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7/10 A missguided ironic egocentric critique of complexity and meaning

posted 9 years ago by shide_85
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7/10
THIS CONTAINS ALOT OF SPOILERS
[Warning] The movie is slowpaced and might require several viewings to be understood.

To start this off you need my preconception:
I like intelligent movies and following this does in some extent require people who do that as plotlines, timelines and underlying messages are all there and vowen together.

Movies that are parodied (mainly):
• A multitude of movies that show a production of a movie/creation of a script etc.
• Stalker 1979 (source of concept for Inception as far as I am concerned, then made Hollywoodesque) the girl named Reality makes that abundantly clear.
• Inception 2010.
• Predestination 2014.
• Probably several other movies.

On the surface this movie is a critique of movies where you follow a person creating a movie. It also contains a multitude of other threads blended in such as mixing the notion of dream and reality, timelines (both of which are most likely aimed towards inception) and symbolism (red thread & blue tape anyone?).
This makes it a critique against complexity and not just unintelligent or badly executed complexity.

We get to follow Tantra which is a director (as far as you get to know) that asks a producer for funding. The same producer also has another director (Zog) over to fund another project, that project is the movie which we get to view (that is fully clear when his lead Reality, the girl, watches the blue tape of Tantra in real time as it happens for Tantra as far as we know). This is actually accentuated to that the movie we are watching is made by Zog entirely as we get to see when a shot of another individual filming near Zog's car after he and Tantra passes one and another (at the producer). By the shot we also understand there is yet another cameraman capturing that as it happens (our view).
Put on that that the lead male role is supposed to be in a dream with alternate timelines (1st and 2nd timeline that intersect more than once - just like Predestination where there is two of Jason Tantra) which is in Zog's movie and during a phonecall when Tantra realises the movie he's going to make is allready in cinemas (but without the crucial element that was the precondition for him getting funding for his movie, a perfect groan).
The producer later gets the perfect groan from the movie he if producing with Zog, watching the movie of Reality (the girl) whom is watching the blue tape (read; red thread) that contains Jason Tantra in an insane asylum getting a stool pill and expousing the perfect groan (which for us in happening in real time, which adds to the notion that Tantra is a part of Zog's movie which really is the complete movie in itself, not only the parts about the girl Reality). It's as if it was ripped directly from the onion parody https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw8gE3lnpLQ - which it most likely is - rehashing parodies making fun of rehashing is not clever but quite ironically funny.
Then we have the whole suggestion that the movie Jason Tantra wants to make, and that is allready made ("Waves"), is the movie itself (Reality the movie). The omnious sound is inserted instead of white noise to illustrate the beems/waves (which are discussed just how they're supposed to be manifested earlier) aka the movie that Jason Tantra wants to make and that is allready made is also the movie we get to watch but directed by Zog (keep reading).

Deconstruction of the critique;
The whole affair of deconstructing the apparent message can be seen as a quasi-intellectual effort as the maker could easily deny any sub-plot or meaning and thus make more fun of those who appriciate complex movies and interpret meaning, read subplots, messages etc in movies. This is also the really bad side of this movie as some of the movies it targets are really good ones. This way of sarcastically putting things is basically an egocentric way of saying "I'm better than you", now add all this meaning to my movie and prove me right. If you were to call the director out on this he can still invalidate your arguement with the hidden subplot that the movie carries.

Hidden subplot (A runthrough of the layers):
Layer 1 & 2 - Jason Tantra the first director we see (two timelines with him in, atleast one with dreaming)

Layer 3 - The second director we see (Zog) and that Tantra passes going to the producer's (Bob) house to get funding.

Layer 4 - The third director that we get a hint of when the girl takes the tape to watch about 70min in or so in and we get to watch them watch her from the cinema (including sneaking by Zog the 2nd director who's asleep).

Layer 5 - We get to see the girl in the movie watch Tantra in real time (director 1) speaking to the producer sitting with Zog (director 2) in real time in the cinema. That makes Tantra a part of the movie with/named Reality made by Zog and thus validates the claim of a hidden subplot within this tangle of webs.

Layer 6 - Last layer is the movie you watch (if you regard it as the plot straight top to bottom and what i just described instead -than that is it. If you don't, keep reading) with the omnious music that illustrates that the movie Tantra wants to make (that has allready been made by another director who named it "Waves"), if "Zog" (pseudonym) has made it and if we are watching it, it's logical.

