#clearcut

[psygull]

hey! I couldn't find if you've already got this somewhere - have you got a list of movies you wish more people would go and watch? feels like you've got a real varied refined palate for movies, thanks have a good easter weekend 🥚

hello and thank you! i recently answered an ask with a list of horror and sci-fi movies i recommend (which can be found here) so here's some more that aren't either of those. also look up content warnings for these beforehand if you watch any

Brick (2005) is a neo-noir with all the trappings of the genre (femme fatales, murder, weird lingo) set in a california high school. scrappy, clever, and the directorial debut of one Rian Johnson (see also Looper (2012))

Clearcut (1991) is a thriller about logging, indigenous land rights, environmentalism, and what happens when nonviolence fails. intense and thoughtful, raises a lot of questions but leaves them up to you to answer

likewise, First Reformed (2017) is a psychological drama about a pastor of a church that's been reduced to little more than a tourist attraction having a crisis of faith and ALSO dealing with environmental crises as well. this one's BLEAK but so good. i still think about it frequently

The Proposition (2005) is a western set in the early days of australian colonization. a lawman gives an outlaw nine days to hunt down and kill his older brother, or his younger brother will be hanged. it's about colonialism, civility, and the gruesome violence underpinning all of it. and it's starting to gather flies (also nick cave wrote the screenplay and the soundtrack, so you KNOW it's good)

Moonstruck (1987), to change up the tone completely, is a wonderful romcom starring nicolas cage and cher. i dunno the best way to pitch this one, it's just really well written and fun and good. extremely new york movie

that's a few i've been thinking about recently! i could keep going but five is a good number to end on

#ask #psygullisms #i suppose this counts as #filmposting #brick #clearcut #first reformed #the proposition (2005) #moonstruck

[steampunkforever]

When I see (American, online) leftists post Guillotine memes about politicians and then turn around and plead with the very government they threaten to further disarm them I begin to question if they can really back up their rhetoric. After all, the deadliest things they're throwing at politicians are milkshakes. Power comes from the barrel of a gun, so why are you begging the bad guys to take away the means to a revolution?

Tackling indigenous rights and neoliberal centrism, Clearcut asks the same thing. In a failed system that breeds injustice, why aren't we doing what needs to be done?

Clearcut is a film rich in questions. Unlike many movies surrounding the ideal of native land rights, it has no clear(cut) ending, choosing instead to leave the audience with questions that it chooses not to answer.

The film focuses on a bleeding heart neolib lawyer who has lost the court case contesting a logging conglomerate's deforestation of native lands in Canada. Out loud, the lawyer wishes he could murder the logging company CEO. Enter Arthur, a native of nondescript ancestry who serves as the monkeys paw and curls each finger. "You want to kill this guy?" Arthur asks "Why not?" And so he kidnaps the CEO, throws the lawyer into a boat, and takes them all on a nightmarish trip full of torture and unspoken philosophical questions.

The main conflict of the film comes from the Lawyer's staunch devotion to his centrism. His mantra "we'll appeal in court" rings hollow as everyone around him universally acknowledges this act as a useless gesture. If the lawyer would just take the knife, give the CEO a couple stabs and go on about his day the film would be much shorter. But he doesn't.

Instead, we watch in a dreamlike haze as Arthur makes the lawyer face the harm that justice requires, the torment compounding with every sequence the lawyer refuses to abandon his pacifistic ideals. "You wanted to debark this man like a log? Then help me peel the skin off his leg." Clearcut is a film about putting your money where your mouth is.

As the lawyer insists on this sympathetic neutrality, it becomes clear who the helpless handwringing benefits. There's lots of talk, but its all noise, serving only to build up the status quo, providing a space for vocal dissent but no change. The lawyer can protest the beatings and blood of the logging operation, but will not step in to prevent them. Who does this help?

He will not pick up that gun. The CEO gets out alive, and none of the guilty get arrested. Clearcut posits that to surrender the monopoly of force is to admit to the legitimacy of the monopolizer, an endorsement through obedience.

The movie leaves you with so many questions, but chief among them was "is it worth it?"

