Lucile Hadžihalilović's EVOLUTION

Started by jenkins, November 02, 2015, 07:40:02 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

jenkins



QuoteLucile Hadžihalilović's sophomore feature is a fantastic tale of an island town inhabited only by women and boys. On this island live 10–year–old Nicolas and his mother. Nicolas and the island's other boys are regularly subjected to strange medical procedures at the hands of the women. When Nicolas senses that his mother is lying to him about his treatment, he begins to investigate what she and the other women do at night when the boys are asleep. He is drawn helplessly into the beginning of a nightmare. Borne from a fascination with both the depths of the ocean and hospitals, EVOLUTION explores themes of childbirth, coming of age and the journey through puberty. It leaves itself open to interpretation, allowing the film's mysteries to remain long after the film is over. — Jenn Murphy

jenkins

Phenomenology, which i've mentioned before as a thing i like, it's a word to describe a perceptive form of cinema. it's a common "cutting-edge" narrative style now. it's what Jarmusch used for The Limits of Control. Steve McQueen made his name off it with Hunger. it's Tree of Life. and Lucile Hadzihalilovic had established herself in this market with Innocence, which i liked the first time i saw it and i liked it better the second. which is how they work, really.

this is how Stanford defines phenomenology:

QuoteThe discipline of phenomenology may be defined initially as the study of structures of experience, or consciousness. Literally, phenomenology is the study of "phenomena": appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view. This field of philosophy is then to be distinguished from, and related to, the other main fields of philosophy: ontology (the study of being or what is), epistemology (the study of knowledge), logic (the study of valid reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong action), etc.

thanks Stanford.

then recently i've been into reading about the Swedish polymath August Strindberg, and his A Dream Play. a thing i'd call "adorable" is the Interpretations section of this play's Wikipedia begins -- "The best description of the play's style can be found in Strindberg's prefatory note:"

QuoteThe characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge. But one consciousness rules them all: the dreamer's; for him there are no secrets, no inconsistencies, no scruples and no laws. He does not judge or acquit, he merely relates; and because a dream is usually painful rather than pleasant, a tone of melancholy and compassion for all living creatures permeates the rambling narrative.

i like how he describes himself best, and i like what he's describing.

those are the types of things on my mind when i went into Evolution. and i know to some it's like, oh man, whatever, but i know to some -- listen, you don't have to describe to a person what a story is before they watch a story. everyone knows what a story is. all stories all the time, stories are in the family. what i'm saying is, if you're already familiar with phenomenology we're already rolling. if you already know it you don't need to hear it. that's what it feels like. tonight i got to watch Evolution.

it's something. ok, if The Limits of Control is vaguely like a 60s spy movie, this is vaguely like a Cronenberg movie, in terms of it dealing and how it deals with the realm of bodily horror.

but there are zero reasons given for why the bodily horror happens. so everyone's like, what's in the water. what happened, why'd that happen. questions for another movie and another conversation. the question here is: how did the water feel? how did you feel coming out of the water? how did your mother make you feel? do you think about yourself as a mother? and things like that.

opening up ways to think about the character helps people open up themselves and see more of the world. that's how i'd describe arthouse cinema as a motivational speaker. glad i saw Evolution and of course i am.