Today i was ten minutes late for class so when i walked in to class it was dark and in the middle of a showing. From what i was able to findout from the end of the first film and what Laura Marks was saying was that it was a film about finding a letter in the ground. The letter that was hidden inside of a mortor shell; I saw a guy hitting the shell with a hammer and thought it would blow up, how odd it felt to me that a group of people stood around while this man hit a possible active mortor shell with a hammer. It was reveled that inside was a letter, that i had guessed the guys were diggin for in the first place. I wished i had gotten the name of the film and it's creator but i brought a new perspective to me. At the end of the showing Laura Marks talked about an olive tree that the filmmaker talked about cutting down but wouldn't because it would be removing the familys livly hood, at this time i was still unclear as to what she was talking about, thats what i get for being late to class, right?
The next film that Laura Marks showed us was an animatted short by another filmmaker, again i didnot get to record the name of the animator but it was an interesting short film called, "The Sadman" this short was featured on leboniese tv. This piece is a representative of what life in bayrouth is like; that the leboniese people are very welcoming, hospitable to others. But there is always this underlying feeling of sadness. In the film it features a man that we see every day walking home from work, it cuts to him going down to most likly his apartment, where he is shown washing his face in the sink and it is revealed that he losses his face, so he draws a a happy face to replace it. The next day we see the same thing until he washes his face again except that the water turned to sand, the next scene is hime covered in sand much like a sand version of a snow man with a happy face but this crubbles and we are faced with the sad man again. Next day we see the same thign again except that when the man goes to the sink no water comes out and he he starts to cry, his tears fill his apartment. We see in the end that the man has bottled his happyness almost like he is waiting for it to be ready to unlesh so he can enjoy it like some kind of perfect "canned goods".
The next film that was introduced to us by Laura Marks was a film made in the 90's, that was released over the internet, i once again wasn't able to record the filmmakers name but his film "Dead Time" was an excellent movie. This film featured a city cut off from every escape to the outside except for the internet which was available, sometimes. Laura Marks said to the class today that this filmmakers movie and others were alot like, "messages in bottles", cast out over the internet to those that would watch. In the end of the film we see the ruins of the city from it being bombed, ontop of a roof was the filmmaker him self wearing a, Superman shirt, I found this a bit ironic and the line that he said in the shot was that, he wished he could have raised his fist in the air but he didn't because he lost his sense of humor, I talked to Laura Marks after and she agreed. I mentioned what i thought to her; that when we see the Superman symbol it is identifyed with power, or strength and that when the filmmaker was wearing that but said that, he would have raised his fist but lost his sense of humor, that is took the power away from that and that seemed to fit the mood a very lost sense of power, or stability. Laura Marks told me that she was there when that city was bombed and that is how she felt, lost and unimpowerd. It was great to talk with her, even though it was only for a few moments, but to get that kind of insight from another filmmaker was an experiance of it's own.
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