Institute of Contemporary Arts
There haven't been any new films out recently that are worth seeing. Over the weekend I watched 300 (lots of scantily clad muscular dudes slow motion fighting) and The Illusionist (lots of forgettable computer generated illusions with a lame-ass twist at the end). I suppose all the best stuff was unleashed at the Oscars and now choice is limited. I've been increasingly disappointed with the films coming out of Hollywood, so I was pleased to discover the Institute of Contemporary Arts, an art gallery, cinema and bar situated on the Mall close to Buckingham palace. The films on offer have clearly been selected on merit rather than their ability to make money hence providing the opportunity to see some of the best in independent and foreign films that were not on general release. I've seen two AMAZING films there over the past month..
The Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco is the capital location for suicides in the world. For the whole of 2004 a camera crew filmed the bridge catching all but one of the suicides that year, and multiple close calls. I should point out that several attempts were aborted by the camera men who alerted the coastguard when it became obvious that a person was about to jump - but in the majority of cases the victim did not wait to be dissuaded after they had climbed over the fence.
In one particularly haunting scene a nearby photographer began taking pictures of a girl who was about to jump, she is show in the video above holding one foot over the edge of bridge. The photographer said he felt disconnected from the would-be-jumper before coming to his senses and pulling the girl back over the fence.
I highly recommend this film, it's sad, hauntingly beautiful and will stay on your mind for days.
Sheitan
A French horror comedy starring that guy from Ocean's 12. This film in now top of my facebook list of favorite films... It's that good! It has lots of very ugly people and some hard-core French Rap. I think that's all the description I need to give it, check it out here.
1 comments:
Since you wrote this post I've been looking for Sheitan and have, this weekend, eventually found it. After all, who can resist "very ugly people and some hard-core French Rap"?
After a quick look at the trailer, I think I'm going to like this film, so as a thank you for pointing this out, I want to recommend a film to you: Ils (or Them, as some countries have called it).
With it's rather dubious 'based on real events' tagline I did wonder how many liberties the director and writer took with interpreting these 'events' but regardless, this film, based on a pretty horrid experience for a French couple in Romania, is awesome. And at just over 60 minutes long, I needed to change my pants after watching it, as I was sh!tting in them for all of it.
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