Black humor satire about the human condition. It feels like reading a novel about Kafka. The film avoids religious or political connotations maybe due to the time it was made or to make it more universally valid. It is also at the same time prudish and perverse.
Dependiente means seller clerk but also plays with the word dependiente dependency.
It feels sometimes like a thriller not a documentary, when the author goes to see the destruction of peoples homes at the last hour of the film than it feels like a documentary.
Because of the latest historical developments this film became even more relevant today.
(9/10)
It seems like a moral version of Vertigo, when in Hitchcock's film the central theme is necrophilia, here is the anti-hero haunted but his own moral puritanism.
Brakhage himself gave also a summary of the *story":
The daylight shadow of a man in movement evokes
lights in the night. A rose bowl, held in hand, reflects
both sun and moon-like illumination. The opening of
a doorway onto trees anticipates the twilight into the
night. A child is born on the lawn, born of water, with
promissory rainbow, and the wild rose. It becomes the
moon and the source of all night light. Lights of the
night become young children playing a circular game.
The moon moves over a pillared temple to which all
lights return. There is seen the sleep of innocents and
their animal dreams, becoming their amusement, their
circular game, becoming the morning. The trees change
color and lose their leaves for the morn, becomes the
complexity of branches on which the shadow man hangs
himself.
Arguably the central film in the Brakhage canon, Anticipation of
the Night (1958) inaugurated a radical change in experimental
filmmaking techniques and aesthetics.
....
Anticipation of the Night
ushered in a new experimental model which synthesized a Romantic
mythopoesis and the reflexive Modernism of Abstract Expressionism.
....
In Anticipation of the Night, Brakhage created a film of self-
exploration and psychological revelation that did not depend on
a journey metaphor, a linear narrative structure, or an on-screen
protagonist (although vestiges of these Trance conventions are no-
ticeable). Brakhage strove to communicate a ‘‘totality of vision’’
(what he saw, perceived, felt, imagined, and dreamt) through a com-
plete identification between himself and a ‘‘liberated camera.’’ Using
a constantly moving hand-held camera, unfocused images, under- and
over-exposure, random compositions, distorting lenses and filters,
flash frames, varying camera speeds, fragmented time and space,
‘‘plastic cutting,’’ and in later films, the scratching, bleaching, and
painting of the film stock, Brakhage equated the process of filmmaking
and the abstraction of reality with the expression of his emotions and
imagination (much like the ‘‘action painting’’ of Abstract Expres-
sionism). James Peterson refers to these techniques as a type of
‘‘personification strategy’’ where the film’s manipulation represents
the filmmaker’s consciousness. Anticipation of the Night ‘‘personi-
fies’’ Brakhage’s mental state in terms of a purely visual, subjec-
tive cinema.
...
More personally, Brakhage admits to a type of
depression which colored the film (and provided its title): ‘‘pit
seemed as if there was nothing but night out there, and I then thought
of all my life as being in anticipation of that night. That night could
only cast one shadow for me, could only form itself into one black
shape, and that was the hanged man.’’ Brakhage tells the story of how
he accidentally hung himself while shooting the final sequence and
what this revealed to him. ‘‘I was sure that I had intended for months
to finish the editing of Anticipation of the Night up to that point, go out
in the yard, climb up on a chair camera in hand, jump off the chair, and
while hanging run out as much film as I could, leaving a note saying
‘Attach this to the end of Anticipation of the Night’.’’
....
magine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspec-
tive, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye
which does not respond to the name of everything but
which must know each objected encountered in life
through an adventure of perception. . . . Imagine a world
alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering
with an endless variety of movement and innumerable
gradations of color.
Anticipation of the Night began the examination of this world of
intense personal visions and subjective filmic expression.
—Greg S. Faller
in International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers 4th edition
Excellent film with different layers of possible meaning, narcissistic personality?, homosexual repression? Immatureness? Impatience to natural development?
All with an excellent musical score and very original camera movement.
Comments 1 - 25 of 508
Movie comment on Film socialisme
elcid
Seeing this film after the genocide in Gaza, no comment.Movie comment on El dependiente
elcid
Black humor satire about the human condition. It feels like reading a novel about Kafka. The film avoids religious or political connotations maybe due to the time it was made or to make it more universally valid. It is also at the same time prudish and perverse.Dependiente means seller clerk but also plays with the word dependiente dependency.
Movie comment on Davandeh
elcid
Pure energy.Movie comment on Poor Things
elcid
Book is much better, much of the subtle ironic mood of the story is destroyed with overacting. Great disappointment.Movie comment on The Zone of Interest
elcid
Good cinematography but the approach is not really new. (7/10)Movie comment on Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)
elcid
It feels sometimes like a thriller not a documentary, when the author goes to see the destruction of peoples homes at the last hour of the film than it feels like a documentary.Because of the latest historical developments this film became even more relevant today.
