Aesthetic Movies

[Zaku]

Dolls, a deconstruction of the red string of fate, is such a visual gem too, it's Takeshi Kitano at his visual peak during his auteurism phase. The way it plays with colors, symbols and seasons as leitmotifs is all around fascinating.

The small but excellent Joe Hisaishi OST just adds to the atmosphere.

 

[幽邃森林]

Unfortunately I'm too normie to post relatively unknown movies so I'll bring up The Fifth Element.

The movie is reminiscent of a future in the eyes of a person from the y2k era. From what I remember, the scenes always contrasted grungy backgrounds with bright and dominant colors. The director is a fan of the comic Mobius and you can see it in the film. It's also noticeable how they inject comic relief into a movie that isn't just a comedy. Maybe someone can describe the movie in better words as I'm not feeling articulate today, but to sum it up, I loved the y2k ( now retro)-futuristic cheesiness of the film.

 

[Zaku]

On today's sad occassion of David Lynch's death, I like to recommend Eraserhead, my favorite movie of his.

It puts an industrial worker in some kind of not-particularly-livable future into the shoes of a father. Everything about this is existential dread. A screaming baby that spreads bodily fluids, social anxiety permeating the movie at every level, an estrangement in anything human, every notion, every gesture so unrelentingly uncomfortable, all packaged into a very unique black-and-white presentation. There is a scene in it in which the protagonist meets his girlfriend's parents for dinner and that's already a bit of a nerve-wrecking concept in real life and it expresses the inner social anxiety of a tense situation like that outwardly so well it turns into a new kind of horror as cutting the chicken turns into a thoroughly disgusting event. Every fiber of your being screams that you do not want to be part of this. The inner is put to.the forefront so evocatively there it's a scene you will never forget.

Eraserhead is at the peak of making you feel joy in making you feel dread.

In a day and age where everything needs to make you feel happy and infantile at the click of a colorful button and movies by large don't dare to challenge their audience anymore, the gift of having the freedom to choose to feel not good is very valuable.

 

[scattershot]

310 to Yuma (1957)

 

[Melmoth]

Surprised no one mentioned Stalker yet. It captures a sense of premeditated desolation in it's world; of forces greater than the characters, but still, they march on in a less-true ownership of their lives. Their meditations, conflicts and desires are perhaps truly bound to the Zone, because they are unhappy and drawn to it fully.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc

 

[dug]

Fallen Angels (1995) - A Noir-Drama from director Wong Kar-wai based from Hong Kong.

My favorite shot from this is the IBM commercial:

[00:02:28]

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Phantom Thread (2017) by Paul Thomas Anderson - the movie is set in mid-century England and is about a dressmaker

PTA's movies tend to have a grainy-ness and noise, which in Phantom Thread, makes the movie look almost evergreen... as though the movie were shot in present times:

 

[Midwest]

I don't have much to add since I'm not a cinephile but the crew from Breaking Bad did such an outstanding job when they continued their work on Better Call Saul with the cinematography.

 

[Sideria777]

On today's sad occassion of David Lynch's death

Had no idea that he passed away until I read this. Deeply saddened... Twin Peaks, and the characters that lived in that town, will forever have a special place in my heart. May God have mercy on his soul.

 

[InternetGeist]

Belladonna of Sadness (1974) is a gorgeously executed animation film with psychedelic imagery, unique visuals, and abundant metaphors. The story is set in middle age France and is about a girl getting raped, being banished from her village, and then attempting to revenge by signing a pact with the devil. The film consists mostly of static watercolor images, a quite interesting approach.

The film is sometimes criticized for appropriating feminist symbols by embracing characteristics of exploitation films and providing nothing beyond an erotic fantasy for the male audience, but...who cares?

 

[madu]

anything by jan svankmejer but especially alice which i feel fits nicely with these other dark, surreal fantasy movies from the 60's-70's, such as valerie and her week of wonders

donkey skin

and daisies (although not strictly fantasy)

 

[ĦĦĦ]

Unicorn Wars (2022) directed and written by Alberto Vázquez, it's a movie about a bunch of unicorns and bears having a race war

also Porco Rosso is nice