Dalton

Larry Clark goes above and beyond for this film, blowing Kids and Ken Park out of the water with how good this was. Ever since I watched this, I've been trying to understand why people like Kids more than something like this. Clark takes everything he learned from Kids and turns up the temperature while still keeping the same feeling. Even its idea (even though it's from a true story) can connect to almost anyone while making you question your own feelings. Everyone in this film is unrelenting. We are constantly forced to think about each of the characters differently as the film goes on, abandoning the trust of the audience, which only heightens the emotions. You are forced only to trust your emotions which is what led this group to what they did. At first, we are expected to feel bad for Marty, but as the film goes on, you see how Marty is bariley a good person too. When you are met with Bobby, you hate him and want to see his downfall. But when the seed of killing him was planted, there was a tension that was added to the film, to where when the plans are in action, you don't want to see him dead. Why do I want to see him live? How do we determine when someone needs to die? Does anyone deserve to die? It gives you a whole different perspective on how you preserve these insane situations. The depravity in this film is so prevalent that it almost becomes second nature. Almost anything will warrant a reaction of stupidity or violence. Everyone in this film we see isn't a role model, antagonist, or a protagonist; we see the true state of them all as a group not separated into categories. It's everywhere, from Bobby's abuse to Derek's incompetence to stand up. Bully's visual quality rides the line between bad and clear, which almost grounds the whole film deeper in reality. It fully encapsulates how that small town would actually feel in reality. The camera spins around, zooms in on little details, and almost acts on its own, being its own observer upon everyone. It almost looks like an old advert about bullying or drugs, which gives its own sense of familiarity. The ending is absolutely amazing. The feeling that you get throughout the whole film gets flipped on its head when you start to see the sentencing. The music starts to loop and become eerie, and after you see all of them almost breaking your met with old videos of them, the quality makes it almost creepy which left me with an anxious feeling until it turned to black. This also leads to another question of how the public sees Bobby now. To go all the way and kill him to force him out of their lives will lead the public to see Bobby as a victim. Now I'm not saying he isn't, but it's either everyone is a victim or no one is. The group responded in their own form of abuse, which only makes them the same as Bobby. If you want to watch Kids, don't, and watch Bully.

Love is a lot to experience and to even think about, but I can't help but feel as if Noe could have executed this way better. To get what I liked out of the way, I do think this has some good messaging between the lines. Over everything, this shows the pure absurdity of personal and sexual relationships. People envelop themselves in the warm blanket that is the illusion of love. The problems and roadblocks in the way are fully the fault of Murphy's and Electra's complete disregard for what built their relationship by continuously and increasingly blinding themselves with their immediate desires. And although I do think that the jumpiness within the story isn't the best, it is a good representation of trying to remember a relationship with it all happening simultaneously. Gaspar Noé makes 2 kinds of films, one being Climax and Irreversible, using its extremeities to scream a message or idea in your face. The other side is Into the Void and Love, where Noe tries to take a step back from pure extremity into deeper thinking, usually encompassing drugs, death, life, and love. And so far, I just do not mesh with the latter. When Noe uses the extremities as its forefront to push a message, most people would see this as mindless, but when I watch Climax or Irréversible, there's so much more substance to hold on to. So when Noe goes to these broader plot driven films, he slowly loses his touch that made his other films so shocking and amazing. Murphy is insufferable, and although I do see resemblances in other guys when it comes to relationships in Murphy, I don't think it was presented in a relatable or exceptional way. The story jumps back and forward while staying in the present, which at a point lost its charm and became annoying. It constantly wants to show either Murphy or Electra as a victim, but I can't help but not feel bad for either of them. With the Murphy's Law quote in the beginning, I was hoping that this would have gone off the deep end with the sexual stuff to actually make me feel bad for the experiences they went through, but the closest we get to this is brothels and a trans girl. If you have watched The Brown Bunny, imagine that but instead of driving scenes, it's sex scenes. I know this film is called Love, but there is entirely too much meaningless sex. At the 40 minute mark, I started to get tired of it, and by 1:30 I was completely fed up. And it almost came back within the last 30 minutes because the models were forced to act instead of fuck. Imagine Irreversible, but every 10 minutes you saw a sex scene, it would make the middle completely useless. I actually do not like the ending at all. If this film had me connected to it at all this would have been good, but as the screen turned red, all I could think about was how long until it ends. I feel no emotion out of these sineros. There's a seriousness that is lacking throughout this whole film that you can see in his other films that deal with weird subject matter like this. I still love Noe, but this was plain underwhelming.

Many films try to create a language through innovating and expanding elements that go into making the film. In Man with a Movie Camera, Vertov creates a language through Kino-Eye, using unrelated clips and bringing them together to make a message that screams in your face. In Climax, Gaspar Noé creates a language through the movement of the actors, eliminating the need for dialogue. In Dr. Caligari, Wiene creates a language using set design in a way I've never seen before. Door rise above the ground, walls constrict and isolate the viewer surrounded by rough paint and letters / numbers, the fair seemingly resting on a angle, each part looks unique and defines slowly what looks like what. By the half way point, you start to understand where these places are and how that context influences the story. One thing I also love is tinted color. Tinted color will have some of the greatest looking shots you'll ever see in film. Like have you ever seen Napoleon with the green tint by the sea? peak. But in here its also used really well. I understand why the scene where Cesar wakes up is so famous becuase seeing this in 4k looked so amazing. I saw this with a live score from Bent Frequency, which was a very disconnected in-your-face live jazz experience. Although I did really like this, I feel as if there could have been a better way to represent the score. There were points where it felt too quiet or just to random where nothing was being refinded or represented. Although the story is really basic, I was not expecting the end. I was actually finding myself tricked and confused trying to figure out the ending, which supprised me beyond belief. Theres not much else I need to say about this tbh. Please if you ever get the chance go see a silent film in theaters because 8 times out of 10 it will be awesome.

This might be an overrating, but this was so much fun. I watched this on YouTube while completing a drawing project, and the time couldn't have gone by faster. Mark Whallburg is an amazing actor who encompasses this character so well. No one in this film is taking it entirely seriously, it seems, but Mark makes himself the centre of this film whether they wanted it to be or not. His personality is so funny, so when crazy shit like him beating Nicole's friend for being around her happens, it makes the whole film change. Several times throughout the film, you get very obvious hints leading to the fact that he's trying to backdoor, but still unimatly keeping it somewhat oblivious to what is going to happen. The ending was so stupidly perfect for this film. The quality is obviously cheap, and it just ends abruptly. This is perfect for the film in the same way as Silver Bullet, the quality doesn't automatically dictate the enjoyment I got from the film. Check this out