A response that's almost two years late to a response that was almost a whole year late. A bit strange that it's come full circle now.
That post that you're responding to is dated December 26th 2009, a bit over two years from now, and obviously I don't have the same exact opinions as I did back then, yet I'm amazed that I'm still in agreement, and therefore consistent, with what I said so long ago. So with time I have expanded on these ideas so I can elucidate what I was saying in 2009 in more detail, or at least in a slightly different way.
What I was referring to when I said that Iskanov was subtle had more to do with the methods that he uses to establish his shots (not in the technical sense anyway, but the arrangement of music and images), which is to say that the subtlety isn't about the surface layer of the film but the methodology of it all. It sounds somewhat esoteric to describe it in this way, but that's because I wasn't discussing any conventional sense of what is subtle.
Again, back to the subtlety, I think that Iskanov was incorporating elements from the art-house aesthetic and reconfiguring them in the horror context, breeding some mutant strain of art-horror that seems to be catching on in Europe with figures like Marian Dora and so on, which by itself is a subtle trick. Aside from that what's remarkable about Philosophy of a Knife is that there's historical value to the film, by virtue of the subject matter and the interview elements that weave through the dramatic interpretation and cinematic flourishes, like that curious introductory sequence.
Not everyone is going to appreciate the film or the pacing. It's four hours long and it burns like a slow candle, in the vein of other Russian masters like Tarkovsky. The tone varies throughout the film as contemplative, reflective, sinister, foreboding, eerie, assertive, calm, and mysterious, with gradations and admixtures at choice intervals. And the pacing is either in conflict with the tone or it reinforces it to great effect.
The point that I'm making here is that the pacing is meticulous and calculated to the degree that the director had absolute control over it. This isn't the fault of the filmmaker if the viewer is too impatient to allow the flow to take hold, that simply means that this film isn't meant for that specific viewer, and if that describes the majority of the viewers, then so be it, then it isn't meant for most people to watch.
And I understand where the confusion about Lynch lies at; the comparison was meant as a point of reference rather than a substantive analysis of the two auteurs. I was most interested in using the surrealistic work of Lynch as a springboard to discuss how Iskanov incorporated his influences into Philosophy of a Knife.
Abyssus Abyssum Invocat
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