#filmposting #clearcut #film #cinema #theres a lot of nuance to this film I'm not communicating #its a film about a lot of things

[nando161mando]

161

1312

#clearcut #wallstreet #wall streeet journal #wall street #wall st. #class war #eat the rich #jerkbillionaires #jerkmillionaires #jerktrillionaires #anti capitalism #antinazi #antiauthoritarian #anticapitalista #anti capitalist love notes #anticapitalistically #fuck the gop #fuck the police #fuck the supreme court #fuck the patriarchy #eat the fucking rich #ausgov #politas #auspol #tasgov #taspol #australia #fuck neoliberals #neoliberal capitalism #anthony albanese

[wytchtbytchy]

Clearcut (1991)

#clearcut #movie #my gifs

[forthegothicheroine]

New-to-me movies seen in 2022: Clearcut (1991)

“Someone has to pay.”

#holy shit still processing this #2022 movies #seen at necronomicon #clearcut #horror movies

[petersonreviews]

#clearcut #1990s #90s #graham greene #ryszard bugajski

[thecountvoncurdles]

Clearcut (1991)

There's this impulse I have, as a white guy who leans left, to joke about direct action. As shitheads like Trump and DeSantis and Abbott brutalize everyone but me, that impulse leaps to the forefront of my mind. It's an anxious reaction to the real suffering I see all around, a wormy means of mitigating the guilt I feel for being able to turn away. It takes a certain privilege to joke about political violence.

Clearcut knows that. The white lead makes a joke and Arthur--an incomparable, spellbinding Graham Greene--drags him into the wilderness to make good on it. He has no sympathy and less patience for this man who has the privilege to joke, who enjoys the option to turn away. He knows that colonizers only respect force, and thus there's only one way to talk to them.

He never says this. He refuses to meet you on any terms but his own; that's what lends Clearcut so much power. It's a stark critique of white pacifism all sketched out through grimy survival and bloodletting and struggle. Essential viewing.

#Clearcut #folk horror #horror movies #movie review #This is much more a thriller than a horror movie but #Von Curdles Originals

[sloshed-cinema]

Clearcut (1991)

“Someone has to pay.”  But who, and in what form?  If we’re talking about reality in this sort of affair, those who foot the bill are often First Nations peoples, their land footing the bill as mining and logging companies pillage with abandon.  But in his anger, lawyer Peter Maguire wishes for something bloodier.  Perhaps it’s turn of phrase or frustration, but newcomer Arthur is all too willing to partake in the lawyer’s wish to exact his pound of flesh from the owner of the mill.  Potentially Wisakedjak, a chaotic trickster entity, he is wholly freed from what Peter would consider to be his moral compass.  He brings the two White men through a forested hell, pressing their endurance and choices to the limits.

In many ways, Clearcut shares parallels with Robin Hardy’s Wicker Man.  Arriving at the beginning in the same fashion by seaplane, Maguire is an ineffectual neoliberal lawyer rather than a devout Catholic policeman.  He goes through a discovery process of local customs, enduring a fiery baptism of his ordeals and expressing moral outrage at what he sees.  Clearcut approaches its central issue with more shades of grey than Wicker Man, forcing the viewer to consider moral ambiguity in fighting for large-scale issues such as environmentalism.  Maguire begins as an awkward ally figure, stumbling along the way, but holding what he believes is a campaign for a noble cause.  Yet he is still part of the legal establishment.  As the film goes on, his character becomes darker, from condescending savior to willfully silent bystander.  His lack of action does nothing but further a cycle of suffering.  This film can be contextualized by something like the Oka Crisis, but in more contemporary reading bears in mind the scope of atrocities committed at residence schools finally being brought to light and acknowledged after so many years, which makes it all the more chilling.

Sweat lodge sequences form the majority of the most performative horror in the film, linking the experience to native customs.  Maguire’s first ritual follows the orthodox practices, but leads to a nightmare as he prays with rage and anger.  Arthur/Wisakedjak enacts a dark parallel of this at the characters’ lowest point, substituting heated stones and steam for toxic smoke and libations with the pipe for severing his fingers and cutting his flesh.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says ‘appeal’.

