Favorite Film Director: Gaspar Noé

Gaspar Noe is an Argentine film director and screenwriter who was born on December 27, 1963.  He has directed music videos, short films, and feature films.  When it comes to his music videos, I have so far only seen Placebo's "Protege-Moi" but that is because I am an equally big Placebo fan as well.

When it comes to movies, Noe has directed the films "Carne" (short film), "I Stand Alone", "Irreversible", and "Enter the Void" among others.  I have seen all four of these films and enjoyed all of them very much because they were directed in a very interesting way, they have unique story lines, and all of them are very controversial and make you think.  Noe has also used very fitting lighting and great music for those films which have really set the mood.  Right now, Noe is directing a film called "Love", which is set out to release sometime this year.  "Love" apparently is a film about love told from a sexual point of view.  Since I enjoyed his other four films, I am sure I will love this one as well.  If anyone is interested in seeing "Enter the Void", it is currently streaming on Netflix right now!  It is long and it requires a lot of patience, but hopefully you won't regret watching it ;).

La Pianiste (2001)

Yesterday I watched a 2001 French-Austrian erotic thriller film directed by Michael Haneke called “La Pianiste” (The Piano Teacher) which stars Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel. This film is about a sexually repressed and extremely sheltered forty-something year old piano teacher named Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert), who shares an apartment (and bed) with her domineering and overly strict mother (Annie Girardot) and barely gets any privacy at home or a chance to live a normal life. Her father is not in the picture as he has been a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum though he does eventually die. Erika is a “secret” fetishist who has a long list of sadomasochistic fantasies that have never seemed to be fulfilled so she often goes to porn shops to get her temporary fix by watching BDSM porn in private porn rooms. As a job, Erika works as a piano teacher and is a huge appreciator and interpreter of the works of Schumann and Schubert. One day, she meets a charming 17-year old piano student named Walter Klemmer (Benoit Magimel) who is also a fan and a gifted interpreter of Schumann and Schubert and starts flirting with Erika. At first, Erika dismisses his flirting and is not a huge fan of him. That changes, however, when the two of them share a passionate kiss in the bathroom, which ends up not going so well when Erika starts being demanding towards him and humiliates him. Basically, she makes it clear to Walter that the only way they can share a sexual relationship together is if it is entirely on her terms and goes completely her way. Therefore, she gives him a letter of specific instructions consisting of him beating, humiliating, and raping her in her own home. Walter reads the letter out loud next to Erika and starts finding her repulsive and begins feeling disgusted towards her. Feeling embarrassed of the fact that she gave him the letter without them talking about it in the first place, Erika visits Walter at his school and apologizes for the letter while desperately expressing her love towards him. At this point, Walter has lost all interest in Erika though one day he does randomly show up in her apartment and beats and rapes her in the fashion that Erika has desired in the letter, while locking up her mother in the living room. Erika does not seem to enjoy it and feels completely heartbroken and defeated when she sees Walter the next day being cheerful and happy with his family and acting like nothing happened. While he has moved on, she has been traumatized for life so she stabs herself in the shoulder and walks away.

I think the movie was very good and incredibly well acted by all the actors so I will give it a 10/10, though it is not a film I would want to see again only because it was so depressing. I know that this film is based on a book of the same name written by Elfriede Jelinek, but I have not read it so correct me if I am wrong in any of my own interpretations of the film. I felt that a lot of the film had to do with the battle of power and control between Erika and Walter. Both of them seemed to like being in control for the sake of their own ego and interests and in the end Walter won. I do not think Walter actually loved Erika. I think that he was a seducer and needed to have power over her since she was such a huge challenge to him at first. Basically, he enjoyed a good game of “cat and mouse” and once he got what he wanted, he left satisfied and had no further need for her. As for Erika, I think she underestimated Walter and thought that because he expressed such love for her, she found him weak and felt that she could control him and use him to satisfy all her sexual fantasies. However, in the end, it wasn't that way at all since nothing ever works out nicely if all parties involved are selfish. As for the director, Michael Haneke is excellent. I saw both of his own versions of “Funny Games” which I loved and now I have added “La Pianiste” to my collection. I think I will watch “Amour” (2012) next since I see that one has gotten a lot of positive reviews as well!

