7 Greek Weird Wave Movies like Poor Things – For i-D

Yorgos Lanthimos has some buddies, and they’re equally freaky.

Whether it’s political, societal, or sexual turmoil, cinema’s Greek Weird Wave rose to confront the harsh capitalist realities of the country in the late 2000s. Beginning in the midst of Greece‘s financial crisis, the film movement – shaped by surrealism, strange dialogue and a gritty approach to sex, gender, politics and family – never had the answers to the issues the country was facing, but provided an unorthodox perspective on it to outsiders looking in. 

With the premiere of one of the Weird Wave’s latest entries – Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things – almost here, it’s time to look back at some of the deeply strange films of the movement he helped pioneer.  

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Conference: Darkness in the American Imagination, 2023, PopMec

Category: the aesthetics of darkness in (audio)visual media (e.g. the use of shadows)

Title: Ambiguity and Uncertainty through Darkness in Twin Peaks: The Return

Abstract: 

David Lynch’s 2017 series Twin Peaks: The Return represents a unique case study in the subversion of traditional storytelling techniques through the use of light and darkness. This paper draws upon the theories of David Bordwell and Bruce Block to examine the complex role of darkness in the show, and its implications for narrative structure and thematic exploration. 

By applying the framework Bordwell’s Art Cinema Narration (Bordwell, 1985), this paper argues that Twin Peaks: The Return can be understood as a prime example of arthousecinema in a televisual format. The arthouse genre is characterized by its rejection of conventional narrative structures and its embrace of ambiguity and open-endedness. In particular, the show’s use of darkness serves to disrupt traditional narrative expectations, creating a sense of disorientation and uncertainty. Furthermore, the paper will apply Bruce Block’s The Visual Story framework (Block, 2020) to analyse the show’s use of lighting and colour, specifically in relation to the use of darkness. The Visual Components Framework is a tool for analysing the visual elements of film and television and their impact on storytelling and audience perception. Through the framework, this paper will examine how Lynch’s use of darkness contributes to the show’s visual aesthetic and enhances its thematic exploration.

The paper analyses how Lynch uses darkness and shadows to create ambiguity and uncertainty in key scenes, challenging viewers’ expectations of narrative clarity and exploring deeper themes such as reality and consciousness. Darkness further serves as a metaphor for traumatic memory by obscuring characters and scenes. This aligns with Block’s visual design framework, emphasizing the use of lighting and shadow to convey emotion. Overall, the paper demonstrates how Twin Peaks: The Return employs darkness to subvert traditional storytelling tropes, creating an atmosphere that challenges viewers to engage with complex themes in unexpected ways.

Update: Focus on episode of 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return – ‘Gotta Light’ using David Bordwell’s Art Cinema Narration and Bruce Block’s The Visual Story.

For more information please visit the PopMeC Association or conference site or please contact me via email or visit my twitter page: @whalefromtv

Conference: To Be Continued 3, 2023, Association of Adaptation Studies

Title: The Art of Arthouse Television: Defining Aesthetic Serials through Twin Peaks: The Return and The Kingdom

Category: Form

Abstract:

This paper analyses the defining aspects of arthouse television aesthetic serials, using Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, Mark Frost, 2017) and The Kingdom (Lars Von Trier, 2022) as case studies. Following David Bordwell’s Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice (Bordwell, 1979) framework, it examines their unique narrative and stylistic techniques, such as non-linear storytelling, subjective camera work, and ambiguous endings. The paper argues that arthouse television represents a distinct form of televisual art cinema, deviating from traditional television conventions. It also contextualizes this genre within broader cultural and industrial shifts in television production, challenging traditional television narratives and aesthetics.

Update: Focus on Twin Peaks: The Return, using David Bordwell’s Art Cinema Narration and Linda Hutcheon’s Theory of Adaptation.

For further information visit the Association of Adaptation Studies or please contact me via email or visit my twitter page: @whalefromtv

Media Reviews: David Cronenberg, dir. Crimes of the Future – Foundation 144, 52.1 (spring 2023)

Science Fiction Foundation

To see the preview of this publication follow this link.

‘Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage’, writes William S. Burroughs, an omnipresent literary influence in David Cronenberg’s oeuvre. In Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg posits the absence of physical pain as a source of societal wide change and breakdown, a lack that manifests as parasitic organs. While absences can often inspire a search for meaning, inwardly and outwardly, Crimes of the Future symbolises an absence through the physical manifestations of interior transformations.

Moonage Daydream ★★★★ – Sheffield Doc/Fest 2022 – For Cineccentric

In a saturated marketplace of nostalgia-driven contemplations on iconic artists, how could something break the mould? Brett Morgen’s sensory experience does just that, but it never strays from the purpose, providing every David Bowie fan with something familiar and different. From the beginning to the end of Bowie’s life and career, this is a celebration of the music and the man.

This trippy doc amalgamates experimental and standard forms into a flexible procession of interviews layered over classic song after song. Psychedelic and trippy but willfully coherent in its recounting of the singer’s creative life, Morgen’s montage of archive footage, endorsed by the Bowie estate, presents the icon as the typically polite, self-reflective philosopher. The filmmaker, introducing the film at Sheffield Doc/Fest, highlights his determination to avoid cliched accounts of history or a series of ‘talking heads’ style musings from musicians’, family and friends’. Without any unnecessary obfuscation, Moonage Daydream allows for a more transient experience of the artist’s shifting identities; this feels much more refined than Morgen’s Cobain doc Montage of Heck. The film never feels held in place or time, in fact many of Bowie’s talents were amplified by remaining ahead of his time. Not much, if any, chronological signposting is overtly present in the documentary, only perhaps by way of Bowie himself. 

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Discussing Stir Crazy – Conversation with Alper Kavak – For Cineccentric

Alper Kavak: Sidney Poitier’s first directorial entry into the 1980s was Stir Crazy, a quirky and lighthearted buddy comedy that revolves around the adventures of a realist and an optimist who set off on the road as a duo from the east side to the west side with big ambitions but end up in a prison. Anyone familiar with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor’s performances would not need longer than a few minutes to recognise their usual albeit unique charms as actors.

Before delving into the details though, Nick, I remember you suggesting Stir Crazy merely days after Poitier had passed, which makes this conversation, in my opinion, more valuable than it would have normally been. Combined with the fact that it is currently Black History Month, even though we are discussing a buddy comedy more or less, it made me watch the film with a more socially conscious lens than I would otherwise. This is because, even when a film does concern itself with political commentary, I feel it carries the traces of the time period it is produced in. What do you make of the social constructs portrayed in Stir Crazy?

Nick Davie: Thank you for the introduction, Alper. Firstly, this is a childhood favourite of mine, and my first encounter with anything involving the late great Sidney Poitier. The comedic duo of Wilder and Pryor – always whacky, weird, slapstick, and silly, just brilliant fun. The chemistry the two had on screen was palpable, their kinetic energy really peaks in Stir Crazy.

It is a very interesting watch regarding the social settings of its narrative. It is worth noting that when watching a comedy, the social or political settings are often ignored somewhat or just not considered by audiences, so acknowledging the genre and being mindful of the political undercurrent isn’t self-evident. 1980 in the US, from my limited knowledge as a commentator based in the UK, was a period of neoliberalism introduced by Ronald Reagan (and Thatcher in the UK), which had a profound effect on society. This is represented well in my opinion in Stir Crazy – you have the two protagonists out of work but willing to pursue other avenues in hopes of a career at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. As this all goes awry and the pair end up in prison, this neoliberal idea of individualism, the pursuit of your own goals and destiny, is not always as simple or straightforward as it may seem, and the pair discover this in abundance. Not to veer too far off track and deep into the politics of the era, there are a multitude of political and social issues on display in Stir Crazy; I am glad you have mentioned this to start us off Alper, what did you see when viewing this through a more socially conscious lens?

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Here Before – Review – One Room With A View

Grief, an emotion that can grip the human psyche tight within its grasp, is the vehicle for Here Before. It blurs the lines between reality and memory, merging the two and haunting the long-afflicted Laura (Andrea Riseborough). Stacey Gregg’s directorial debut is a tense exercise in gaslighting, dragging a family to the brink when new neighbours move next door, a young girl, in particular, reminding them of loss and tragedy. 

Gregg’s Here Before begins to formulate an open wound for Laura, an understandable difficulty to let go of her late daughter. While this emotional posturing occurs, an unnamed Northern Irish suburb wears the protagonist’s pain in a bleak and bland small-town uniform. Megan, the young new neighbour, flirts perilously close with a family’s past tragedies, manipulating mother and son at school. As two families come to emotional and occasional physical blows over the young Megan (Niamh Dornan), the lack of narrative clarity or a justified sparsity undermines this emotional thriller. 

LINK TO FULL REVIEW – ONE ROOM WITH A VIEW

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The Matrix Resurrections ★★★½ – For Cineccentric

In these strange, uncertain times, particularly for cinema, the reliance on the blockbuster to draw in crowds is perhaps more significant than ever. That very notion would unsettle me in a ‘normal’ year; however, as we need the cinema to live on, we look to big blockbusters for physical audiences, spectacles, and flashes of inspiration amidst the sea of rehashes and reboots. The Matrix Resurrections, an inconceivable reboot after the faltering sequels to the brilliant, original Matrix, was perhaps not expected to be the film it is. This big-budget, meta-return to a world long left behind is unexpectedly welcome, self-aware, self-assured, and plenty of fun. 

Lana Wachowski, alone for this instalment, acknowledges the 18-year gap between Resurrections and Revolutions; she reclaims the prescient narrative, adjusting to the present and contemporary. The Matrix lives on, the world within the world; the machines rule the real; we think we rule the digital. The machines, projected as a natural advancement of technology, harvest humans for electricity, keeping the species in pods wired into a digital substitute of what we once called life. Reprising his role(s) as Thomas Anderson and Neo, Keanu Reeves rolls back the years and is resurrected as humanity’s saviour in both digital and real. The exhuming of intellectual property such as The Matrix and the never-ending cycle of superhero callbacks can often feel cheap, overcooked, and unwarranted. The least we can hope for is the inclusion of the original cast. For the most part, Morpheus (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) and Agent Smith (Jonathan Groff) aside, Resurrections manages to blend new with original fittingly. 

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One Room With A Views Top 20 Films of 2021 – Drive My Car – #13

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is an adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name. A poetic slow-burner, Drive My Car is a ballad of trauma, tragedy, and moving on. Theatre actor Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and his screenwriter wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) weave stories together when at their most intimate – then, unexpectedly, everything changes. Later, chauffered in his car by the enigmatic and quiet Misaki (Tōko Miura), Yūsuke finally manages to share secrets of loss and trauma. This is a subtle epic, and easily one of the year’s finest films.

—Nick Davie

ORWAV 11-20 Best Films of 2021

Discussing Titane (viewed @ LFF21) – Conversation with Ben Mcdonald – For Cineccentric

Ben McDonald: With the gradual return of film festivals and the prospect of theaters becoming somewhat safe again, we thought that we’d take this October to talk about an exciting new release for a change (as a sidenote, please only go to a theater if you are vaccinated and feel comfortable doing so). The film we’re tackling this month is the 2021 Palme d’Or winner, Julia Ducournau‘s Titane. Titane is only the second film by Julia Ducournau, but she’s already made a huge name for herself with Titane and her first feature Raw, a twisted coming-of-age film about a vegetarian veterinarian student who realizes she has a taste for human flesh. Titane contains a lot of the same DNA as Raw, continuing Ducournau’s uniquely uncomfortable blend of grotesque body horror and tender family drama.

Broadly speaking, Titane follows a young woman named Alexia (played by Agathe Rousselle), who begins the movie as an exotic dancer who performs at car shows. We learn in the film’s brief pre-titlecard prologue that she got into a terrible car accident as a child after she distracted her dad while he was driving. The accident left her with a titanium plate in her skull and a strange, at times graphically sexual, affinity for cars. We open the film on one of her performances, in what is sure to be my single favorite movie moment of the year. Ducournau frames our introduction to Alexia in a single continuous take, tracking her as she walks across the car show and then panning up to her on a flame-painted Cadillac as she dances suggestively upon its hood to the tune of ‘Doing It To Death’ by The Kills. I gotta say, I was completely floored by this opening. I’m not sure if it was just the fact that it was the second time I’ve gone to the theater since COVID started, but the intoxicating assertiveness with which Ducournau executes this single take (not to mention the ridiculously amazing physical performance by Rousselle) made me strangely emotional the first time I saw it. It was just so refreshing and magical to see something so daring and cinematic on the big screen after all this time away.

But anyway, if it’s not obvious already, I adore this film. I’m very eager to hear your first reactions, Nick. What do you make of Titane?

Nick Davie: Firstly, let me say, Ben, you have brilliantly introduced the film; Ducournau has followed the powerful Raw with, in my opinion, a better film in Titane. The French director already feels so accomplished in her filmmaking, and Raw was enough to pique global interest in a welcomed injection of fresh ideas into body-horror genre film. I managed to catch a special presentation of the film at the London Film Festival, but I read your review Ben, which echoes many of my early reactions to the film. Despite reading your review and other early features of the film, I went into this without knowing what to expect. It is an entirely original project, and it continues Ducournau’s exploration of family dynamics in such a darkly humorous way, again. Whilst there is a good deal of stark and contrasting violence on display, the focus on such feels unwarranted; the true shock power of Titane is within its exploration of sexual boundaries in family units and with inanimate objects – cars. 

Without littering spoilers throughout this discussion, I left the screening thinking, “I thought I had seen everything! I was wrong!.” Though we have been desensitized somewhat by the masterworks of Cronenberg, Carpenter, and company, Ducournau slickly throws something undoubtedly unique at audiences. In particular, body horror’s examination of identity is worked brilliantly into Titane, the transition and transgression through gender and sexuality. Themes that we have witnessed explored countless times, but here again, with Ducournau’s twisted humour, it shocks but is held well intact by the surreal laughs. In splitting the film into two halves, the first half establishes the eager turns to jump out at you with a metallic chopstick hairpin in hand; the second displays a narrative evolution. The shift in gears to a tender, emotionally vulnerable story of loss, love, and birth is the integral structure of the film. 

In your review, you mentioned a recent Q&A with Ducournau and her explanation that her work will not provide existentialist ease but rather keep asking questions; I can happily say I am pleased she will continue asking questions! Though there have been obvious comparisons to Cronenberg, be it through Crash or just in a general horror genre sense, do you see any other comparisons with Ducournau or Titane to others, Ben? This film will sit with me for a good while. Have you viewed the film since your strong review? And if so, has anything else revealed itself to you? There are so many layers of Titane to unpeel.

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