Inspired by Islamic architecture, the abstract linear forms in this experimental computer-animation film were colored and edited using an optical printer. The shapes bloom and flow in time with music by Manoochehr Sadeghi.
Tag: 1970s
After five years working with Roger Corman, Jonathan Demme moved to Paramount to make Citizens Band, a charming ensemble comedy following a disparate group of characters who communicate across the airwaves. A huge influence on Paul Thomas Anderson, the film’s empathy for the outsiders and eccentrics who would characterise Demme’s later work is clearly evident here. And the cast, including Le Mat as a CB vigilante and Napier as a bigamist trucker, is terrific. A prescient study of human behaviour that resonates in our social media era, Citizens Band’s box-office failure left Demme fearing his career was over, but it can now be seen as the moment he found his distinctive voice.
Presaging details and intent of the Charles Manson’s cult and actions was not meant to be one of this film’s greater attributes. It was, however, filmed uncannily months before the facts were known. The resemblance is oblique. The film: the mysticism of a “calling,” a journey to be made, a vision in mid-desert to behold and oneness with it all. Filmed in Death Valley.
In this remake of the 1973 horror hit “The Exorcist”, a 12 year old girl named Gul, living with her mother in a cozy, high society life in Istambul becomes possessed by the Satan himself through a Ouija board and a troubled psychiatrist and an experienced exorcist become the girl’s only hope for salvation.
Black and white shots of a carnival segue into a psychedelic reverie as a pair of disembodied hands prepare and consume a fresh persimmon. Soundtracked by T. Rex, and featuring repurposed footage from Dumbo, Last of the Persimmons is a layered and playful homage to the simple pleasures in life.
Too fast a pace of life in overcrowded, noisy and polluted cities make people sick, neuroses is a common occurrence. A man is trying to sleep but noises keep him up. Trying to stop the noise he reveals a bizarre mixture of sounds and images. The film explores what can happen to a man irritated by noise when all he wants is to peacefully read his newspaper. From being peaceful the man turns dangerous. He is ready to destroy.
A film, like a long poem in which a married couple engage in conversation about love, death, and life while the scenery changes around them. The destiny of each human being plays out between the parallel and antagonistic lines of man and woman, day and night, north and south, black and white. And not knowing what real death will be, we imagine life and death in various ways.