Chorus.Fm Weekly Movie Club • Page 13

I enjoyed Ceddo quite a bit. It's a shame there isn't a better-quality version out there, but I'm glad it's available in some form.

The film shines a light on how colonialism, the slave trade, and outside religious pressure stripped away a vibrant culture for a monoculture. Condensing that historical time frame into a few days highlights how quickly traditions can be done away with. Beautiful colors on clothing, hair, and names, can be stripped away in an instant and replaced with little regard to what came before.

One other thing I found interesting was the use of gospel music. Gospel is usually associated with upbeat melodies and communal praise, but here it is almost exclusively used when something insidious or malicious was happening. It's present whenever we see slaves on screen. It's also there during the priest's ideal vision of the future, where their culture has completely changed even after his death.

 

I might be able to find a better quality rip than the YouTube one - will check tonight and share a link in here if so, and if appropriate.

Edit: Quality on my download link looks pretty similar, but if anybody would prefer it as a file instead of a YouTube link, please feel free to PM me.

 

Watched this just now, I really love the few other films I've seen from Ousmane Sembène, Mandabi in particular, which I think is a remarkable film.

This felt almost like a dark fairtytale, not a tale of a specific moment in Senegalese history (I don't think...), but a broader story about a country and a continent, and the change or loss of culture. Like a fairytale, we start with the kidnapping of a princess, and we have centuries compressed into weeks or days, telling an individual story of the characters here, but also something much broader.

I did find parts of it a bit oblique at times admittedly, a little difficult to follow fully the nuances. Might help if I knew a bit more (actually anything) about the history of Senegal. My knowledge begins and ends with the few other Ousmane Sembène films I've seen, plus Sadio Mane and the 2002 World Cup team.

 

Really enjoyed Ceddo, I've looked at the history but I hadn't seen any senegalese films before so it was really cool to see it expressed on screen.

 

@Long Century picks tomorrow.

 

I choose The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Its been sitting on my watch list, I was asked for a Romanian film rec recently and the only one I had seen was 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

 

I loved it at the time. The Romanian New Wave was so good all around and even as they have gotten less attention those directors are almost all putting out strong work still. The true heirs to kitchen-sink realism.

 

I've spent quite a bit of time in Romania for work, and I've occasionally got chatting about films with people out there. When I mention The Death of Mr. Lazarescu as a Romanian film I've seen and loved, the universal reaction has been to wince and turn those nose up at it. I've probably mentioned it in passing to a dozen or so Romanians, and got a universal negative reaction to it ha.

I loved it though.

 

That was a similar reaction I had in France when I lived there. They loved their bad romantic comedies that we never hear about over here.

 

Sliding in here to join for the next one. Out of curiosity, is there some kind of master list for everything that's been picked so far?

 

@chris kindly created a Letterboxd list which covers most of them; https://letterboxd.com/chrisdfghjkl/list/chorusfm-weekly-movie-club/

There's a couple more since then - "All Light, Everywhere", But I’m A Cheerleader, The Brothers Bloom, Ceddo & The Death of Mr Lazarescu.

 

Someone was making a Letterboxd list.

 

Nice, thank you! Some of these have been on my list for a while.

 

Playing some catch-up and Jesus Heathers is some perfect pitch-black satire with an actual heart at its center. So many absurdly quotable lines. I loved that.

 

Hoping to catch up on some of the ones I’ve missed in here that are on my watchlist, mental health and shit has been some shit

 

Just found this, so hopping in to see if it's too late to join in?

 

Of course not. We need people who are going to contribute.

@devenstonow picks tomorrow.

 

Ugh, feel bad because I've barely participated, but I'm going to go with Christian Petzold's Transit, currently on Mubi and Amazon Prime.

Based on a novel that takes place in Nazi Germany but transposed to a timeless/somewhat modern Paris (with a nondescript fascist state on the uprise), a refugee impersonates a writer in order to gain passage to a free state. Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer are two of the best "new" European actors and this a full showcase of their greatness. Christian Petzold is such an amazing filmmaker, and hopefully this sends you down the rabbit hole of his filmography.

 

Petzold is arguably the greatest director to break out of the last decade and Transit is his best. I wish Afire was playing nationwide.

 

Haven't seen any Petzold and keep hearing people gush so nice pick.

 

Loved what I’ve seen of Petzold, haven’t seen Transit - excited to check it out!

 

Shit I haven’t been getting notifications. Im a few behind and haven’t heard of the last couple

 

Awesome. Count me in

 

can we get 2 people in the weekly notification. whos tomorrow and whos next week.