(9/10)
Movie comment on Quiz Show
elcid
Not only quiz shows are entertainment today, in this sense the movie beats a cord a much higher repercussion.Movie comment on Petla
elcid
Very well done, soundtrack, photography, acting and psychological study.Movie comment on Lazzaro felice
elcid
Nothing new, but if you like Passolini, Bresson or Dreyer, you will like this one.Movie comment on I Take These Truths
elcid
The film duration is around 16 Minutes not 35.Movie comment on Doa al karawan
elcid
Excellent melodrama with some touches of film noir.Movie comment on Gryozy
elcid
It seems like a moral version of Vertigo, when in Hitchcock's film the central theme is necrophilia, here is the anti-hero haunted but his own moral puritanism.Movie comment on Anticipation of the Night
elcid
Brakhage himself gave also a summary of the *story":The daylight shadow of a man in movement evokes
lights in the night. A rose bowl, held in hand, reflects
both sun and moon-like illumination. The opening of
a doorway onto trees anticipates the twilight into the
night. A child is born on the lawn, born of water, with
promissory rainbow, and the wild rose. It becomes the
moon and the source of all night light. Lights of the
night become young children playing a circular game.
The moon moves over a pillared temple to which all
lights return. There is seen the sleep of innocents and
their animal dreams, becoming their amusement, their
circular game, becoming the morning. The trees change
color and lose their leaves for the morn, becomes the
complexity of branches on which the shadow man hangs
himself.
Movie comment on Anticipation of the Night
elcid
Arguably the central film in the Brakhage canon, Anticipation ofthe Night (1958) inaugurated a radical change in experimental
filmmaking techniques and aesthetics.
....
Anticipation of the Night
ushered in a new experimental model which synthesized a Romantic
mythopoesis and the reflexive Modernism of Abstract Expressionism.
....
In Anticipation of the Night, Brakhage created a film of self-
exploration and psychological revelation that did not depend on
a journey metaphor, a linear narrative structure, or an on-screen
protagonist (although vestiges of these Trance conventions are no-
ticeable). Brakhage strove to communicate a ‘‘totality of vision’’
(what he saw, perceived, felt, imagined, and dreamt) through a com-
plete identification between himself and a ‘‘liberated camera.’’ Using
a constantly moving hand-held camera, unfocused images, under- and
over-exposure, random compositions, distorting lenses and filters,
flash frames, varying camera speeds, fragmented time and space,
‘‘plastic cutting,’’ and in later films, the scratching, bleaching, and
painting of the film stock, Brakhage equated the process of filmmaking
and the abstraction of reality with the expression of his emotions and
imagination (much like the ‘‘action painting’’ of Abstract Expres-
sionism). James Peterson refers to these techniques as a type of
‘‘personification strategy’’ where the film’s manipulation represents
the filmmaker’s consciousness. Anticipation of the Night ‘‘personi-
fies’’ Brakhage’s mental state in terms of a purely visual, subjec-
tive cinema.
...
More personally, Brakhage admits to a type of
depression which colored the film (and provided its title): ‘‘pit
seemed as if there was nothing but night out there, and I then thought
of all my life as being in anticipation of that night. That night could
only cast one shadow for me, could only form itself into one black
shape, and that was the hanged man.’’ Brakhage tells the story of how
he accidentally hung himself while shooting the final sequence and
what this revealed to him. ‘‘I was sure that I had intended for months
to finish the editing of Anticipation of the Night up to that point, go out
in the yard, climb up on a chair camera in hand, jump off the chair, and
while hanging run out as much film as I could, leaving a note saying
‘Attach this to the end of Anticipation of the Night’.’’
....
magine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspec-
tive, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye
which does not respond to the name of everything but
which must know each objected encountered in life
through an adventure of perception. . . . Imagine a world
alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering
with an endless variety of movement and innumerable
gradations of color.
Anticipation of the Night began the examination of this world of
intense personal visions and subjective filmic expression.
—Greg S. Faller
in International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers 4th edition
Movie comment on Adauchi
elcid
Also when it's backed by historic records, this film has almost an anarchic ending.Movie comment on Il bell'Antonio
elcid
Excellent film with different layers of possible meaning, narcissistic personality?, homosexual repression? Immatureness? Impatience to natural development?All with an excellent musical score and very original camera movement.
Movie comment on Kaza-hana
elcid
In vino veritasMovie comment on Abouna
elcid
Probably a symbolic representation of contemporary African history. Very touching.Movie comment on Melvin and Howard
elcid
Heart warming film, with some good social commentary and very nice principal character.Movie comment on Hytti nro 6
elcid
Voyage VoyageMovie comment on Kurak Günler
elcid
Very good political thriller, every detail of the film was very well done. It has a kafkaeske style that hunts the protagonists like the rats in film.Movie comment on El aura
elcid
Not only Ricardo Darín role as a protagonist is excellent but also the two different colored eyes dog.9/10
Movie comment on Hamlet
elcid
Mediocre compared tohttps://beta.icheckmovies.com/movies/2445-gamlet
Movie comment on The Disorderly Orderly
elcid
Jokes for kids and for grownups. I only disagree in which profession group there are more nuts.Movie comment on Close
elcid
It's a good movie but not a excellent one, too much is leave open in the psychological characterization of the children to make it believable.Showing items 1 – 25 of 508