My Favorite Artist: Lois Van Baarle

Lois Van Baarle is a self-taught Dutch artist who has been drawing digitally since 2003 and is currently working as a freelance illustrator and animator.  She has traveled and lived in various places all over the world and currently resides in the Netherlands (Utrecht) with her boyfriend.  

I am absolutely in love with her work.  I ran across her drawings a few months ago as I was browsing random art/photography pages on Facebook and one of them had a drawing of her's and I really liked it so I checked out her other drawings as well.

I love her style because it is very neat, interesting, inviting, and fun to look at.  It almost looks like anime style mixed with a bit of Tim Burton style and the colors are always bright and vibrant.

One of my best friends got me her official 2015 calendar filled with awesome drawings.  It is now hanging in my kitchen wall and I love looking at it.  Even my sister loves the images!  As you can see from my her drawings on my post, who wouldn't love such epic images?

Lois Van Baarle's official websites:

http://loish.deviantart.com/

http://loish.net/

http://loish.net/faq/ (Check this link out if you'd like to get to know how she learned to draw digitally and what mediums she has used.)

American Mary (2012)

“American Mary” is a 2012 Canadian slasher film about an innocent medical student named Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) who is preparing to become a surgeon but is having financial problems and is trying to find a way to pay for her student loans as well. Despite being a very smart student in her class, her professor Dr. Alan Grant (David Lovgren) isn’t very nice to her at all and tends to always call her out in class in a rather mean way. One day, Mary decides to apply to a strip club and while she gets the job, the club’s owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo) takes her to an underground room where she is asked to perform surgery to a tortured man for $5,000. She does so, but she does not enjoy the experience and leaves feeling disgusted. Several days later, Beatress Johnson (Tristan Risk), a fellow stripper at the club who has had heavy plastic surgery to look like Betty Boop, approaches Mary and offers her $10,000 to perform surgery on her friend named Ruby Realgirl (Paula Lindberg). Ruby, who already has massive plastic surgery on her face as well, wants to be a human doll and wants to Mary to remove her nipples and labia. Mary goes along with it and ends up enjoying it since she is getting such big bucks out of this. When Mary goes back to class, she gets invited to a party with several surgeons at her hospital, including Dr. Grant. Well, she ends up going to the party and gets drugged and raped by him and quits medical school. This is when Mary starts using her skills as surgeon to get revenge on Dr. Grant by kidnapping him and performing many involuntary body modifications on him. What once was an innocent girl has turned into a vengeful sadist, but will she get away with what she has done? Watch the film and find out! I don’t want to spoil too much for you especially since it’s streaming on Netflix right now.

I give this film a 10/10. What can I say? I enjoyed the film from beginning to end and I felt it was very unique, different, and dare I say beautiful. Katharine Isabelle is one of my favorite actresses ever since I saw her in “Turning Paige” and “Ginger Snaps” and she totally rocked in this film. I loved seeing Mary’s transformation in personality during the film and felt that Katharine Isabelle was very convincing in portraying that. The Soska Sisters did an amazing job directing it. As a viewer and after seeing many interviews with them regarding the film, they seemed very passionate about it and it definitely shows through as you’re watching it. The soundtrack is pretty rad as well. I love the song “My Suicide” by Luise Pepe and “Ave Maria”.

Introduction

Hello fellow bloggers,

I would like to start off by saying that this is not my first time using blogger.  I have had another blogger account where I would review any foreign films that I saw as well as talk about situations in my daily life, and express love to my favorite foreign film actors/actresses.  Well, life happened and I ended up getting rid of that account but I am back and ready to start reviewing again.

I tend to enjoy very interesting non-mainstream films.  Dark, emotional, controversial and thinking films are definitely my favorites.  I love interesting, well thought out "artsy" movies such as "Enter the Void" and definitely appreciate one of the ever most controversial film I have ever seen in my life, "A Serbian Film".  Therefore, if you enjoy the works of Takashi Miike, Alejandro Amenabar, Gaspar Noe, and the Soska Sisters (Jen & Sylvia Soska) just to name a few, then this blog is for you!

As for me, well my name is Skye.  I am a girl who enjoys drawing/painting, nail art (manicures & pedicures), modeling, yoga, foreign languages, dancing, cooking, and traveling the world.  I am very physically active and I am very much similar to a curious cat in the sense that I am a complete information sponge and love learning new skills and trying new things!

Well, with that said, I probably should be getting back to work now so I hope you all have a fantastic day!

Sincerely,

Skye ;)