The Five Obstructions: an Obstruction, Indeed.

Just when I thought we would finally be watching a nice, comprehensible, normal movie from the 2000s, we are shown The Five Obstructions by Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier. To say I was confused is an understatement. I mean, almost all movies that we have been tasked to watch in this class has made me quite perplexed, anyway. But I got a different kind of confusion from this movie. I’m afraid, it was not the positive kind. I don’t normally sleep when watching a movie, but this one made me quite sleepy. Maybe because I felt like there was no conflict at all. It was not a typical film with a story. No offense to the creators of the film, but the unending conversation between directors really bored me to tears.

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Don’t get me wrong, I tried my best to be interested in this film, but I just could not comprehend it. I knew they were both directors trying to make a movie about The Perfect Human, their constant bickering made this clear for me. The only thing that kept me interested in the movie were the dance steps of the man in white, and the reactions of the Cubans behind the transparent screen and how they probably found the man weird. I also thought that maybe the two directors would fight and have a big argument because of the work that they are trying to achieve, but they didn’t. The two directors seemed like two very talented ones with so much passion and creativity to showcase but they could just not get into an agreement.

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The Five Obstructions seemed to overlap the documentary part of the film, along with the actual film, which I thought was nice. I did not like, however, how the images kept repeating and zooming in and then out again, and then showed it again in the same way twice or thrice over. It felt a bit overwhelming for me and I think I had to close my eyes for a while because it was making me dizzy. Just like the film Persona, The Five Obstructions also showed repeating images, weird close-ups, and rewinding scenes. It also made use of alternating images and flipping ones. The technique, for me, was sort of like the start of a very hippie and artsy fashion commercial. It worked for a while, but when constantly showed in the same way, it gets duller, “nakakaumay,” in Filipino.

thefiveobstructionspic2 Suddenly, I became more attracted to the film when it started showing The Perfect Human in a cartoon version. This gave a pop of color to the scenes and gave it more life. The artistic effect that it brought was a “buzzer beater” for me. All of a sudden, I was able to appreciate what the directors were trying to work on, and the strange shots of people became nice to watch. I may not have appreciated the movie from the start, but The Five Obstructions showcased a lot of creativity and artistic skills from the directors. Maybe their style is just really not for people like me.

Persona: a Disturbing Work of Art

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It’s safe for me to say that the movie, Persona, is one of the most confounding movies that I have ever watched. Despite this, I still think that the movie was a work of art. The tone of the movie was set early in the film. The first scene of the movie, which showed the boy in what looked like a mortuary bed, was a bit creepy for me. This continued on with the awkward and uncomfortable close-ups, pauses, cut scenes, and repeating images all throughout the film.

Persona-screenshot-1170x713 The plot of the movie was confusing for me. This is probably because of the mysterious effect that the personality of Elisabet brings to the mood of the movie. It was unclear to me what triggered her decision to be silent. Most of the close-up shots made on her face also made me think that maybe she would do something psychotic later on in the movie, like maybe murder her nurse, Anna. But, this didn’t happen and to my surprise, the two developed a very intimate relationship. In fact, Too intimate at some points of the movie that sometimes I would think their relationship would level up into an erotic homosexual love affair. An example of a scene like this was when Anna was sleeping and then Elisabet secretly enters her room and watches her sleep. Anna then wakes up and they stare at each other, massage each other’s heads and look at the mirror at the same time. This, for me, was strange. The movie was very unpredictable. Personally, my expectations or predictions on what might happen in the movie were consistently let down. This added to the “shocking” factor of the movie.

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With this said, the movie was also shocking, making the movie somewhat a horror/ thriller one. The aesthetic of the movie only added to the mysteriousness of the film. As well as the black and white color of the movie that gave a lot of depth to the film and heightened the “thriller” effect of it. The cinematography matched the overall mood of the movie for me. For example, the close-up scene of Elisabet, wherein she was on stage and suddenly stared into the camera with an unexplainable face and decided to become silent. And this shot was repeated many times in the movie that made me feel uncomfortable and scared. Besides this scene, many others confused me. Such as when the husband of Elisabet went to the beach house where they were staying and mistook Anna for Elisabet.

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However, I liked how the shots of the film somehow evolved. Starting with very minimalist, boring, and plain backgrounds such as the walls of the hospital and the mortuary and then moving to the picturesque beach and beach house. The beach gave so much life to the movie and despite the strange events in the movie, it was nice to watch the movie and witness the artistic images brought by the well-thought-out shots.

A Woman is a Woman: Love & Women Empowerment

Indeed, this European film was a strange one. The disclaimers given before watching the movie about European films being somewhat “weird” were proven by Jean-Luc Godard’s award winning movie, A Woman is a Woman. Despite the film being strange, the various elements showcased in the movie, such as the piano background that plays and suddenly stops, the play of lights, perfectly shot scenes and backgrounds, the consistent red tones, etc., worked together beautifully to create the masterpiece that it is. It was a movie that made me want to keep on watching albeit having to read the subtitles all the way from the back of the room.

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The film brought a new perspective on love. It depicts love as a very playful, childish, and quirky concept. The movie surely strayed away from typical romantic comedy films wherein the male character is the one who chases the female. Despite Emile continuously rejecting Angela’s desire to become pregnant, their relationship can be described as an open relationship because of the lack of exclusivity. Emile did not see any problem with the fact that his girlfriend strips in a club. He was even fine with the thought of Angela and his best friend, Alfred, sleeping together. Being raised in this conservative Filipino society, I got pretty confused. This made me think, are European relationships really this open? But maybe it’s just the strange plot of the film. It took a while for me to realize their routine before going to bed—using book covers to communicate a message with each other. At first, I thought they were just competing with one another whether who can read the most books within the night. When I finally understood, I found it funny. It is probably through being tricksy and prankish with one another that they are able to make their strange relationship work. I believe this teaches us an important thing about love: that there’s always something unique, may it be inside jokes or quirks, that leaves both parties wanting more of each other even in the face of problems.

maxresdefault Also, Anna Karina portrayed Angela in such a way that made her a model of women empowerment. The way Angela strolled the Parisian streets with so much confidence and regard for herself, the way she put on her make-up and did her hair, the way she dressed and carried MV5BNWIyMGMxOGItMmU3OC00YTQ0LWFiNWYtOTdkNzNhYmQzOTBkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzMzNzY1OTQ@._V1_ herself, the way she asserted herself and knew what she wanted, the way she messed up on cooking for Emile, and most importantly, the way she found no problem in her job as a stripper, all emphasized Angela’s fierce femininity and womanhood. Angela’s strong female character inspires women to be as confident as she is in her own skin. She somehow proves that not all women can do domestic chores like cooking for her boyfriend/husband and instead, focus on a non-conventional, sexual and seductive career that exposes her feminine body, yet this does not make her any less of a person. She is still able to live her life the way she wants and make everyone fall on their knees. It’s truly quite a tragedy for people who get in her way.