Friday, June 20, 2014

Freeze Frame Cinema or The Decline of Cinematic Politics: Exhibition



   Joanna Hogg should be forgiven her cinematic sins. Coming from the TV world of themes and cinematic syntax written in bold crayon, of rushed productions schedules and helicopter-Mom executive producers, it must have been a liberating exercise to make a film whose diaphanous through lines end their lives as quickly as cinematic mayflies, to make a film about boredom and all its pins and needles almost-excitements, about a middle aged woman contemplating herself and her sexuality in front of several sets of venetian blinds on several floor to ceiling windows.

    But before we forgive the indulgences of what, in the end, is a criminally boring film, we owe the filmmaker and ourselves some exploration of why it sucks.