"Children absorb knowledge like a sponge." — Umm, a sponge doesn't absorb knowledge at all. You can't teach it fucking anything by talking to it or giving it a book. That's why children are stupid. Grown-ups assume absorbing skills where there are none.
Film: Tideland Entry created on 2023-01-17 (edited 2023-02-03) author:steeph (350) cat:Adventure (2) cat:Child Abuse (4) cat:Children (4) cat:Death (7) cat:Decomposition (1) cat:Drugs (1) cat:Films (20) lang:en (245) top:Films (15)
I didn't think I could be entertained by watching a little girl being traumatised for life in various ways for almost two hours.
Is it a weird movie?
Why, yes. Yes, it is. That is if you consider a movie weird if it contains a scene of a corpse being taxidermied to keep a deceised person around then placed at the dinner table with the still living part of the family. But it is weird in that way without being a gory horror or torture movie.
Would Jean-Pierre Jeunet like this film?
I don't know Jean-Pierre Jeunet or what movies he likes. But Tideland reminded me of his movies' style very much. Camera work, colours, character weirdness, music and the naturalness of unusual events made me suspect that it may be intentionally a tribute to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's work. But that's a silly thought.
Is it a children's movie?
I never understood the criteria for which movies are considered children's movies and which are not. But this one might genuinly be impossible to classify as either. It seems to be a children's movie, telling the story of a child from her point of view, with imaginative play and all. But who would want to show such fucked up shit to a child? Well, actually, why not? Some other children's stories aren't any better. And some, like some of Grim's fairy tales, are more gory than this one.
Shouldn't you have started this with an explanation of what the movie is about?
No. But here are a few keywords: girl, heroin, child abuse, death, friendship, decomposition, mummification, family, adventure, imagination, innosence, love, lonelines
Why is Brendan Fletcher doing this weird retarded act?
I don't know but you can't say it's offensive because he's not actually portraying just a neurodiverse man but a man who has part of his brain removed. Still offensive but for different reasons? Well, okay. I guess not, since he has been complimented for a realisitc portrayal of a mentally challenged person. Anyway. I found his role quite nice and well acted.
So, is it a horror movie or isn't it?
Does it have a romance component in the story?
In an unusual, awkward way, yes, kind of. Well, calling it a romance would legitimise it. It's definitely not the usual cliché romance component. So, no. At least that's how I see it. Others are more open about admitting that a relationship between a child and a grown-up with a romantic component can still be a love story. By definition I agree. And I guess the film shows enough to talk about if you want to discuss the topic, but omits the more erotic parts from the book.
Oh, it's an adaptation of a book?
Yeah, but I haven't read it. It's also called Tideland. Mitch Cullin wrote it.
What is it that you like about it?
I don't know. I think like how different normalities of life circumstances are introduced without any inhibition or restraint in a somehow lighthearted seeming way. The innocent look on everything that happens.
And the consistancy in the changes throughout the story.
What is this movie a mix of?
I'd say Fear And Laughing In Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam) and The City Of The Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet). That's for the movie style. Terry Gilliam himself said Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho, which describes the story very well.
If you would have watched the film again, with the audio comment from Terry Gilliam after you wrote this entry, how would you have edited it?
I have amended some answers slightly and added one other question besides this one.
Can you show us some paradigmatic screen captures?
OK. But not from the end bit. Here you go.
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Film: Martian Child Entry created on 2021-12-24 author:steeph (350) cat:Children (4) cat:Films (20) lang:en (245) top:Films (15)
The Martian Child is one of those cute, emotional movies with a child in an important role that left an impression with me and is deemed very much worth watching but I'd have trouble explaining why. I'll push myself through this bit of trouble and try. I think I mostly like it because of the cute. I think of it as sort of like Big Daddy but more serious (and without Adam Sandler). Big Daddy isn't a bad movie overall. I've re-watched it so many times before I realised that movies can be a lot better than that, because it's just too cute not to. But it is a typical Adam Sandler movie with the depth and humor of a typical Adam Sandler movie (and with Adam Sandler).
