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rachelcurriemcgill
Reviews
Berlin - Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927)
Berlin, Symphony of a Big City
The movie Berlin, Symphony of a Big City by Walter Ruttmann is so important as it highlights a different way to truly write films. The way that this movie is shot and produced is so different, especially for the 1920's. This type of movie was interesting as it showed a different stylistic narrative.
The work in Berlin, Symphony of a Big City is quite similar to many different popular movies and literature in terms of style, it is quite cut up much like a Tarantino film or a William Burroughs novel, which is what makes it so enjoyable. The movie is also a first as it really showed how "big city" life can actually be with the style of the film.
There were many parts in the movie, which was cut up into five chapters, that showed how people actually interact with their environments which is an interesting idea. It really gives the merging and bonding of people with their social environment and somehow separates that from the specific parts of the city.
The movie gives graphic details about how the city works individually from the people who live in it and adds people to function in the city until it erodes with chaos. This is such an interesting film as the idea of a specific city and the people that function in it doing specific things is very intriguing.
This movie is a must see as it shows what Berlin was like in the 1920s and shows how the people could act and the city would act and how people interacted with their city to their surprise and detriment. It is somewhat beautiful as it makes it seem like Berlin is special in its own right from the first part of the scene when nobody is really a main star yet.
Kids (1995)
Review 2 KIDS
The movie KIDS is instrumental to the heroin chic 90's movie genre. Other movies in this genre are Christiene. F, Pulp Fiction, and Trainspotting. This genre was largely new and inspired by a greater movement of the rebellion of the bourgeois 1980's and highlighted the social climate of the changing economy and new scene of grunge. This reflection can be seen in fashion, youth culture and photography and streetwear starting around when KIDS was made. KIDS is so different from the rest of the films as it is almost autobiographical and shows real life youth culture in the heroin chic 90's.
The real difference in the film compared to other films is its differences from the idea that this is real life of the 90's for these kids. It shows and highlights gruesome parts of unsupervised teen lives in the New York nineties like underage drinking, fights, drugs and sex. A great example of how this film is so much different than the other films is that many people could say that Trainspotting fetishized heroin use and the "heroin chic" culture. While this movie does not show heroin being used, the same narrative of lighting, (see, the poster for an example, jewel- toned colours and a strung out appearance) the harsh realities of life are in fact highlighted in the movie. Things like Chloe Sevengy's rape and getting AIDS or the underage sex of Telly or the brutal streetfight over the skateboard park over polite etiquette, things were really shown and taken too far and not romanticised. The film felt relatable and scary as to how things can go awry without parent supervision and how kids in this generation really acted.
A great reason this movie is so important is that it highlights the significance of youth culture and actually potrays what was really going on in the 90s. Chloe Sevengy's character realizing she is HIV positive after her first time is so shocking and the graphic sex scenes where Telly is distributing AIDS to other young girls is so disturbing to viewers as it is voyeuristic but also highlights the low class of these characters and how free youth culture was to their detriment.
The visuals of the film were also important as the filming was so interesting as the shots and music were really loud and fast paced and showed things like stealing, casual sex, and skateboarding through a teen's view. Many of the characters in real life like Chloe Sevengy had a major cultural rift and impact on the fashion scene and 90s culture as the film really was in the perverted view of Larry Clark's photography and showed the teens' true view of how their life was going.
This movie really relates to Roland Barthes The Reality Effect, as I felt like that paper highlighted how much better something can be perceived when it is seen from a reliable narrator from their personal experience, and this is exactly what KIDS was. It was less about the story but more about the characters in it all and featured young actors and skaters and maybe some of the story was fictional, but their lifestyle was not.