Stoker (2013)

Stoker is a film to be seen twice. Why? Because, as a cinema film critic once said, the message of the film is (almost always) revealed at the beginning. Once the story unfolds, the message presented at the beginning sheds new light to it.

It is a tale full of subtle and obvious insinuations, presented with unique beauty. A screenshot or a small scene have much more to say than what is usually expected. Scene transitions are built in a unique, poetic way. This work of art manages to present violence and atrocities wrapped-up as a present. A present well justified by Chan-wook Park.

Slavoj Zizek certainly would have spoken about this film in “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006)” if it was filmed before 2006!

My rating: 09/10

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)

“The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology” is an equally good movie as “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema“. Slavoj Žižek, with a logic sharp as a razor, analyzes how an ideology works, the hidden concepts conveyed “between the lines” in each and every one of them and why they are not so different between them after all! It is really astonishing to see the commonality between Christianity and Communism following his way of thinking.

Again, a number of films is used to draw material from and support his arguments. What was more intriguing for me was the fact that he brought up two of my favorite movies that few people remember: They Live (1988) and Seconds (1966) which have a lot to say at a level above the mere film story.

Even if one does not agree with the concepts presented, it is still an excellent movie to watch and think about.

My rating: 10/10

The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006)

There are so many things that need to be said about “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema“. Bare with me regarding this one. Because sometimes we … fear words, let us check on the dictionary what the word below means:

pervert: person whose behavior deviates from what is normal, particularly in sex habits.

Do not be alarmed. Focus on the first part. The film takes an entirely different approach on analyzing numerous films in order to elucidate what our desires are, and what we humans are, from a psychoanalytic point of view. It is a breath-taking deposition of ideas by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek supported by the unobtrusive direction of Sophie Fiennes. It is only after one has enjoyed the film so much that understands her contribution to the final outcome. Because the packaging is as important as the interior 🙂

So, the idea is to draw scenes and stories from a multitude of films in order to define what drives and also what enslaves the human soul. The radical approach on the examination of ideas, the different perspective on what we consider as granted, make a very dense, deep philosophic movie. One may need to see it more than once to fully appreciate and understand what is said. It is obvious that having seen the related films one gets a greater satisfaction. As a side-effect to the development of the main line of thinking, one also gets an exquisite analysis on films difficult to understand, like “Blue Velvet (1986)” by  David Lynch, “Psycho (1960)” by Alfred Hitchcock, Fight Club (1999) by David Fincher, Eyes Wide Shut (1999) by  Stanley Kubrick, etc. One also gets a surprising different interpretation of another set of films like “Vertigo (1958)” by Alfred Hitchcock, Persona (1966) by  Ingmar Bergman, Solaris (1972) by Andrey Tarkovskiy, Three Colors: Blue (1993) by Krzysztof Kieslowski, The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowski brothers, etc.

A piece of advice: it would be beneficiary for the better understanding of the film, if one had a quick (do not throw stones now, ok?) understanding of the concepts of Id, ego and super-ego defined by Sigmund Freud, since they are extensively used during the analysis of the different films.

My rating: 10/10