#because I couldn't make myself watch more than the trailer I looked up a synopsis of the first movie on Wikipedia

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Birthday Newt!

@dont-offend-the-bees A combination of you telling me that anything cute and Valicey would do as a birthday fic and me knowing that you are still into Saw as a fandom led to this -- Victor and Alice reacting to the first Saw movie, inspired by a couple of posts I saw on your blog before you moved all the Sawposting to The Secret Saw Sideblog! Though the fic is technically Valicer out of necessity, because the only way I could think of to get the pair to watch it was to have it be a Halloween Movie Nights pick by Smiler's friend Thirteen, as per this headcanon post...

--

“That is unfair!”

“What’s unfair?” Thirteen asked, looking over at Alice.

“The ending!” Alice said, waving at the slowly-rolling credits on the screen before them. “All Jigsaw said to Adam was that he had to survive until six o’clock, correct? Nothing else? No other secret catches?”

“Don’t ask me,” Victor muttered, hands over his face. “I am actively trying to erase this movie from my mind.”

“There there,” Smiler said, rubbing his back comfortingly. “You’ll be fine – and yeah, ‘survive until six’ was the gist of it,” they added to Alice.

“Well, six o’clock rolled around, and Adam was still alive!” Alice pointed out, stabbing another finger at the TV. “He was wounded, sure, but he was still very much fucking alive! Which means he succeeded! Lawrence was the one who failed in his goal! And yet Lawrence’s the one who gets to crawl off and seek help while Adam gets electrocuted and sentenced to – I guess starving to death in that horrible bathroom? All because he, unsurprisingly, didn’t notice a damn key in his bathtub when he first woke up?”

“You are assuming a lot in thinking Lawrence survived after–” Victor swallowed and shuddered. “After c-cutting off his own f-f-foot.”

“Actually, uh, it’s canon Lawrence survives,” Oblivion put in, sporting a slightly sheepish grin. “He shows up again in Saw 3D.”

“Oh great – when do we watch that one?”

“Don’t worry, we don’t have time for tonight,” Thirteen informed him with a cheeky smirk.

“What, because it’s long?”

“No, because it’s film number seven.”

That finally got Victor to look up. “It’s – wait, what?”

“Yeah, for some reason they decided to name it after the 3D gimmick instead of following the numbering system,” Rita explained, leaning around her girlfriend. “And then films eight and nine are Jigsaw and Spiral respectively, though Spiral’s actually more like a spin-off of the main series–”

“Can I please fully express my annoyance over the fact that Jigsaw killed Adam despite him winning his ‘game’ before we start talking about how this series screwed up its numbering system over halfway through?” Alice cut in, folding her arms and scowling.

“Well, the thing you have to understand about Jigsaw is – he’s a total asshole,” Thirteen reminded her. “He says that his games are to help ‘rehabilitate’ people and make them appreciate life and all that bullshit, sure, but honestly, I believe the dude just wants to torture as many people as he can, both before and after he bites it.”

“I can believe that,” Victor muttered, shivering. Smiler put a comforting arm around him. “And this is probably the least bloody of all the movies, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t seen them all, but I’m pretty sure it is, yes,” Galactica confirmed, giving him a sympathetic look from the other side of Oblivion. “You know, you could have left if you weren’t enjoying it – we wouldn’t have thought any less of you for it.”

“Yeah, I’m shocked you actually sat through the whole thing,” Smiler admitted, giving him a little squeeze.

“I am too, honestly,” Alice said, wrapping her arm around him to do the same. “I’m used to horrors like these – hell, the bathroom looked kind of like one I saw in Rutledge – but I know it’s not your cup of tea.”

“I thought it would be too rude to just get up and leave,” Victor groaned, putting his face in his hands again. “And I kept telling myself, ‘it’s the very first one, it can’t be that bad...’”

“We won’t make you watch any of the others,” Thirteen promised, patting his knee. “I mean, I appreciate you making the effort, but despite appearances, I don’t want you to have nightmares.”

“Thanks.” Victor shook his head. “I know you love that sort of thing, but – it’s just not for me.”

“Me either – especially if John Kramer can’t practice what he preaches,” Alice agreed, glaring at the screen as the DVD menu came up again.

“It’s actually not my favorite series either, if I’m honest,” Thirteen confessed. “I just like this one because of all the hot gay tension between Lawrence and Adam.”

“...there was a surprising amount of that,” Victor allowed.

“Mmm – though given Lawrence is married, he’d better start talking to his wife about either opening the relationship or getting a divorce before he hobbles his way back to that bathroom,” Alice declared.

