Palindromes

[ono]

I saw Palindromes a few weeks ago.  No one else, huh?  It's the best movie of the year (so far).  It's audacious from the get-go, and if it hadn't fizzled out near the end, it would've been one of those movies, the kind that are landmarks for what they say, how they say it, and how they use the cinematic medium.

The "gimmick" (if you can even call it that) of using different actresses (and an actor or two) to play Aviva, really doesn't distract at all.  Looking back on the film, it really is ingenious, because the film wouldn't have had the power it did had only one actress been used.  The Aviva playing the current scene manifests the emotions the girl is going through, all in her body language and simply how she looks.

But this film is all about the dialogue, anyway.  I should've written about this sooner, because as it stands, I don't remember any of the key dialogue that had me rolling or thinking, marveling at how well-done everything was.  The film's come and gone from the theatre, at least here, now, so I'll have to wait for the DVD.

Sidenote, I saw Storytelling again a month or so ago, and wasn't as impressed as I was the first time.  It reinforces beliefs that you can't really judge a movie on the first viewing, and (obviously) the best movies hold up to repeated viewings.  Here's hoping Palindromes holds up, and the weaker elements won't be as weak as I once thought.

[Brazoliange]

I saw it at a pre-screen here in Omaha a month or so ago, and I'm seeing it again tomorrow with a friend.

Loved it.

I really loved the characters, they felt really complex and all really so fragile...


[spoilers I guess]

especially the trucker and Mother Sunshine, they led these really secure lives but behind closed doors they were as weak as Aviva or Mark

Mark's speech had really nice dialogue btw, ono

[nix]

Saw it a few weeks ago as well.

Some really great moments and all in all, a provocative and important statement.

I do however, think the multiple actress angle was distracting. Every time I began to loose myself in one of the girls, she would change and I would go, "oh yeah, I'm watching a movie". I would have to reinvest with the new actress every 15 min. or so.

Also got sick of the "la la" music after a while.

SPOILERS

The entire sequence with the trucker was fucking flawless. My hand jumped to my mouth when he shot the little kid.

END SPOILERS

And man, The guy playing Mark looks even weirder now. He was creeping me out.

[Brazoliange]

Just saw it again.

see, I thought changing actors really added emotion to the film... the physical actor reflected how Aviva felt and what was going on around her (and thus us).

I LOVE the doctor's name being Fleischer. the first time I saw it I was like "holy shit, does he know what that means in German?" and then later realized how much of a genius he really is.

[cron]

sep13

[hedwig]

so i get the feeling, from the reviews i've read, that this film is closer in many ways to "Storytelling" than Solondz's other films -- is that accurate?

[ono]

No.

"Closer" might be right, but it really bears little resemblance to Storytelling.  It's episodic.

[w/o horse]

Why the fuck didn't any stores get this DVD today.

[Figure 8]

so i get the feeling, from the reviews i've read, that this film is closer in many ways to "Storytelling" than Solondz's other films -- is that accurate?

I actually thought it was closest to the feeling of Happiness or Welcome to the Dollhouse rather than Storytelling.

[analogzombie]

Why the fuck didn't any stores get this DVD today.

because regular people don't give a fuck about todd solondz, duh.

[MacGuffin]

Todd Solondz’s Palindromes was definitely one of the stranger American films to be released this year. In fact it is one of the strangest films from any country to be released in any year. The baffling tale of 13 year old Aviva who will do anything to become pregnant. Eventually she runs away from home only to have a series of awkward and disturbing encounters along the way. Now everyone can enjoy the film on DVD.

Todd Solondz has long been hailed as a powerful voice in cinema and Palindromes certainly keeps that up. His difficult films have always polarized even his hardest core fans.

Daniel Robert Epstein: I didn’t totally understand Palindromes.

Todd Solondz: That's totally cool.

DRE: Was it your intent to disorient the audience by having the main character played by different actors?

TS: I think many people are disoriented and others find it affecting. I'll put it this way, when I made Welcome to the Dollhouse all sorts of people came up to me afterwards. They could be beautiful models or a construction worker, it didn't matter. They would all say, “That was me. I was that person.”' I said, “Okay. Well, I can't make you Dawn Wiener, but you can all be her cousin.” In some sense they could've been 18 or eight and anyone of us in the audience could've been in an episode of this young character's life.

DRE: I hope this isn’t a rude question but do you totally understand Palindromes yourself?

TS: No, you’re not rude at all. The process of filmmaking is one very much made up of discovery and self-discovery as well. One has a sense of what one is pursuing at the get go and you think that you know what you're doing and what you're going about, but of course this understanding is always evolving and shifting over the course of production and completion of the film. Then when people ask me when it's all said and done, “Did the movie turn out the way that you imagined it would?” I always have to say that it never does, but if I'm lucky it turns out better.

DRE: Did you ever lose track of what was going on during the writing stage?

TS: You always have to keep your eye on the ball so to speak. You have to have a sense of the direction, that's why they call them directors. You have to know where you are going and what you are pursuing. There is a certain kind of clarity. There are different kinds of clarity, different things that come into further focus as you proceed with the process.

DRE: What do you think of the reaction that Palindromes got while in the theatres?

TS: I'm happy first off that it got released. I was anxious about that and I think that [Wellspring Media] did a great job with it. Certainly the movie had a very polarized response. Before I had shown the film I thought that it was my gentlest work and then I was somewhat surprised at the strong reaction from both pro and con. In the end with extreme responses, they sort of cancel each other out. So I'm happy with what I did, or as happy with it as anything that I've done

DRE: What makes you feel it is your gentlest film?

