Sicilia!

Using a Bresson like acting style, H&S turn the banal into a farce. Whether talking about trivial things or painful things the style remains the same, allowing the viewer to focus on the words and the underlying form of human interaction as a series of dualistic monologues. The false energy that substitutes volume for actual emotion adds to this, heightening the film's sense of the absurd.

The premise here seems to be: to adapt a novel for the screen should be no more and no less than an attempt to bring out the words of the text, enhanced not by cinematic gimmicks but by the power inherent to the apparatus itself. One may easily be persuaded that this aesthetic is indeed an ethic. The effect is to make unavoidable not just the significance but the strangeness of the written word. The film looks great, too. Now this is an asceticism I can believe in.

Beautifully shot, and the film has a wonderful sense of rhythm to it. Sadly the actual conversations that are contained within this, and the themes they explore, largely left me feeling cold.

Typically miminalist work by S/H shot in luminous black and white, Sicilia is about a man returning to his ancestral homeland, engaging in seemingly banal conversations with locals that don't take on an air of importance until he is reunited with his mother. This lengthy scene is played out in dynamic counterpoint--the austere imagery vs the expressive dialogue delivered dryly--and S+H's use of offscreen space is exemplary, as is their ability to imply psychology subtly via judicious editing.

oranges. when i was a kid mediterranean seemed so far away that it seemed plausible that oranges can grow there, but now that i have seen citrus growing in the trees, even more these days i think that these fruits must come from somewhere much farther

i probably shouldn't have watched this on my laptop with a bunch of background noise. i didn't have access to the tv at the time, and i didn't know it would have such good black-and-white photography. as for the movie? i don't know, essentially a man has conversations with a few people, and it's kind of interesting. all the dialogue is spoken very loudly.

13 aralik 2013, bilgisinema & filmi, straublari anliyorum ama filmi sevemiyorum. buyuk oyunculuklarla ortaya cikan brecht-vari bir yabancilasma metne yogunlasmama sebebiyet veriyor ama beni goruntuden kopariyor. Icimdeki merakli cocuk, straublar hakkinda dusunmek, onlari daha yakindan tanimak istiyor.

Very interesting premise. The high contrast b&w works well for indoor shots, but not so much for outdoor shots with intense sunlight. Some of the dialogue is very captivating, some of it is rather cryptic. Overall, my favorite Straub-Huillet so far.