Greece

Lanthimos on Tarkovsky

| Paul Greer

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” was definitely my favourite from the recent awards season’s batch of films.

I truly had never seen a film like it, all the performances were incredible, the story was amazing, the cinematography, Olivia Coleman, everything.

I just listened to Lanthimos’ interview on Marc Marin’a podcast. He has this today about watching Tarkovsky:

“During the summer in Greece there’s a lot of open air cinemas, beautiful open air cinemas in a lot of neighbourhoods. You have a little table outside surrounded by apartment buildings, and you watch films.

So they would do retrospectives of his <Tarkovsky> films and John Cassevetes.

It was the first time seeing a different medium, seeing something new, like how an image can affect you in a different way, it doesn’t have to be a fast narrative, how poetic it can be, and how you can lose yourself in it, engage, but with your own personality. There’s an openness to it, you can bring your own stuff, and see things and understand things, maybe in a different way from how the person sitting next to you is experiencing the same thing at the same time.

…

It feels realistic but transcends that and you enter a different space. “

— Yorgos Lanthimos, WTF podcast.

It’s definitely worth listening to the whole thing.

Here’s a notebook page of some drawing I did over some lists whilst I listened to it.

Here is the much viewed video of the wonderful Olivia Coleman accepting the Oscar for her role as Queen Mary.

Save us from the saviours

Quote | | Paul Greer

“There are two main stories about the Greek crisis in the media: the German-European story (the Greeks are irresponsible, lazy, free-spending, tax-dodging etc, and have to be brought under control and taught financial discipline) and the Greek story (our national sovereignty is threatened by the neoliberal technocracy imposed by Brussels). When it became impossible to ignore the plight of the Greek people, a third story emerged: the Greeks are now presented as humanitarian victims in need of help, as if a war or natural catastrophe had hit the country. While all three stories are false, the third is arguably the most disgusting. The Greeks are not passive victims: they are at war with the European economic establishment, and what they need is solidarity in their struggle, because it is our struggle too.

Greece is not an exception. It is one of the main testing grounds for a new socio-economic model of potentially unlimited application: a depoliticised technocracy in which bankers and other experts are allowed to demolish democracy. By saving Greece from its so-called saviours, we also save Europe itself.”

– Slavoj Žižek (via jhnbrssndn)