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The Mission (1986)
I'm glad this bit of history was told, but I also wish the emotional heart of the story wasn't a reformed fatricidal slave trader. And that any of the indigenous people were actual characters, not just abstract noble savages. But I guess anti-colonialism has to start somewhere?
Goddamn islands!
This was always the crux of the project. Could I make it so that all the lines were either coastlines or latitude/longitude? (Every 15 degrees, in this section.) Yes, but without the waterjet, my glass working skills would never have been up to it. And that still leaves the foiling, and the more concave a bit is, the harder it becomes. Lots of overlapping length of foil, trimmed to an even thickness with a craft blade.
It's all gloriously simple, entirely convex ocean tiles from here on out, though.
Yol (1982)
A travelogue of several prisoners granted a one week leave. I'm more impressed now that I've read the backstory, how it was written and directed (by means of detailed instructions) by someone who was in prison, who then broke out of prison to go edit it in Switzerland! And it remains controversial in Turkey, despite it outlasting the regime is was criticizing, because Kurdistan.
This also takes the prize for the hardest to acquire and watch so far. The rights remain a mess, and the only version I could find was a Scarecrow rental. On VHS. So I dug out some old friends that I had packed away when I moved for grad school in 2007 and hadn't touched since getting back in 2010. Except the emergency VCR didn't work, so I had to resort to the *backup* emergency VCR. Yay for being a packrat!
I got half of the stained glass hemisphere foiled tonight. I had forgotten how long this step takes. (But the alternative, lead came, takes even longer!) Still, I might actually finish this project before the end of the year!
Testing to make sure everything looks like it will work for the hemisphere stained glass project. I need to redo 2 pieces of Antarctica, but everything else looks good. This might look mostly done, but there are 49 ocean tiles still to be cut, all uninterrupted trapezoids.
When Father Was Away on Business (1985)
New bit of history I suddenly realize I'm weak on: Yugoslavia! Didn't really love it, but it wasn't as actively vile as the other one of this director I have seen, the one with a slur in the title. But still some icky scenes whose purpose I didn't understand.
The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
There are themes of being reconciled with death, and the inexorable cycle of life, but really, this is about how brutal life as a peasant was. There is also some symbolism going on with snakes that I didn't understand.
Also, this is the first time I've seen subtitles offer verbose cultural explanations outside of anime fansubs.
Hot take: I don't think "castle" is a particularly good translation of "château".
Missing (1982)
Jack Lemmon tries to uncover what happened to his son who was disappeared in the Chilean coup, slowly realizing the extent of the US involvement and how naive his trust in his own government was. Intense and searingly painful at times. Lemmon really didn't get enough credit as a dramatic actor, because he was absolutely brilliant in this.
Oh, and since there was some surprise expressed that we still have a real video store in Seattle, here is it (minus a few rooms behind the camera) in all its glory. I'm so glad we've managed to keep it open this long -- and hopefully the tide is turning on physical media enough that maybe it can survive someday without fundraisers.
The Tin Drum (1979)
A very strange movie, with some incredibly uncomfortable scenes. There was a surrealism to it I liked, but it never quite leaned into that. There were some sweeping historical epic elements that I also liked, but it couldn't really commit to those either. There was a holy fool, and I love holy fools, but he isn't used very well. I dunno. Maybe don't put 11 year old actors in explicit sex scenes, even if they are playing a 16 year old?
Anyway, I'm now done with the 1970s.
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)
A meditative, almost languid slice of life of late 19th century Lombard peasants. I found it surprisingly gripping -- I think because the cinematography was an amazing balancing act of being entirely understated and naturalistic while still somehow making every frame look like the work of an old master.
Man of Iron (1981)
An powerful, riveting portrayal of a spineless journalist sent to dig up dirt on the leader of a strike in communist Poland. It manages a delicate combination of being simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic. Pretty amazing that it got made at all, it just squeaked through during a short window of lax censorship following the events being portrayed in the movie. It's a sequel to Man of Marble, focusing on the father of the strike leader, and I think I'll have to watch that one too.
The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971)
A messy but interesting film. Bonus: it featured lots of machining, though much of that was more of a cautionary tale when it comes to shop safety.
This one proved elusive, as it's not available for streaming, but luckily Scarecrow, the one big (really big!) rental store left in town, had a copy. Except the first time I carelessly grabbed the Blu-Ray instead of the DVD, and my region-free player is DVD only. Whoops. I'm enjoying going to the rental store after brunch as part of my normal Saturday routine, though. I think I'll keep doing that, even when everything on the docket is available streaming. Gods know that Google and Amazon don't need any more of my money.
I was thinking it could make for a fun little interactive piece to have something cycling through all combinations of its lights following different Gray Codes. And I'd been meaning to do something with a stack light/tower light (used on big factory floors to signal machine states like "error" or "running low on parts") since they're so visually iconic. So I grabbed a cheap one off Ali Express to play with. I wish it had more tiers, but any past 5 get very expensive very quickly. I'll keep an eye on ebay to see if some turn up, but this will do for now.
This afternoon I'm playing around with a paper computer learning tool from the 60s. My (iterative) Fibonacci program works!
A Man and a Woman (1966)
Charming and vibe-y. One of those minor works that have an oversized emotional impact, by just doing the basic stuff super well. I kept trying to figure out what the significance of the sections filmed in color vs BW was, but like If...., I now see it was arbitrarily driven by the budget.
I'm now over 50% done with the Palme d'Or list! (Having started at about 30&.) It's going much faster than I expected, but having a list of movies to pull from has proven to be very convenient when combined with the new and exciting forms of insomnia I've been exploring.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975)
An understated epic on the lead up to the Algerian war for independence, seen through the eyes of a peasant who gets increasingly more involved as tensions escalate. Sadly I was watching a low quality scan with fairly bad captions, but it was still enthralling.
The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966)
Another one I had to wait for physical media to arrive in order to watch. And now I own a copy of a vile movie about vile people doing vile things that I will definitely never watch again. Blech.
Padre Padrone (1977)
Brutal child abuse in Sardinia. Also a surprising amount of bestiality. All within a framing device that Wes Anderson might have filmed. Fascinating, but not exactly enjoyable.
The Long Absence (1961)
Jumping back in time a bit here as physical media for the unstreamable ones final arrive. Slow, subtle and heartbreaking. The unresolved ending felt fully justified as a way to put us in the mindspace of the protagonist, and not just a gimmick. Definitely underrated.