After finishing the rest of the movie today, there were a lot of things that I liked and disliked. I thought that the movie started to take a much more serious side than before. The second part reminded me a lot of the romantic comedies that we have in the US. This is not a terrible thing, however I was hoping for a little bit more comedy. It was still very enjoyable, and it did have me hooked on waiting to find out what was going to happen between Zhenya and Nadya. The movie did a very good job of keeping that aspect of the movie very suspenseful and I am happy with the ending. It is the type of movie that needs an ending like that, it does seem a little bit crazy or far fetched, but that doesn't matter, the whole movie was crazy. Plus, nobody in the movie would really end up happy, and that type of an ending is usually no fun.
One of the things that I really started to notice about the movie is the recurring theme of the guitar and music. Just as we talked about in class today, about how there are lines in the movie, like the tradition of the bathhouse, that seem to repeat over and over throughout the film. I think that these are like verses to a song and the repetitious parts are just like a chorus or a refrain. Both Zhenya and Nadya play the guitar and sing several times throughout the movie. So in a way, I think that this movie is supposed to resemble a song or a poem. The movie is creating its own romantic and comedic song.
Probably more than anyone else in this movie, I really enjoyed the character of Ippolit. I did enjoy the character of Zhenya very much, however in the second part of the film, Ippolit the main source of comedy. I laughed every time that I would here the door buzzer when Zhenya and Nadya would finally be close to each other again, and he would come in rudely and then just storm right back out again. He played a very good role in the film.
Overall the movie was very good. I am looking forward to more movies similar to this one. It captured my attention from the start and even though it was a long movie, it didn't hardly seem long at all, it was a lot of fun to watch.
The reading for tonight was a little bit rough to read only because of all of the names and dates. However, I found it interesting to read about how the film making started in Russia, and also about the somewhat rebellious attitudes of the writers and film makers. They ignored some of what they were told that they couldn't do and made what pleased the crowd. They were looking to make some money, so they had to give the people the films that entertained them. The limitations that were put on them were normally by the government or the church. This is understandable because you wouldn't want somebody releasing anything that may influence of change the opinions of a controlled society. It was an interesting read, but I am looking forward to moving on to a little bit more modern times.
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I like your observations about the guitar and the singing. Just the very image of the guitar with the bow on it carries almost the quality of a "visual refrain" within the movie. And it is indeed interesting and significant that the two woo each other by means of songs (while the hapless Ippolit seems to possess no musical qualities of his own. Though note that it is probably no accident that he ends up *singing* a bit (albeit miserably) in the shower).
ReplyDeleteIppolit is played by one of Soviet Russia's greatest comic actors Yuri Yakovlev (1928- ). I agree with you that it's an amazing and important role--though I think that the shower scene there toward the end is designed to be anything but humorous. Indeed he ends up delivering perhaps the film's soberest and starkest message during that scene.
As you read about and watch the early silent Russian films (which is essentially what we'll be doing for the remainder of this week), try to keep in mind the amazing task these early artists had before them: trying to figure out how exactly to use this amazing new technology to suit their varying aesthetic, didactic and entertainment purposes. I think you'll learn a lot about the way films work (and the way we process them as we watch them) by studying these early films closely.