TS: That's just how I felt about it. As politically charged and morally complicated as it might have been, at heart it was the saddest of all my comedies.

DRE: I thought it was your most disturbing film, do you find your work disturbing?

TS: I don't know that I personally feel disturbed. For me they are very charged and alive and I'm excited during the process of making them. I don't lose any sleep over it. So I'm not sure if that would qualify as being disturbed.

DRE: Was it made completely independently?

TS: Yes, Celluloid Dreams helped finish the movie and Wellspring bought it.

DRE: How did you come up with the story?

TS: I don't know how I really come up with anything. I've been writing since I was reading. So I just had a character and some themes and ideas that just coalesced. I suppose that on one hand I could say that we live in a very peculiar country in certain ways. It's the only one in the world where to be an abortionist is to take on a heroic profession like a policeman or fireman because you put your life at risk. It's the only country where clinics are bombed and abortionists are assassinated. So I think that it was in some sense responsive to that reality.

DRE: Have you had any personal experience with abortion?

TS: I haven't been involved personally in any assassination or bombing nor am I connected with anyone who was a victim of any of that if that's what you mean.

DRE: The film looks different than your previous works.

TS: It was shot on Super-16 instead of 35mm.

DRE: Was that a financial or artistic choice?

TS: Well, it was both. I could've shot it on video and that would've been even less money, but I prefer film to video and if I had more money it would have been shot on 35mm.

DRE: How did you go about casting this film?

TS: I just auditioned people. I described what I was looking for and then different actor's agents sent their actors in and I just chose the ones that I think are the most appropriate.

DRE: Has directing gotten easier for you?

TS: Nothing gets easier. It's always reinventing the wheel and figuring things out. So you just have to accept that these are part and parcel in the process of filmmaking.

DRE: Have you thought about writing a novel?

TS: I haven't written a novel and if I do then I will. But I haven't so what can I say.

DRE: Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness seemed to almost contain slices directly from your life. I don’t see that with Palindromes, is it as personal to you as your previous films?

TS: Yeah, I have all sorts of different characters that I have different feelings about. I don't think that it's the same kind of ordeal as with the others.

DRE: What’s a Todd Solondz movie set like? Are people having fun?

TS: I'm always very serious, but a lot of the people on the crew might be having fun. But it's very stressful and the hours are very long so it's very wearing on everyone. I go home at the end of the day but I know that many people have the energy to go out to a bar. I could never imagine having the energy to do that.

DRE: Is it the usual stress of making a film or do you add extra stress?

TS: No, I don't think that I need to add anything extra, there's enough with the movie itself.

DRE: Did foreign audiences react differently to Palindromes than American audiences?

TS: I've been to a number of different countries already and I think that overall you're less likely to find people quite so angry about the film abroad as you might find here in the States.

DRE: Does that surprise you?

TS: I guess that's depends on the film. Welcome to the Dollhouse made more money domestically than internationally, but Happiness did much better internationally than domestically. I think the main difference is when I make a movie here it's a movie, that's it. But when a movie gets shown abroad it becomes a movie about America and it's all filtered through that prism.

DRE: Have you ever wanted to make bigger budgeted films?

TS: It’s that's never been my ambition to make a big budgeted movie. The ambition is just to make movies that have meaning and that are valuable for me. If it requires more money so be it. But the idea of looking the budget first has no interest for me.

DRE: What are you working on now?

TS: I have one thing that I'm looking for money now and one script that I'm in the middle of. The thing is that I don't want to jinx myself. I have to see if I can get the money and then we can talk about it.

DRE: What is your writing routine?

TS: I don't know if there is much of a routine. You just have to sit down and do it. I'm not as disciplined as maybe others are but I do manage to get them done somehow. Look if you wrote three pages a day you would have three screenplays a year. But it doesn't quite work out that way. Though I somehow have gotten something together. The well hasn't run dry quite yet.

DRE: Is that something you worry about?

TS: No, I don't worry about it. I'm just making that observation that I continue to write my own material.

DRE: Do you have any desire to adapt books?

TS: I do. But the problem is that my own material takes the priority over everything else.

DRE: What do you like about living in Manhattan?

TS: I always wanted to live in New York, ever since I was a child. So in that sense I'm living out my dream.

DRE: What’s a day in the life of Todd Solondz like?

TS: I always have to accomplish something everyday and there is a lot of work to do. So there might be a routine but the routine is always in flux.

DRE: What did you accomplish today?

TS: Aside from this interview I was working this morning.

DRE: Do you have a wife or kids?

TS: I'm not married.

DRE: Are you against marriage?

TS: No, if you want to get married that's fine with me. I'm not personally interested in marriage but if it makes others happy it's fine with me.

DRE: Since Welcome to the Dollhouse you’ve gained an intense fanbase, have you met many of those fans?

TS: I don't know. I don't know who any of these fans are. I really don't. I make it a point not to Google myself so I really don't know what's out there. It's probably best if I don't know too much. I don't see any upside to it.

[matt35mm]

I liked this movie a lot.  It really worked for me from top to bottom, with really fantastic and beautiful sequences.

I'm also kind of glad that it didn't have a bigger budget--the particular look of the film adds to its power and, already, a sense of timelessness.  That was very important for this film's power; it was successful in feeling like it could be anytime, any girl.  I don't think the use of multiple girls had JUST the simple point that it could be any girl--especially since it's not different girls, it's Aviva all the way through--but I think that was a minor element to it, certainly.  I guess, after all, a lot of this movie's power comes from what it is able to evoke.

EDIT: I was just informed that the "Huckleberry" Aviva was played by a boy, which I suppose alters a couple of the things that I said above.