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arthouse masterpiece... a list of things I found strange


I love this film so much. Beautiful shots and pacing and that SOUNDTRACK (!) make this just an excellent film. A few weird things, though:

1. The film-within-a-film. Is this a parody of French arthouse films like "Mother and The Whore" (though really the Nekromantik film is probably just a "My Dinner with Andre" parody) which features mostly people just sitting around, talking and eating for 3.5 hours? Why are they naked on a roof? And is it true that ALL birds are basically dinosaurs? I find that interesting but I'm too lazy to look it up.

2. This film is frequently called a "horror" film even though there's no conventional horror elements to it aside from two deaths, and the fixation ON death. It's more of a strange arthouse dark comedy...

3. This film features loooooooooooooooooooong stretches without dialogue; the opening sequence alone takes a good 20 minutes before any actual dialogue is heard, and the first words spoken are heard on the musical soundtrack, not any actual character. The next words spoken are just moans and "oh, god"'s from the porn dubbing. The actual main character rarely says anything.

4. The amazing soundtrack is credited to 4 (!) people -- strange. And...

5. The film doesn't really reuse music. Though there are lots of appearances of a solo piano, it's usually different pieces playing every time. There is a LOT of different musical pieces in this film.

6. Is "porn dubbing" a legitimate business? In 1991?! Seems like they would've figurd out how to record synch sound by then. Though the grainy films and the black and white film they see in the film seem to suggest this film is a wee bit of a period piece...

7. On that note, are graveyards over there really that disheveled/poorly-kempt?

8. The scene where Monica goes to the ocean... I found it kind of odd not to mention that it reminds me of Seinfeld's contemplation of love and whether to choose a girlfriend or "the voice".

9. The music video dream sequence. A character that rarely speaks singing with a piano player character and dissolves into a corpse's face, all against a black background.. odd.

All in all, this film's artful direction, long stretches without dialogue, ending death scene, and being mainly just an exploration of one female character throughout its running time reminds me of Chantal Akerman's masterpiece "Jeanne Dielman", perhaps seemingly an unlikely influence but I have a good feeling Jorg was deeply inspired by it.

Amazing film btw. One of my favs.

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Shuji Terayama forever.

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