Friday, November 26, 2010
TRIAD
Today's film was Alexsander Sokurov's
Smirennaya zhizn / A Humble Life (1997)
This is the third film meditation on this disc. All take place in Japan.
An 82 year old woman lives and works in an ancient home on a small island making funeral kimonas.
We watch and listen as she goes about her daily life. In the last part, she reads us poetry that she has written.
This is, again, very slow action. Focus on sound. Heavily engineered to the ambient.
Some monks interfere in the day to get a handout. She adopts the same pace in dealing with them.
There is scenery too.
The effect of all this is, as with the other two films in this series, mesmerizing. I am held by the absolute simplicity of what is and what is not happening.
This kind of film is not for everyone. I am not sure that it is for me, actually. But it is worth seeing to get the range that can be reached with such basic material. Light and sound. A film! A movie!
I will give the disc a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