Movies within the movie:
• The movie we watch (Réalité 2014).
• The movie we get told we might be watching (that we are really watching a movie like "Waves" - with omnious music instead of white noise to illustrate the beems/waves).
• The movie Tantra is making (which we don't get to see).
• The movie "Waves" (which there are short parts of).
• The movie Zog is making that we get to see (Reality the movie).
• The blue tape clip from the movie made by Zog that the producer is watching supposedly made by Zog.
• The alternate start that closes the first loop which you get to view at the end.

So what brings the chaos into the picture?
• Well first off the way it is made, it's not made to be clear cut for the general moviebuff (from my point of view). An example is the answers we get about the eczema; it turns out that the man in the rodantcostume (Dennis) is the same person as the doctor (watch the eczema the doctor has and when he actually takes the role in the rodantcostume over at the end (also starting a third timeline - "confusion", aswell as Jason Tantra when he meets Dennis who tells him he thinks they're the same person - they both scratch away as if they had eczema).

• Threads like the story of the girl that isn't needed in the extent that the story is used (when we see the back of her head sitting quietly watching into the black TV after the blue tape has stopped, it's an obvious reference to Inception, when we see her toss away the blue tape in the garbage bored of it, it seems to be a reference to the end of Stalker, in the movie stalker it is the girl that tells us what was real and how the reality came to be presented), but for several scenes there does not seem to be an apparant reason.

• There is also a none logical reset of the timeline by a view backwards in the movie, where the director (of the real movie) sew the plot together into a cycle when the balcony scene reappears and the beginning is played again for a bit. This clears the story up only if Zog is the director of the whole movie we are watching (réalité 2014), then it's needed to show the change from the first timeline and the second.

• The Psychologist - a small part and little to include you on (in my experience), there is a dream subplot that can be dragged forward by this role that could also be a mockery of Vanilla Sky (headmaster in drag being Cameron Diaz, and other characters reappearing in different ages) it's to obscure to give any larger room though.

Climax:
Zog who grants meaning is the individual that constructs meaning by pulling the parts of the movie together, the first time around it does not work too well for Zog who uses too much film and gets no recognition. But, in the second timeline after Jason Tantra and his project has passed through the movie it does work better and the producer is giving praise instead of scoulding as he sees him (from the balcony) walking away.

The greatness this movie still contains lies in the meaning of it, despite dead threads, misaligned critique and possibly missunderstood egocentrism. It drives the question, and as along as people ask the question there will be people to answer it. Making the question more accessible would grant a higher rating, making the critique against the mainstream propaganda throughout some of the larger productions or the restriction of complexity versus the "grey mass" (or the people as the proper term is), is neither constructive nor enlightening but regressive and egocentric.

Secondary interpretations:
• This is probably also a good analogy for how a producer experiences making a movie (it does not exlude the primary interpretation as a critique), that has been done before, but here it would make more sense. That is one of the most likely secondary interpretations in my book and would explain most things in it (from the multitude of meanings that it touches on).

Noteworthy: In online communites bob for a while meant noob, which is a word for an ignorant person/player.

• I do not believe you should interpret it as a dream, that is a cop-out.
We get the wake up call, but that refers to us watching a movie Zog created.

• Neither do i believe the interpretation that Zog is God, it's for me another one of those easy cop-outs. The outside voice (you get to hear) is alot more aligned to the theme of producing movies, possibly making zog an pseudonym of "god" in the sense of creator of reality.

• It also tosses the questioning of what dream and reality is, in the mix (that is not near the core though, even though the female lead is a a psychologist).

Meaning/sentiment:
For the audience; The quote "When a person dies a world dies." -you get the meaning of the movie by the meaning of the plotline in the movie, the meaning of the movie is the meaning of the movie (the road is the goal), extrapolated that makes for an insanely ignorant thoughtpattern, you can light up a road for those who find it, you can show people the road without showing them all the signs along it and you can most definitively improve mankind by doing so (the individual still needs to want to search for further understanding but has an easier access when/to doing so).

