Monday, February 25, 2013
REMAINS OF THE DAY
Today's film was Errol Morris' first film
Morris was just a regular guy when he read of a pet cemetery failing financially. They had to move the remains to another place. The Gates of Heaven.
He got a cameraman and some film and went to work.
Here, he establishes his methods which serve him for the rest of his career.
A subject that has a weird combination of rational and irrational reaction. Interviews with people involved, even peripherally, in the story. Let 'em talk.
No questions. No script. No commentary before, during or after. Just the film and the editing.
Later, Morris will interview and set up scenes. In yesterday's film, he showed a conspiracy to falsely convict a man of murder. There is prep. But he lets the people tell the story.
The camera is fixed, for the most part. The eye contact is engaging. Later, Morris will invent a way for people to see him and yet be seen as looking into the lens.
And so on.
The point here is that Morris lets people go on and on.
In this film, a woman who lives near a cemetery site tells her story. One shot. No cuts. She gives the headlines, the core narrative, and by the end of her monologue manages to contradict everything that she has said.
The power of serendipity.
This film can be taken as a survey of the pet cemetery business. But I don't think that is what it is about.
It is about the lives that are caught up, one way or another, in this bizarre enterprise.
Themes here would be the power of capitalism. The experience of life's failures. The loss of money. The ability to gloss almost any experience with a tasty icing. And so on. Self delusion isn't too far from the top.
There is a family who runs the cemetery. Father, mom and two sons. Lovelorn and lost sons. Failed in commerce, they return to the homestead.
You will find your own "stuff".
I would be happy to see this film again. A 4 out of Netflix5.
This is a showing of the film that took place a year ago. Morris talks about how the film came about and what has happened since. He also gives us a slight sense of "what is it about?"
