Ending the month with a fucking banger. Holy shit!
The gothic aesthetic roots of vampirism are projected onto some miserable social realism. A formally gorgeous work that remains grounded as it follows these evil motherfuckers.
As superficial a comparison as this is, I find works like Pure Blood harder to digest than something like Salò. Ultimately, Salò is a mockery of the political cruelties that it presents: a farce composed with absolute malice towards those who exploit and abuse under our hierarchical systems of power. On a personal level, the piece fails to shock me; conversely, with a realist work like this, the violence on display is a mundane matter, as it simply exists as something produced by the observed systems. The brutal murders of these young boys are causal for the parties involved with the film, even presenting the person who seemingly serves to benefit the most as ignorant of the violence his social position manifests. The piece is undoubtedly formally and structurally direct in its construction, and this directness allows the critique to be as hard-hitting as it is. Even then, I do recognize my personal biases given my personal philosophies surrounding violence in my art (see my Elephant review).
Ending the month with a fucking banger. Holy shit!
The gothic aesthetic roots of vampirism are projected onto some miserable social realism. A formally gorgeous work that remains grounded as it follows these evil motherfuckers.
As superficial a comparison as this is, I find works like Pure Blood harder to digest than something like Salò. Ultimately, Salò is a mockery of the political cruelties that it presents: a farce composed with absolute malice towards those who exploit and abuse under our hierarchical systems of power. On a personal level, the piece fails to shock me; conversely, with a realist work like this, the violence on display is a mundane matter, as it simply exists as something produced by the observed systems. The brutal murders of these young boys are causal for the parties involved with the film, even presenting the person who seemingly serves to benefit the most as ignorant of the violence his social position manifests. The piece is undoubtedly formally and structurally direct in its construction, and this directness allows the critique to be as hard-hitting as it is. Even then, I do recognize my personal biases given my personal philosophies surrounding violence in my art (see my Elephant review).