The Martian Child is another foster child/adoption movie about a single, previously childless man. (Why are there so many movies about this, btw?) In comparison with other movies in this category the closeness to reality of its depiction of the circumstances, the process and the foster care system is probably above average. But I don't have any experience to judge that. That's not the focus of the story, anyway.
For me the story is about the child's unique and uncommon personality. I like how it's never really explained what events in the first five years of his life may explain what every grownup in the story sees as peculiar and concerning behaviour and every child in the story sees as weird and sometimes repellent. It may be important for the grownup's goal to enable him to grow into a normal enough person to function in society. (I assume that's their goal and why they are so concerned about his weirdness.) But it's addressed in the movie only as much as necessary.
For other viewers it may be just as much or more about the new father's development and the challange of and challanges that come with fostering a in general and this child in particular. It's about all of that. But ultimately, the reason I decided to watch it again was that it's an emotional story with a cute small child actor acting and speaking all timid while saying things normal people would find surprising, strange responses. So a good story well told is a great bonus, as it were.
Film: Schande Entry Permalink (edited 2020-03-06) author:steeph (350) cat:Abuse (1) cat:Child Abuse (4) cat:Children (4) cat:Death (7) cat:Films (20) cat:Sexual Abuse (1) cat:TV Film (1) lang:de (36) top:Films (15)
Ich finde ja, es sollte mehr Filme ohne Happyend oder wenigstens ohne offensichtliches Happyend geben. "Schande" (mittlereweile verlinke ich lieber auf Letterboxd.) ist ein Film, bei dem schon ziemlich früh klar wird, dass es kein Happyend geben kann (oder ein solches sehr konstruiert erscheinen müsste). Und trotzdem zeigt sein Ende, dass der Ausgangs einer solchen Geschichte nicht ohne Überraschung auskommen muss. Sein Ende ist zwar sein emotionaler Höhepunkt, aber auch der Rest der Geschichte hat es geschafft, mich zu bewegen, was ich einem Film immer hoch anrechne. Der Film handelt von einem Mädchen, das sexuell missbraucht wird, der Suche nach der Wahrheit und davon, wie die Familie im einzelnen und im Ganzen mit der Aufdeckung umgeht.
Als deutscher Fernsehfilm ohne DVD-Veröffentlichung zählt der Film nicht zu den besonders leicht im Internet zu findenden. Ob sich eine Suche lohnt überlasse ich jedem selbst. "Es ist aber ein Fernsehfilm" kann gleichermaßen als Hinweis Vorab auf einen von den großen Produktionen abweichenden Stil und auf einen im Vergleich zu häufiger empfohlenen Filmen niedrigeren Qualitätsanspruch angesehen werden. Also quasi als Warnung und Ausrede zugleich. Aber ich finde, dass auch Filme mit sehr guten anstatt mit überwiegend sehr sehr sehr guten Schauspielern, Filme mit kleinem Budget, geschrieben und geführt von Menschen mit wenig Erfahrung und Filme, deren Macher Ideen, die sich den gelehrten Erkenntnissen, wie etwas zu machen ist, widersetzen, oft einen Wert haben, der ihren Bekanntheitsgrad und ihre Online-Bewertungen übersteigt, weil zum Beispiel Ideen ausgesprochen, Konzepte ausprobiert oder mit dem Wegfall oder der Überarbeitung von Traditionen experimentiert wird. So sehe ich diesen Film also. Als Beispiel, wie eine Spannungskurve auch funktionieren kann. Und ich finde, dass sie funktioniert hat. Ich meine: Wer sich einen Film mit einer Geschichte über sexuellen Kindesmissbrauch anschaut und dem einen Unterhaltungswert irgendeiner Art abgewinnen kann, der wird vermutlich auch dieser Art des Emotion Grabbings etwas abgewinnen können.