The road is mentioned.

Someone tumbles down a hill.

The beeper goes off.

BIG DRINK

The suitcase appears onscreen.

A hallucination sequence begins.

Someone gets tied up with duct tape.

#drinking games #clearcut #horror #horror & thriller #folk horror #canadian cinema #ryszard bugajski #graham greene #floyd red crow westerman #ron lea

[filmjunky-99]

c l e a r c u t, 1991 🎬 dir. Ryszard Bugajski

#film #canadian cinema #native #Clearcut #clearcut 1991 #Ryszard Bugajski #graham greene #Ron Lea #michael hogan #Floyd Red Crow Westerman #Tia Smith

[petterbrorson]

Ofrivillig ensamhet, akvarell, 18X28 cm

Ett porträtt av en skog som inte finns mer.

...

Involuntary solitude, watercolour, 18x28 cm A portrait of a forest that used to be.  

#tall #kalhygge #akvarell #konst #pine tree #clearcut #deforestation #watercolour #watercolor #watercolor art #watercolor painting #aquarelle #acuarela #aquarela #acquerello #ακουαρέλα #suluboya #akwarela #акварель #水彩 #peace #Petter Brorson Edh

[wubble]

My face when

Clearcut - Bomb the Bass

#black and white #me #music #clearcut #bomb the bass

[psygull]

what is clearcut about

it's a 1991 canadian thriller/horror movie about a white lawyer fighting a losing case against a sawmill for the rights of the indigenous people whose land is being deforested. when in frustration he half-jokingly admits to a mysterious man named arthur that he wishes the mill owner were dead arthur essentially goes "that can be arranged" and kidnaps both of them. it's a film about indigenous rights, environmentalism, and what happens when nonviolence fails.

VERY good film, but intense, so look up content warnings beforehand if you decide to watch it. it wasn't released until 2021 because of similarities to an actual protest that occurred right before it was originally supposed to come out so it got mothballed for 30 years. highly recommend it

#ask #filmposting #i guess. #clearcut

[ipl24]

#'Clear-Cut Sign That...', Sachin Tendulkar Cheers Up Mumbai Indians Squad After Tough Fight Against Sunrisers Hyderabad Chasing 278 - Watch | Cricket News #TATAIPL #IPL24

#IPL24 # In a riveting showdown that saw records tumble and spirits soar, the clash between the Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2024 left fans on the edge of their seats. While the scoreboard favoured the Sunrisers, it was the Mumbai Indians’ unwavering resilience that stole the spotlight, echoing the sentiments of cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar and captain Hardik Pandya.…

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#Chasing #Cheers #ClearCut #Cricket #Fight #Hyderabad #Indians #IPL24 #Mumbai #News #Sachin #Sign #squad #Sunrisers #TATAIPL #Tendulkar #That.. #Tough #Watch

[eopederson2]

Southwest Washington Clearcuts near Naselle, 2015

#landscape #bay #forest #clearcut #pacific county #washington state #2015 #photographers on tumblr #pnw #pacific northwest

[headspace-hotel]

Sometimes, old American books about trees are all "This tree is unshapely, has ragged and irregular growth and has little economic value." but I was wrong to characterize them all as such, because for every capitalist-minded book about the USA's trees that is like "ough we gotta exploit every living thing" there's also a book like this:

The book is called Our Friends the Trees and it was written in the 1930's and this is the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH, no introduction no nothing, just going all in taking no prisoners from the very first line and it CONTINUES like this for the WHOLE book there is ZERO chill throughout the whole length of the book

#trees #plants #so true bestie #context: at this time in history the whole of the eastern USA was being clearcut and the dust bowl was happening

[forthegothicheroine]

One of the reasons Clearcut stuck with me as a horror movie is because the primary question “What do you do when nonviolence fails?” is one I don’t have an answer for. And to its credit, the movie doesn’t present an unambiguous answer to it either.

(That said, I did have to close my eyes during a brief torture scene, so if you’re like me and that’s hard to watch, be warned. It makes perfect sense in context but yikes.)

#clearcut #torture cw #horror movies