For people working with movies (whom i think is the intended primary demographic, especially directors):
• A screaming criticism versus the trend where the audience is asked to watch a movie about a producer/director making a movie.
• Make the viewer question which movie s/he is actually viewing.
• Criticise the complicated nature of intellectual movies today.
• Making a movie without a meaningful timeline (the end changes the beginning).
(yes this is most likely just a part of the predestination missunderstanding)

*Noteworthy; The shooting of the bore (read; person who bores you), which from its guts spilled the missing piece to understanding the movie. Maybe the director is a lost cynic in the darkness and not an egocentric "artocrat".
How can someone learn to walk the road by themselves if it's lit so to speak.

Noteworthy: The timeline presented (one loop and then continuing on a former path), it is very similar to that which is later used in Interstellar (2014).

The shooting of surfers by the producer - a metaphor for shooting fish in a barrel?

Having a look at the characters:
• The Producer.
• Director 1 Tantra (one of the lead in the plot in Zog's movie, possibly inspired off a soundman for Quentin Dupieux?).
• Director 1 Tantra v 2.0 - one implication that the real plot is a metaphor for a script being processed.
• Director 1's partner - a female psychologist - plays into the what is dream and reality dimension.
• Director 2 Zog the director of the movie within the movie and the real movie (that we get to watch - Réalité 2014, probably a pseudonym for Quentin Dupieux).
• Director 2's assistant & little girl who finds the blue videotape/the movie Zog is producing.

Noteworthy: To gain funding for this movie it would be easy to make the TV a metaphor for whatever; as the individual in Waves buys the TV, he could just aswell be buying a book that had the same effect when he read from it. It's not unnecessarily complicated movies that are in the line of fire, it's complexity and intelligence of the audience aswell. The movie is like uttering the quote "Pearls for swines." and mean it.
This clearly has elements of deconstructionism in it, a critique of what by plutocrats is seen as lesser people directly to them is probably an enticing salespitch if you direct it to a plutocrat.

The blue tape being the red thread in the movie for me drew my mind to a plausible hidden analogy to Matrix blue & red pill (which also explains the note about the bore).
There might also be a hint here as we get the blue tape (blue pill) forcefed to us and then the read thread should be clear (a matrix analogy for gaining enlightment and insight through ignorance) that view is arrogant in a none-equal contextual context (as a criticism against revealing the plot and meaning it does however have meaning).

The serious hidden message; "The road is the goal." It's only through the road we understand the movie and without watching it the value of the missing piece (blue tape) and the characters would make no sense. If this was true it would invalidate me argueing that the movie is a critique against complexity and make it subjevtively untrue from Quentin Dupieux perspective (it could be the hidden meaning of the movie, a sign of optimism, in the end those who believe science isn't cumulative will always be a bad impact overall on the human reality though).

Then again the message could just aswell be at the end when Dennis (now without the costume, standing next to a doctor he visisted, who's wearing that same costume he was earlier) saying: "It's happened... ...I'm confused."
"... it is indeed an eczema attack, but on the inside, on the inside of your head." -Then the movietitle REALITY shown across the screen.

-That aligns perfectly with the conclusions I've drawn and as is obivous it also influenced them as it is a clear taunting of the bull with a red waving cape.

End note:
This movie is not intelligent in the sense of many other movies, it is rather turned into a propagation/commercial for chaos and disorder.
I would give it less due to the message I think it has, but then again it's still made really well with todays standards.

[EDIT 1] Added a comment on the name Bob (the producer within the movie) and fixed some spelling errors i noticed.

[EDIT 2] Apparently my headliner with 7/10 had been turned into 7/8 somehow (always use x/10, and my vote was allready casted on 7/10). The internal headliner said 6/10 which is what I had initially given it, i decided later when i posted to up it to 7 despite me disliking the message. It also turns somewhat into what it criticises.

[EDIT 3] Spelling & sentence structure.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] ulf-635-523367 9 years ago

Enjoyed and appreciated your exposé very much.

[–] shide_85 9 years ago

Thanks, good to hear.
I like to write things off myself when i want them off my mind (which is usually close after I've viewed a movie), though the reason i do it on here is the chance that someone else will also find it useful or enjoyable to read.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

Feel free to go point by point and actually reason for your ideas. By me it sounds as if you have not watched the movie at all.

Also feel free to point out exactly where grammatical errors have been made or where you think sentence structure is bad - otherwise it's just a nonsensical ad hominem. Seing as you come out shooting I would asume I've somewhere hit a sore point.

And you are obviously free to your opinion, but you have no rationale to back it up so posting it like that is useless - feel encouraged to go point by point and reference the movie with time or specific easily identifiable events.

