Loading ...…In Which A Depressing Film Makes Me Depressed
By Evan ~ March 23rd, 2009. Filed under: daily life.
I just finished watching The Proposition, a very good and very depressing movie. If you don’t know the plot, it’s about a police captain in late 19th century rural Australia. He captures two members of a family of outlaws, and promises one of the men that if he can kill his older brother (the criminal mastermind), he will not hang his youngest brother. The film was written by Nick Cave, consists of music written by Cave and Warren Ellis, and includes some stunning shots of Australia. It’s quite bloody, and the pacing is excruciatingly slow. Combined with the morbid story, that creates, like, the perfect trifecta for an evening of utter depression. Seriously, I filled the long delays between blood-drenched action and prolonged silences between scenes with dialog by thinking of all the horrible things that could someday occur in my life. That’s what the movie did for me. All the tension and inactivity made my guts churn and my mind wander to really dark places. I guess that’s the mark of a good film? When you’re consciously thinking, “Fuck…this is so slow and sad,” and wondering how life could possibly get any worse, the drama has done its job. The Deerhunter was kind of the same way, except longer, and when it ended I just curled up in a ball and decided not to do anything for the rest of the day.
So…what’s funny? What can lift my spirits. Let’s think…
Normally, I’d say “Kart.” Because Mario Kart Wii cures all that is wrong in the world. But alas, Pat and Nate are doing their softball league and there will be no competition this evening. Instead, I can take a few moments to update our season standings while remembering last night’s games. See the top of this page? There’s that menu bar beneath the site logo? If you click on “standings,” you can view the latest results of our ongoing battle to see who is the most supreme at Kart.
As you can see, our scoring system makes little sense. 1st place finishes count for two “points,” and 2nd place finishes count for one. I guess it’s kind of like Hockey. But we’re also keeping track of total individual race wins and grand point totals. I guess those are going to be tiebreakers in the event of a tie. Unfortunately for me, the standings look closer than they really are. Pat needs his Miis (Owl and Eat Me Out) to race better, and Nate’s Mii (Dickface) needs some 3rd place finishes.
I know, I have no life.
Hey, here’s a quick post-script or two:
- If you have a website or a blog, and you’ve set up a link to Swan Fungus from your page, and you don’t see your website listed on my “friends/friendly blogs” list, let me know either by leaving a comment or writing an email. I try to do my best to keep up with which websites have been sending readers this way (so that I can potentially return the favor), but sometimes they slip through the cracks and I forget. Also, if your page is listed but your URL or name changed, please let me know as well so that I can update the sidebar accordingly.
- I’m still having difficulty with the right sidebar and the width of that one ad. If you or anyone you know is proficient at web design and could help me resize the frames on this page so that everything fits and is centered across various browsers/platforms, by all means HELP ME. I’m useless when it comes to this stuff.
- If your or anyone you know is proficient at Wordpress.org stuff, maybe you could let me know how to create links in that menu bar that runs across the screen below the logo that don’t lead to other Wordpress.org pages? I want to get some of the old Swan Fungus content back up there (photography, writing, and music-related stuff) and add some new areas to the site. Again, I’m pretty much inept when it comes to web design. It took me about two months to create what you’re looking at now, and that was done by literally changing values by one number at a time to see what looked best. God, what a waste that was…
March 24th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Little Odessa also has that quality of making you feel depressed, even though it’s a great film and it’s cinematography is brilliant.
March 24th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Come on… The Proposition is not a good film. The dialogue is as contrived as the acting is overly theatrical (shame on you, John Hurt!). The symbolism is extremely clichéd (even for Nick Cave), and the script has the thinnest of plots. (I often prefer films that aren’t plot-driven myself, but they always have something else to compensate for it.) There is nothing new to the film, nor any twists or turns, which would be fine if the film was actually emotionally engaging in any way. But Cave just slapped together some brothers — because that’s a time-honoured literary theme (Cain and Abel, anyone? Dostoevsky?) — and some of that interminable crucifixion imagery that even Scorsese would steer clear of (but not Cave’s fellow Antipodean Mel Gibson). Add some token Aborigines for good measure, and you’ve got an ‘Australian’ Western for that ‘World’ PR edge, in order to separate the film from other Westerns that would, by a simple act of comparison, reveal how little there is to this art-studenty shit flick.
It’s like everyone involved in the film was so awed by the fact that Nick Cave was writing and scoring it that they all just turned into yes-men, not even telling him that it needed at least three more re-writes and two more years of development before it went into production. Which is just as cruel as sending Mr. Cave out to promote the film sporting a handle bar ‘tache, saying stuff like, ‘There are no gays in my Western.’ (Which was funny, actually, although I believe he delivered that line in all seriousness — even with that Village People moustache.)
Thankfully, Cave has redeemed himself with more recent literate endeavours on Grinderman and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
OK, rant over. Excuse me for using your blog as a vehicle for my disgust with Cave’s ‘film’.
Oh, and the soundtrack sucks, too.
March 24th, 2009 at 10:15 am
I’ve got a link to your site on my blog. I’d be quite thrilled to have a link on Swan Fungus. Thanks!
March 24th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I agree with you on The Proposition. I could barely describe what it was about, I was so disturbed. I disagree with Christopher’s view, but to each his own. I love David Lynch, but some people think he’s untalented hack. Who knows? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Well, I’ve just gone and done did it: put up a link to your tremendous blog on my new, tentative foray into Internet publication, the music blog at http://toiletguppies.blogspot.com. One day I will post a rant about The Proposition on my own page. (Of course, not so many people would read it then!)
March 28th, 2009 at 1:16 am
I really enjoyed the film, as did my father who had no tolerance for slow. My brain damaged brain did not get the references you guys did, nor did I find it overly slow or depressing. After so many years of European cinema behind me this films seemed to zip along at a fair old pace. As for depressing, while I didn’t find it particularly jolly, compared to some classics of Czech, Hungarian, and Swedish cinema, it didn’t leave despairing about the human condition and human nature.
Love the blog – have heard some stuff from here that have spent years wondering what they are like, cheers!