Whenever I am out of ideas of movies to watch, when the thought of taking out some teen romantic movie or a stupid thriller leaves me spending hours in the video shop trying to figure out which crappy movie I should take, I turn towards the international movies.
A few of years ago, almost a decade, this was not second choice, foreign films were my first choice, I sought the foreign films because for me, then, they contained more depth and intrigue than your Hollywood movies.
I specifically remember the three colours trilogy. I was in Grahamstowns and I had no choice but to see every single movie that went through the Odeon and His Majesty’s. Three Colours was one of those movies, Queen Margot and Indochine and the like were others that I thought were just fantastic.
What I like and don’t like most about these foreign films is that I could not really identify that much with the characters. In Hollywood movies, you get use to being spoon fed how you are supposed to feel about what you are seeing, nothings left to personal interpretation. With these flicks one could sit back and figure it out from one’s own context what you should feel.
I watched all three colours this weekend again, the boss bought the trilogy overseas and was kind enough to loan it to me for the weekend. They come with the director’s commentary and I was saddened by all the bits he pointed out that me as the audience am suppose to pick up on but did not. I have a very bad memory and so I could not remember what the stories were about. All I could remember was that I was mostly touched by Blue and there was some kind of connection between the three movies.
Watching it now I struggle to figure out what the connection is. They say as you get older you become more stupid, or your brain loses the capacity to learn new things. Is this what has happened?
I could follow the stories and I could probably give my interpretation of it if I was pushed to do so but it was not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. The only time when I was emotionally touched was during blue and I have to say that music transcends language or culture and almost everything. The music that was being composed for the unification of Europe was beautiful. Set to the words of ‘what is love’ (I think this is a bible verse) it has that operatic thing to it but it does not alienate, it draws you closer and you want the music to go on and on. Beautiful!
If you are feeling for something different that will take you out of yourself and give you a different perspective on film making the order that movies are suppose to take, go get this one.
And if there is someone out there that can engage me on these movies, speak out!
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