This one almost made me laugh out loud: "The shooting of the bore (read; person who bores you)..."
Really?!

Some of it is indeed speculative, that is also made clear, if you were only to quote me in full there:

*Noteworthy; The shooting of the bore (read; person who bores you), which from its guts spilled the missing piece to understanding the movie. Maybe the director is a lost cynic in the darkness and not an egocentric "artocrat".
How can someone learn to walk the road by themselves if it's lit so to speak.

However i don't think that was a brilliant example to pick of you as this picture is filled by symbolism, references, deconstructionism etc, it could just aswell have been another animal that would not eat a tape, picking a bore is not unlikely to have some symbolism or meaning attached in a movie like this.
It's not picked by chance as it cotains the key to figuring th emovie out (the blue tape - which is later revelead, which you would know if you had read the full post).

[EDITE] Clarified the ending.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

To start this off you need my preconception;

*you need to be aware of my preconceptions

That is a semantic remark (by you) not an error in structure. It's obvious that it's an imperative (as in: you will need to read this to understand me correctly).

Furthermore, the things you state after the semicolon are NOT preconceptions.

My preconception is a remark directed to my overall point of view, it is not a perfect (no matter how close a human can get away from subjective thought there will still be limiting factors in some degree based on how you have constructed your system of thought) opinion.
Marking out things that I know will influence my portrayal of the movie is the point I'm making here, and that is done (note and is used to mark out a point, in a place where it usually would be gramatically incorrect doing so). Giving a full detailed story of my life is neither needed nor granted for obvious reasons.

I like intelligent movies and this does in some extent

The reference done by me is to intelligent movies. What is wrong with that sentence is not "in" but "this" which should be "that", it could still be argued as present tense and correct gramatically.

Regarding idiomatic expressions I do not value them high, differeces can in contrast make words or intended meaning pop out more if you do not conform to a given frame. Confomrity to a structure without a universal principle (yes, it could be argued that the principle would be to easier understand each other, but I doubt anyone will miss the point due to what was written, making that point mute). As example - to some extent versus in some extent (using a preposition to mark out where, in movies, should here also emphasize the point).

*people to (not "who do that")

- This is wrong, the reference I'm making is to have the patience and follow what I've written, not the actual reading itself. Yes people can understand more points of views, but the address is a general one and most people are not as highly empathic in todays world, thus it should be clear that i'm addressing what should be the majority (by reading between the lines).
You could have pointed out "who" which even though commonly used these days should have been "whom".

And you're missing at least three commas.

No, when making a list the initial items are always marked out with commas but never the last one which is separated by an and (I can't recall if that is an idiom or not, but I do not think so).

You could have criticised me for using to few dots:

I like intelligent movies and this does in some extent require people who do that, plotlines, timelines and underlying messages are all there and vowen together.

Would make more sense written like so:
I like intelligent movies. This does in some extent require people who do that as plotlines, timelines and underlying messages are all there and vowen together.

etc
Thanks, will correct this.

'source of concept for Inception as far as I am concerned, then made Hollywoodesque'
This sentence is such a mess I would have to rewrite it entirely, which I don't have time for.
And, again, you're missing about two to three commas, the absence of which makes your sentences unintelligible.

That is because it is not a sentence, it's a part thereof to further explain why i mention Stalker which is listed (not properly which is the thing you should be upset about - it does not take long to ad an "•" before each one, that would also mean swapping the ";" to a ":" to make it proper).

(source of concept for Inception as far as I am concerned, then made Hollywoodesque)

It also contains a multitude of other threads blended in as mixing the notion of dream and reality,

*such as

-Thanks this is one of my blind spots, aswell as confusing 3 words (with what is not their synonyms). It lies closer to spoken american english.

'We get to follow Tantra which is a director (as far as you get to know)'

*who is
*as far as you know

I can't honestly recall if I meant it as a remark about the meaning of the movie or not - as an item (read; character) in the movie, Tantra could be marked as not existing, though I'm unsure what grammatical rule would utlimately rule that sentence.

as far as you know

Is intentional and if you had read the full article before commenting that would be clear to you. It is part of a key point made in it.

'The same producer also has another director (Zog) over to fund another project,'

*whose film he's also producing

Here we are touching on a key point, they are the same. but they are marked out in the movie not to be. If you had read through the full post and ignored the spelling errors that would have been clear.

The way you wrote makes it sounds like Zog is funding the producer's project.