“You know, I bet there’s a fic like that somewhere on AO3,” Smiler said, pulling out their phone. “Who wants to find a nice domestic AU to help us all decompress?”

#dontoffendthebees #happy birthday #fanfic #saw #valicer #just occurs to me that this might be the movie that gave Victor nightmares #and prompted him and Alice to only come over when they were assured it was a goofy flick not a scary one #anyway yes have Alice remembering that one post I saw you reblog about Adam having WON his game #and getting annoyed he got screwed over #and Victor wondering why the hell he felt like he had to sit through that #and Thirteen and Rita making fun of the numbering system for the series #because I couldn't make myself watch more than the trailer I looked up a synopsis of the first movie on Wikipedia #saw the link saying Lawrence appeared in Saw 3D #was like 'huh okay so what was that one' #'what do you mean that's movie SEVEN' #'WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE TEN MOVIES' #this is the fucking franchise that will not die XD #but yeah I hope you like this #have a fun birthday! #or I hope you had a fun birthday depending on the timing of his posting as compared to when your actual birthday happened XD #queued

[nullamirrors]

film review • 2022-01-25 • Memoria • 2021 • dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

So this was a film I abruptly went to see because I wanted to see a film and realised I'd missed out on C'mon C'mon, which I had wanted to see, but oh well. I saw this film was on and was immediately intrigued by how delightfully minimalist the synopsis was:

The trailer played out like one of those experimental spoken-word songs I like to listen to sometimes, so I was hooked. It wasn't on at a time that was convenient so I figured if I was going to see it I'd have to see it that night.

"Delightfully minimalist", as it turned, is probably the best description I could give for Memoria. Most of the time is spent on long, still shots where very little is happening, more reminiscent to cinemagraph gifs; I can imagine this film doing well as bite-size samples on aesthetic tumblrs.

This style appealed to me, though I can imagine it being off-putting to some. And I think this is where my somewhat mixed feelings about the movie begin—while I loved how effective this should be in letting you soak in the atmosphere of the film's world, some of the shots felt like they lacked meaningful details to notice and reflect on, and I started to wonder if this approach was meant to make up for something rather than to enhance a solid foundation.

The story is framed as a mystery—Tilda Swinton's character Jessica hears a strange noise at the start of the movie and hears it more often later—but there aren't enough clues thrown at you to reflect on and try to figure it out. In fact, that seemed to be the point: the film repeatedly dodges ways to advance the puzzle, often showing you information that seems like it could be connected, but is ultimately too disparate to draw a conclusion from. (Which does work as a reading of the themes as a whole, so maybe I can take that from it.) Instead it focusses on how the characters might feel about it, which would be great if it came to a more satisfying resolution. I did find myself waiting for a moment where everything we had seen so far snapped into something that made sense, and while I am glad it didn't take one of a few obvious ways out that occurred to me while watching, I was left satisfied with what it did achieve but a little disappointed that I, well, didn't get it.

I am hesitant to discuss the conclusion because I definitely could be wrong to describe it as only confusion. I haven't looked at discussions of this film elsewhere and it's entirely possible I just didn't understand what it was doing. Certainly the ending feels like it's doing something intentional, and there are some clear themes about stories, memories, and alienation (at least those are the ones that appeal to me), but it's not clear if the ultimate meaning is going over my head or if it's meant to be vague and open to interpretation. I couldn't tell if the filmmakers started with a clear idea of what story to tell, or if they came up with the "strange sounds" premise and worked from there. And it is a fantastic premise—I love the way in which it sets the tone for an atmosphere where everything is slightly off; and the tension created from these very still scenes getting interrupted by a BANG, always placed when you've gotten just complacent enough for it to be subversive, is brilliant.

While I like Swinton generally, I ended up unsure whether she was a strong enough actor to carry a film which spends a lot of time watching her being still, though it's also possible her character wasn't defined well enough, causing these moments to lack the tension to make them more compelling. Part of the mystery seemed to be in trying to figure out who she even was. These still points are reminiscent to me of Life is Strange, which was effective in allowing you to take an optional pause from the excitement to reflect on everything that's going on and therefore remember it better, but here I wasn't sure how I was supposed to read Jessica's motivations other than vaguely wanted everything to be okay, but then that also seemed to be the point. I don't know. I didn't not like it and I didn't really get bored, so there must be something in what she's doing. I just pictured Frances McDormand a few times, I guess.

In any case, I think I've done enough trying to figure out if it's flawed or I'm being too harsh, so here are some things that really have stuck with me for good reasons.

