Hey guys this week will be my second skip, but no worries I will still comment ! =]

Party Boy

When we first started talking about this film, I really couldnt see myself getting into the whole idea of the high society thing that was described to us, but you know what, after watching the whole thing I got really into it. The whole plot in general and the main character kinda reminded me of a greek god named Dionysus. Now this god is depicted of being the "party animal" of the gods, and that is kinda expected when you have the title of being the god of wine. Marcello reminded me in the way that Disney described Dionysus in Fantasia, running around from place to place, drinking wine and meeting women, oh what a life it is.

I thought that the layout of the film was also an interesting touch. Now what I mean by this is that when I looked up extra information about th film to understand it better, I found out that the film is kinda split up into "episodes" and these episodes, when looked at one right after the other, basically give you insight of Marcello's life for what I believe is about seven days. Now the first episode which is basically the opening sequence discribes the tone of the film really well, because of the actions seen by our main character Marcello. In class we talked about how the catholic church banned this film from being shown basically everywhere, and judging from the time period that the film was made and the content shown throughout, I can kinda understand why they had that feeling. Just how Marcello and the camera seem to be distracted by the women in bathing suits when the christ statue is being delivered makes you think that this character is peobably up to no good. The article also had some good points to how the church saw this film to be insulting to them at multiple spots. Not only is it that the first scene seems to have a statue blessing Rome as it flies over "distracting" women haha, but also there seems to be reoccuring religous icons shown in the film. These icons plus the over all "playboy" feel to the film is what made me think that the church had a huge problem with it.

Alright now I had some questions to the film that I was hoping to get answered so I thought why not just put it out there. For one thing, why is it that they used two languages throughout the film? What was the point? Is it just to show that there is a difference in some of the people or some sort of communication barrier? Now this is just my opinion, but I think that it was used to try and make a seperation between the two types of people. Let me explain myself, I dont know if it was just me, but didn't alot of the dialoge that the americans said seem kinda...dumbed down in a way. For example the american actress seemed like she was just in a different world throughout the whole time we saw hew, and her husband didnt seem any better. The whole time we saw him he seemed to be drunk or had a drink in his hand within thirty seconds. Now my favorite example of what I am talking about would have to be that one woman at the last party scene in the beach house. Everyone is speaking french and I believe that Marcello said something funny, and she laughs along with everyone else and says " what did he say?", I mean what the heck is that.

The last thing I just want to touch on is how alot of people discribe the characters to have not really progressed at all throughout the film. I would have to disagree for only one reason, and that reason is because of the way Marcello seems to be acting at the end of the film. He seems to be just sick of the whole party scene in general making him lose it. Along with that, at the very end on the beach he really seems to be just out of it in some way. Walking away from the party people and talking to the beach girl , but not hearing her, and not really caring weather or not if he does. That just forced me to look at this man differently than I did throughout the entire movie.

All in all interesting film , see y'all next time!

Now this movie was definitely different. I'm really glad that our professor told us not to really look into the whole storyline aspect of the film and just "watch " the movie in all of its visual glory. I found it rather appropriate that this film was compared to a dream sequence in our class, because to be honest I was at times drifting in and our of consciousness. The funny thing about that is that every time I seemed to come out of slightly drifting off it seemed like I was watching the same scene over and over and over again, and at times I'm pretty sure that this is one of the feelings that the director would have liked everyone to experience at one point when watching this film. A dream sequence is a very odd and interesting concept to build off of that's why at times especially when watching this odd film I kinda connected it to some of David lynches work.

Alrighty well first off all the imagry in this movie was amazing. You can just see so many layers of angles built up when watching a variety of scenes in this film. For instance a favorite one of mine would be that they used a good deal of mirrors incorporated shots. The scene where the camera is slowly trucking in while we watch a mirror, that is looking at another mirror, that is yet looking at A, our female character. These well thought out shots brought me back to Citizen Kane and that one shot of him walking through his palace next to mirrors that just reflect into each other. These effects are just so fun to look at, and even though I didnt quite stay with the story I could gain something from what I was seeing.

An interesting thing that was talked about in class would have to be the game that is repeated constantly throughout the film. When I first saw it played I didn't really understand completely on how it was played and won, but as I continued to watch I noticed that M the husband, always won for some strange reason. It was further explained to us that it was because of some sort of algorithm used which would no matter what make the person who went second win.Now what is interesting is that I believe that X had a chance to go second , but managed to lose...ever time he lost and was stuck in this world of loss. Now the narration I could follow with the whole thing of X not being able to move on because A rejected him was kinda comparable to this game that is played. Loss is X's constant burden and curse that he has to live with.

The reading basically brought a lot of my questions together, the reason is as I read on I found that the over all structure of the mansion/hotel and the garden outside was basically the structure the mindset that was supposed to be felt. To explain this its like we are supposed to be stuck, like X is stuck in his progress in his relationship, and that he cant win, thus we are also stuck. Stuck in these long halls that are described in the mansion which is brought out by the cinematography of long trucking shots. Also the gardens are shown to be this twisting maze that seems impossible to escape from. All in all a mind twisting concept with some mind twisting characters not to mention an intense plot to go along with it.


Enjoy this one see y'all next time