- Yes.

Do you have a phobia of commas? In that whole huge paragraph you've used just one(!) comma. Commas are used as pauses, this is why your writing is so incomprehensible. Not that using commas would make everything better, because your English dismal.

They are often an eyesore as they limit the precision which you construct for the reader to percieve. Too many dots and you cut down the pattern of thought, often there is also a tendency to use less descriptive words by those who use alot of dots (yes, a generalisation, but of structure not people). Too many commas and you simply interrupt it. I enjoy reading when the sentences are long and descriptive, even if that means you will have to read them a couple of times to grasp the intent behind it. That being said, that is not the case here as they are short with brackets (can't recall the proper word for them at this early hour) to make the points come through better and the intent how to read something easier to find.

It's strange how you not once mentioned the content and any relation to the movie. It's as if you've only read a short part of it, commented to put your anger drawn from your every day (or elsewhere) because of plausible ineptitude on your behalf to deal with something and then spewed it on a random (more or less) anonymous stranger.
It's clear to anyone readint this conversation that you did not even try to read through the post the first time, if you are what is now commonly known as a grammar-nazi - fine. That is allright and even good, but don't pretend there is no value to what has been written when you have defaulted to criticizing the person before even reading enough to grasp the points being made. That much is painfully clear by your critique of sentence structure that really is there for a reason.

I'll sit tight until you've read through it the post and actually pointed to what is wrong with it, I don't get slightly annoyed if people are correct or incorrect regarding my grammar. I do however get annoyed on arrogant people like you have proven yourself to be by disregarding wht is written because of how it is written.

*Just finished watching a movie and it is late, I will go over this within the next two days or so to fix the smaller errors that are accurately pointed out and continue the discussion about the rest of the post.

[EDIT] Spelling:
adress - address.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

No (to the question), I'm not basically just repeating "no it's not" (there's some irony for you) I'm clearly giving my rationale and reason why I've written the way I have. You do not: you mention a few grammatical errors you saw and that you think you saw (alot of which were not errors, the fact I've edited a few out and clarified others is so that readers will have an easier time to pick up the points made as I agree that the post could have been hard to interpret right - thus the initially already added brackets with explanations/specifications in them) but you leave out any grammatical reference or reasoning behind most of yours. You do not even consider that your interpretation of my intent is wrong thus invalidating the issue raised with certain parts of the text.

You came out guns ablazing (in the thread i had created to discuss the movies sublot, meaning and other items related to that) and tried to completely dismiss all of it - my arguement and what i based them upon without providing ANYTHING to stand on. So to get back on the point; you still haven't touched on your main point:

Unless this is some elaborate joke (in that case I applaud you, though ever so softly) it is obvious that you've misread and misunderstood this film. The only thing "missguided", I'm sorry to say, is your post.

Unless you see errors in grammar as making the actual points defunct I do not follow your missing logical reasoning.

When you produce your in depth interpretation (you must had had a chance to view the movie by now) make clear references both to my post and the time within the movie - in short: live up to what you preach about clear and easily accessible text.

Note that I do live up to what i preach, you found the post made in an unclear manner and as it was a complex movie and long post I read through it, made it clearer and more uniform. That so as more readers would have an easier time to go through it (but here it's not mainly about spreading light on the road -to jump back to that metaphor, it's about deconstruction and increasing accessibility to understanding the movie - or the post would have been made in a closed forum).

As is, you are just rehashing what have already transpired:

You wrote:

Assuming English isn't your first language, I won't note the many, many spelling and grammatical errors in your post. Though that is one of the main reasons why it's so difficult to read.

The biggest issue, however, lays in your ideas, which are uninspired at best and completely nonsensical at worst.
This one almost made me laugh out loud: "The shooting of the bore (read; person who bores you)..."
Really?!

Whereupon I wrote:

Feel free to go point by point and actually reason for your ideas. By me it sounds as if you have not watched the movie at all.

Also feel free to point out exactly where grammatical errors have been made or where you think sentence structure is bad - otherwise it's just a nonsensical ad hominem. Seing as you come out shooting I would asume I've somewhere hit a sore point.

And you are obviously free to your opinion, but you have no rationale to back it up so posting it like that is useless - feel encouraged to go point by point and reference the movie with time or specific easily identifiable events.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] pfnuesel 7 years ago

I wonder what confused me more, the film or your post.