"Bunny"
Animated and short, this brief film was at first depressing. I was saddened when I saw the picture of the bunny couple on the wall. This shot was saddening because it reiterated the loneliness of the female bunny, especially in that brief second that viewers catch her wiping away a tear for her dead husband. The redeeming part of this film was when the female bunny experiences mysterium and tremendum. Her oven begins to shake and a bright light emits from inside it. She is curious as to what is going on and walks hesitantly to it. She looks through it and sees life in what had previously been dead. She crawls into her oven to experience life and be reunited with her husband. In awe of her psychedelic surroundings, the female bunny reunites with her loved one and reaches Heaven. Although I initially felt that this film was depressing because the female bunny died, I am glad she was able to reunite with her husband and be less lonely.
"Northfork"
The most interesting element of this film was the aesthetic--namely the montages and layering. In the shots that we watched, there is something sacred (nature) and mundane (human creation) that are woven together to make a beautiful scene. In one instance, we see the beauty of the mountains, untouched by civilization. Then a second later, we see a car pass by. Another time we see a boy running across a field with buffalo running the opposite way. In all of these examples, nature, in all its glory, stands apart from humans and human construction. The creations almost seem to take away from the beauty of the land.
"Paris, Texas"
A simple theme emerged after watching clips from this film: humans desire to communicate, but often times just don't know how to do so. Everything from the dialogue to the panoramic shots supports this claim. Travis walks through the desert, following telephone wires, passing mailboxes, and still he cannot communicate to his brother why he is searching and walking. Many shots from the film focus on mediums we use to communicate--trains, airplanes, cars on the freeway, telephones, etc. Despite the vast number of technologies humans can use to communicate, Travis still cannot express what he wants to say. I think this movie asks viewers to reconsider the barriers we build up that prevent us from communicating with each other--be it cars, roads, houses, etc. A simple touch (as seen on the freeway scene) or face-to-face conversation without any medium can be the best ways to express our thoughts to someone.
"The Wall"
This film took even the simplest of creations--a flower, for example--and turned it into something disturbing and ugly. Children became faceless and lost their individuality. An eagle became mechanized and demonic looking. Throughout the film, a drawing starts off as one object and transforms into another. Usually the transformations are negative or scary. The changes in the animation also lend to the theme of this film: retain individuality by not conforming to society's demands. People can become something other than who they truly are if they give in to an institution's demands and forgo their individuality. By acquiescing to these institutions, people lose their own identity and thus, become as faceless as the children in this film. Such transformations are undoubtedly negative ones to be avoided.
"Cabeza de Vaca"
What struck me most in this film were the oppositions present in most shots. For example, after Cabeza tries to escape from the Native Americans but returns back to them, he delivers a monologue. In the beginning, he is distraught and crying out for help. The Native Americans are laughing hysterically at him during the first part of his suffering. Then, after he begins to recite the poem, the laughter ceases, and they seem uncharacteristically silent. For a brief moment, the camera pans on their faces, and the Native Americans seem to really feel what Cabeza is saying. In another shot, civilization and nature are pitted against each other. We see the Spanish settlement combined with the beauty of the outdoors. Again, this lends to the sacred and the profane I discussed earlier about nature and human creation. The effects of such compositions creates a sort of ambivalence or indifference within the viewer.
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