energy of the wind whilst the rolling sea and spray is buffeted into similar swirls, we really feel we are there, that we have had the same memories and experience. Split into twelve chapters of around twenty minutes each and all accompanied by a brief introduction by Mekas himself, usually opening with a wonderfully dead-pan statement or an apology for boring us (he never does), makes the entire five hours much easier to digest and never a tough watch. This is not so much about his family but cinema itself and whilst these images are nothing more than some guy’s home video footage of his family, Mekas was a professional, and very artistic, filmmaker so a huge amount of what we see is truly gorgeous. He also informs us, in a somewhat gently patronising way, to “read the images” the way the French taught us. But as it is Mekas’ family we are watching I think that is to make it more about the universal concept of family rather than specifically his. Of course all these are lies as EVERYTHING is happening, all of life is here. Now as an old man at the end of his life, he has edited all this footage that spans a couple of decades into a sort of extremely high-end home movie over which he provides a voice over providing his thoughts and feelings but also stating occasionally that this film “means nothing” and apologising to the viewer that “nothing is happening” whilst sporadic title cards declare “This is a political movie” or “nothing is happening”. He filmed his wife, his cats, his kids (a lot!), the socialising with his varied group of hip friends and, as the back-drop to all this, the city of New York through the seasons. Critic turned filmmaker Jonas Mekas was obsessed with filming everything being the sort of person who, obviously, felt happier experiencing life through a view-finder. You know, these movie nights of ours are really turning into evenings of high-brow, cultural sophistication.įortunately, ‘As I was Moving Ahead…’ is such an enjoyable film that the alcohol was totally redundant. Unfortunately it is five hours long and our choice of liquid fortification was vodka so by the end of the movie we were fucked as, by the final hour, one of our group was rolling around on the floor drooling water all over his sleeping bag from convulsive laughter whilst the cat walked through the kebab sauce and covered my shoes in parma-ham. So last night’s viewing was Jonas Mekas’ ‘As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty’ and as we knew it was going to be a long film we thought we might need a few drinks to get through it. Well, talking of nothing, that’s how the inside of my skull feels today. “Keep looking for things, in places, where there is nothing.” Ever wondered what a Terrence Malick movie would be like if he shot it on a camcorder and Ivor Culter did the music, oh, and that it was almost five hours long? Then ‘As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty’ is the film for you!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |