Who wears short shorts?
Posted by Blog-Meister Chris
The first three shorts just finished. Nobody is here yet, and frankly, I think that's for the best! As mentioned on the page, these early films contain NO english subtitles!
It was no great hassle for Herakles, which was mostly footage of musclemen at the gym, interspersed with shorts of dead bodies being carried away from explosion sites, the Le Mans race, and other visual effluvia, all to a cool jazz score. Only a few titles proved daunting.
Last Words on the other hand, had a LOT of last words...actors/participants simply stared into the camera and talked. A lot. On an island in Greece, apparently. All I could gather was that certain phrases were being repeated 4 and 5 times in a row by certain speakers, as if perfecting their last words (or reinforcing them in their mind, so they'd be ready when the end comes). Diagnosis: I don't know.
The Unprecendented Defense of the Fortress Deutschkreutz was rather wordy, but was also pretty visual and easy to follow. A bunch of youths find an old building, don army clothes, and defend the place from non-threatening attackers (at one point, one youth looks through a telescope to see the "enemy" on the horizon, and through the telescope, we see a tractor riding through the field, while the sound of a non-existent machine gun fire is triggered). Maybe this is about the futility of war, or the "They're everywhere, just waiting to get us" mentality, but I thought of it personally as just a meditation on the vividness of the imagination of young people at play. What can I say, I'm optimistic like that (without an English translation, it's anybody's guess really! I caught something about "the enemy has betrayed us!" at a point where they look out and see no enemy on the horizon). It seemed to me that the fortress was a real-life manaifestation of the play-fort type of war-games that kids have always liked to play, rendered realistic by Herzog's imagination. And of course, since you weren't here and didn't see it, you're in no position to contradict me...ha HA!
Next up, Signs of Life. This is also said to be pretty slow, but one of his better early films. It begins in 15 minutes. See you there!
The first three shorts just finished. Nobody is here yet, and frankly, I think that's for the best! As mentioned on the page, these early films contain NO english subtitles!
It was no great hassle for Herakles, which was mostly footage of musclemen at the gym, interspersed with shorts of dead bodies being carried away from explosion sites, the Le Mans race, and other visual effluvia, all to a cool jazz score. Only a few titles proved daunting.
Last Words on the other hand, had a LOT of last words...actors/participants simply stared into the camera and talked. A lot. On an island in Greece, apparently. All I could gather was that certain phrases were being repeated 4 and 5 times in a row by certain speakers, as if perfecting their last words (or reinforcing them in their mind, so they'd be ready when the end comes). Diagnosis: I don't know.
The Unprecendented Defense of the Fortress Deutschkreutz was rather wordy, but was also pretty visual and easy to follow. A bunch of youths find an old building, don army clothes, and defend the place from non-threatening attackers (at one point, one youth looks through a telescope to see the "enemy" on the horizon, and through the telescope, we see a tractor riding through the field, while the sound of a non-existent machine gun fire is triggered). Maybe this is about the futility of war, or the "They're everywhere, just waiting to get us" mentality, but I thought of it personally as just a meditation on the vividness of the imagination of young people at play. What can I say, I'm optimistic like that (without an English translation, it's anybody's guess really! I caught something about "the enemy has betrayed us!" at a point where they look out and see no enemy on the horizon). It seemed to me that the fortress was a real-life manaifestation of the play-fort type of war-games that kids have always liked to play, rendered realistic by Herzog's imagination. And of course, since you weren't here and didn't see it, you're in no position to contradict me...ha HA!
Next up, Signs of Life. This is also said to be pretty slow, but one of his better early films. It begins in 15 minutes. See you there!
posted at 4:10 PM
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