The Five Obstructions

The Five Obstructions is a documentary film revolving around the recreation of Jorgen Leth’s film, The Perfect Human, as he is directed by Lars von Trier to follow instructions that would make each recreation a challenge.

This is one of the films in class that I enjoyed the most. Watching a director recreate his film multiple times with different results was fascinating. The director was put through many challenges and at some points, it was pretty obvious that he was struggling with the different ways that he was changing his film.

I especially enjoyed the fourth obstruction, which was to remake the film as a cartoon. In this obstruction, he used rotoscoping, a form of animation where an animator draws over pre-made scenes to animate them. The explosion of colors and the semi-realness that rotoscoping presents is something I enjoy watching. Similarly, this was the type of animation that was used in a film called Waking Life, a film about philosophical discussions.

Overall, this film is something I would recommend to someone who likes making films. I would definitely watch this again.

A Woman Is A Woman

A Woman is a Woman is a 1961 french musical film by Jean-Luc Godard. The film revolves around Angela and Emile, a couple living together, and their struggle to find common ground after Angela voices out her yearning to have a child.

The story of this film seems very simple, but how the plot plays out gets pretty wack. The prime example of this was Angela resorting to sleeping with Alfred, Emile’s best friend, just to have a child, with Emile just consenting to it. Another example of this is how they argue in bed. In the middle of the night, they will decide not to talk to each other, opting to use books as a medium to talk. They hurl insults and apologies to each other using titles of books, which I did not understand because I do not know how to read french.

This film makes me think that all French people do in the 60s was smoke. The characters in the film smoke literally all the time. They smoke before showering. They smoke during dinner. They smoke in bed before sleeping. They smoke while talking. This gives me the impression that smoking is a big part of French culture back then, as smoking was very present in Godard’s other film, Masculin Feminin.

The actors’ performances were very mannered, as they acted very theatrical. They also had odd scenes where they posed standstill as if they were acting something out.

Overall, this film was enjoyable even for me, who doesn’t regularly enjoy period films.

Persona

Persona is another 1960s film, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It revolves around two women, Elisabet, an actress turned patient, and Alma, her nurse. They move into a secluded area, where they have nothing to worry about but their mental state.

The film is in black and white, and as a person with a short attention span, watching movies in black and white is a challenge for me. Although this film kept me on its hook because of the twists that kept happening throughout its runtime. My reaction while watching this film was a mix of feeling confused and intrigued, and it kept me wondering what will happen next, or how the film will end.

In my point of view, the two characters had strong sexual tension present during their stay in the cottage. As they continued to bond and grow closer, some sort of love or lust was suddenly present, similar to Black Swan or other psychological love thriller-esque type of film.

There were a lot of things in this film that I did not understand. An example was the use of the intro and outro of the film. These vague images felt important at first, but at the end of the film, something was still amiss for me. After we watched this film, I knew in my heart that I would not be able to appreciate art cinema fully after being exposed to it for two semesters.

Despite the things that I did not understand, this film was somehow enjoyable because it made me want to understand what was happening. Although, I would not recommend it to people with short attention spans.