Near the start, after Jessica has only heard the sound once, is a scene where she meets Juan Pablo Urrego's character Hernán in a sound mixing suite. In accordance with Memoria's disconnected structure, there's no prior context for the scene, but it becomes clear, after stopping for him to listen through the rest of a neoclassical piece and take some notes, that she's here to work out what it is she's heard. Often in this film, scenes where nothing of importance happens go on for a long time, and scenes with key developments are as brief as possible and isolated from transitions between other scenes, which I liked—it adds to the uneven atmosphere. This scene sits between the two: Jessica meeting Hernan is probably the most significant event in the first half of the movie, but most of the (very) long scene is spent with the two working together to recreate the noise. Through a mix of Spanish, English, and mime, Jessica attempts to describe what it sounded like it could be, and so Hernan looks—in a very pleasingly meta way, though this perhaps altered my expectations for the resolution to something that appealed to me more—through movie sound libraries to narrow it down. There's enough distance between hearing the sound at the beginning and this scene that I, like Jessica, had enough of a sense of what it sounded like without being able to recall it exactly. It's delightful to watch Hernan make adjustments on his huge and cleanly-designed workstation (the whole studio complex has a very similar modern eeriness to the "Down" and "Notes" segments of Davey Wreden's game The Beginner's Guide). It's also incredibly exciting when he reaches a sample sound that does resemble the noise in your memory. Jessica says "That's close." Then he tries out a few variations. One of them sounds just like the noise. Jessica stops him and he sets it up to loop a few times. She sits very still for a while and listens and holds onto his arm for reassurance. That's it. That's the noise. You sit there with her with a very strange feeling.

And then that's it. There isn't any further clues about its origin to be gained from recreating the noise, so that's the end of the scene. I hope my description does it justice. I love this scene. I think I was smiling the whole time behind my mask. It's so far removed from anything I see in film nowadays and yet so brilliantly, minimalistically, exciting to watch. I think The Beginner's Guide probably is the only piece of media that has given me a similar feeling. Every shot is vaguely unsettling (indeed, the BBFC content warning before the film describes it only as featuring "unsettling scenes", because there's definitely something uncomfortable here, but how could you hope to describe it when everything that is usually considered upsetting is absent?) but don't you kinda just want to stay there?

The second moment that stood out to me was one where Jessica is waiting after visiting her sister in hospital. It's one of those shots that is just lingering on her sitting on this blue bench, by a cabinet, against a blank wall, with faint sound filtering through. A staff member approaches and asks if she can move so she can get to the door. It's a similar interruption to the strange sound, only somehow comedic—I didn't even notice the bench was blocking a door! Behind it, described as kind of like a morgue, seems to be a small library and art gallery, although the way this movie is structured it's possible that what was behind the door and Jessica moving to a different place was elided between shots.

I think I was hoping that this kind of subversion would be part of the resolution. Maybe it was.

I left the cinema at around 11:30pm and had to wait for the bus home. While sitting by the chilly, empty street, I was struck by how much attention I was now paying to the ambient sounds of the world around me. Memoria, appropriately for a film about strange sounds, places a lot of emphasis on its soundscape, and manages to make the sound design striking in a way I haven't really seen in film. As in, it was to the point that it felt as important as the visuals were. Most of the indoor scenes are very quiet—the studio is soundproofed—and your attention is drawn to every chair creak and pencil scratch. To me this was what was most powerful about the film, which does tie in with the themes of the second half—it manages to make everyday situations where next-to-nothing is happening stunningly beautiful.

You know what, I really liked this film. It just wants you to sit with these characters and these places and piece it together but also not really care, because that's not the point, because the point is to reflect and to appreciate and to not understand. I'd watch it again. I'd recommend it if what I've described sounds cool to you. I hope there can be more like it, though the extraordinary amount of funding providers hinted at by the credits suggest that might not be so easy. But I'm happy with this. For now.

Update: having come back to this to add some details and images before posting, I also have looked up some information about this film. Apparently it was intended to have an unusual form of release where it is only being shown in one city per week and will, allegedly, not be released on any other format after its cinema run is complete. Maybe this adds to the mystique, but it also comes across as undermining the idea that this movie does have something interesting to say by making its existence a gimmick. I was going to say this makes it harder for me to recommend since you might not be able to see it (dear arthouse filmmakers, we are still in a deadly pandemic), but it looks like this concept has been abandoned, hence why I've been able to see it. Oh well.

I do still appreciate its atmosphere a lot. Also there's definitely some kind of nonlinear shenanigans. I'll keep thinking about it.

#reviews #movies #oc