Wednesday, January 19, 2005
we dream on a budget
graduate students in brown coats, slinky-haired ladies with blood-red accordions, storage employees with gold teeth and mexican children walking around photographing thoughts--what a dull world we live in. hiphop robotics and the dead pulse of passion that once breakdanced on skating rink floors: in the next few months im either going to start writing a dissertation on the history of nonlinear narrativity and American literature or I'm going to sit in a park with a portable turntable and listen to Liquid Liquid. who knows.
what I do know is that few things make sense in Spanish films nowadays and Pedro Almodovar masters such sentiments in his new film, Bad Education. Fishing out images months ago on the Net made me anxious to see this film and after reading lukewarm reviews in various snooty papers, I doubted myself. Like grape jelly, iPods, canned food in 19th Century France and building a city out of paperclips: this film is excellent. Charmer Gael Garcia Bernal knocks out the thick-tongued Spanish accent and throws down for some great roles (bearded, transvestite, student) that pencils him in for greatness (or at least post-Brando goodness?). Unlike most folks I've spoken too, the film isnt that hard to follow but its non-linear narrativity makes for a Faulkneresque structural space. As if designed by crosseyed lovers the narrative stops and thinks about its place in the world then stutters some more--all in hopes of displaying small pleasures. Almodovar's sorta-genius comes through in the nuances: compositional shots, 80's fashion, punks in Spain and quiet moments between tiny intensities.
we need more independent scientists/experimental rappers/Brazilian writers.
