Logging

Film:  Amour

Not exactly a film subject - slowly dying from physical ailments - that makes one jump out of the chair and head to the theater.  But what a terrific movie it is.  I've enjoyed Haneke films in the past, but find the critical bubble and excessive praise surrounding his work a bit tedious.  The film is surprisingly emotional and powerful in small moments.  Haneke has a skill with pace as well - a few well timed surprises are able to keep you engaged and worried throughout what would traditionally be pretty plain scenes.  And the film is old school.  It has a strong POV about what love means and the way to conduct yourself in the world.

I watched the movie in the Laemmle Royal Theater on Santa Monica Blvd, which has been renovated into the best indy theater in the city (in my opinion).

And now into a tangent: what are movies?  Last night I got into a brief argument about Bachelorette since a few folks were defending the film.  I called it hateful and the characters detestable.  The response - and the one I've heard bandied about the show Girls - is that the characters "aren't meant to be liked."  People say this as if this is some sort of profound new positioning for entertainment.  Where this logic leads, I can only imagine.  When characters in movies or show behave in detestable ways, I root against them.  In drama, you want to root for your protagonist and against your villain.  Unless your work is tragic or satire.  But even then, you want to root for your character.  In any case, I think movies are supposed to be, in some sense, about how to live.  I think Amour succeeds on this level - it suggests a way of living, of loving, that is better than other ways.  A movie like Bachelorette shows how to live a shitty life with little redemptive quality and is made by unwise, immature, vain people.  Amour is made by a wise master with something to say - and he even goes so far as to enlighten us with what movies are with a bit in the middle of the film - what we remember from the movies are not the stories or even the details, but rather the emotions we felt.  The emotions are what lasts.