It’s hard to capture the essence of a person, of an event and even of a simple picture. It’s ten times harder to capture the essence of a city and it’s even harder to catch the essence of a unique city. Les Méduses (Jellyfish) manages to do just this. Even if it doesn’t capture an entire essence, it does so with amazing precision. It captures the essence of Tel Aviv and of an entire generation of young Israelis that live, love and get lost in this vibrant city. With the history, environment and the mixture of people that Tel Aviv sports, it’s a challenging task. What makes this movie even more special is that very few movies tried to really do this, and even less succeeded, while keeping themselves as a pleasuring eye candy.
Les Méduses won two award in the Cannes 2007. It’s probably not going to be easy to get to see this one, but it’s well worth it.
Links:
Les Méduses @ Pyramid Films
There’s a reason for every word in the dictionary. The pretext under the word ‘sex’ is the need to describe an act. The alibi of ‘sexuality’ is a bit more complex. Sex doesn’t require sexuality, and, actually, one can wonder if it’s possible for sexuality not to exist in a person. If we don decide that sexuality exists in all, then we must provide it more depth, levels and various qualities. Shortbus does just this. The movie is known for its outrageous sex scenes. The reputation is totally justified. But here a point should be made clear: although the movie is full of sex, its sex is not sexy. It arouses, but doesn’t attract. It’s pornographic in the visual way, but sexually dull on the other hand. Shortbus manages to look at sex in a genuine way, in a realistic manner. Sex is not holy, and it’s not bestial. Sex is not erotic, and not pornographic. Sex is us, and, as such, it’s complex, painful, joyful, sad, bitter, happy, enslaving, redeeming, liberating, possessive, stupid, silly, intelligent, beautiful, ugly and above all humane. This is what Shortbus is, it’s humane, and it’s beautiful. And through all these, Shortbus is sexy.
Tricks. Camera angles. Light. Sound. González uses the same tricks as in his previous works. However, despite shocking the audience throughout the movie, he provides what feels like a happy ending, which seems unfitting. But in this happy-end conception lies the power of the movie. It’s a classical happy ending, and we see it as such: the American couple is safe and sound, the children were saved and the rich Japanese deaf-mute has come to terms with the shadows of her past. The subjects that focused our attention got their share of American style salvation. The heroes that we identified with are save. But what about the others?
Fifty years of communism doesn’t go by unnoticed. Eastern Europe escaped the clutches of communism and the Soviets to the embrace of a Europe who leaped across the ocean with one leg, and kicked in the same direction with the other. The ideology that developed in Western Europe is an attempt to embrace the American world and enjoy it, and at the same time keep one self’s as a creature of higher social values. All these didn’t happen in the east. Five decaded of communism left the nations in ruin on the financial side, but brought to the people there a taste of what it feels not to on the top of the food chain, what does it feel to colonized by foreigners. A cruel lesson, but one can only wonder on the irony, and ask what such a lesson would have done to the western side of the continent. However, fifty years of communism doesn’t go unnoticed, hundreds of years of colonization in India did live their mark, and such is also the case eastern Europe. Corruption and occupation by a foreign power leave their marks on the society, and the values which they bring permeate into the society. From this comes this wonderful and hilarious animated movie, the comparison to South Park is, although common, totally misplaced. South Park never managed, nor tried, to mirror such a mayhem, such a chaotic micro-cosmos, which is so refreshing at the same time. Don’t misunderstand, this is not a serious movie, but it does point the direction. Any connection between the movie and this piece is totally incidental.