L'Etoile de mer

Man Ray shoots through distorted glass to create an interesting impressionistic, almost mosaic effect. There's kind of a narrative here, but still pretty well-seated in surrealism. I didn't care for the snatches of poetry, even though that's what inspired the film. Scenes of newspaper dancing in the wind pre-dates American Beauty by some 70 years.

O cinema experimental dos anos 20 está intimamente ligado à poesia do período, se o cinema narrativo é a prosa, o avant garde é poesia. Plus: Me lembrou que estou com um livro de poemas do Robert Desnos pra ler aqui na minha estante, farei-o amanhã. Revisto para o Curso Arquelogia do cinema brasileiro na Casa Guilherme de Almeida.

29 kasim 2011 & http://trenkel.blogspot.com/2011/11/man-rayin-letoile-de-mer-ile-sinemada.html (you can watch here)

Kind of cool, but half of that is the poem used for structure. The images are really nice sometimes, but others don't work for me. So much is shot through blurry glass, and while it serves a purpose it got a bit annoying.

Mostly seen through an obscured lens, we only get the impression of images, but not their details. This makes the simple narrative of love seem so much more creepy and distant; this is pretty powerful stuff and despite being categorised under "surrealism", this plot-line is more satisfying than most American silents.

Not sure what this was all about, but the dreamlike imagery was mesmerizing.

A really weird, artsy film that I'm not too sure how to rate.

beautiful imagery filmed through what looks like warped glass. often very stirring imagery, too, because this time man ray decided to string it through both theme and narrative. however, the whole oh-so-poetic story of love and infidelity is just a bit too silly for me in feb 2015. i preferred it on first viewing in dec 2013. still didn't like the stupid starfish symbol.