Withdrawal syndromes...

Although I have promised myself a recap, I still have not put down any notes about it; instead I had withdrawal syndrome and went to Apollon-Attikon to watch two of the offered repeats. There were 2 main things I realized: contrary to last year, this year I really suck at picking movies. Secondly, I now know for sure that I must be having some kind of issues, no matter how small, because the average attendance tonight was 20 persons and trust when I say that I saw no familiar faces.

There 4 movies in total, Unfaithfully Yours, Hana, Performance and 9 Souls. Instead of watching Unfaithfully Yours and 9 Souls, I watched Hana and Performance; I shouldn’t have.

Hana is set in Japan, just about the time when the samurai code becomes essentially obsolete, and the last of them have really taken a serious decline. Our hero ahs left the clan and resides in a lower class slum, trying to find his father’s killer, and avenge his death, although as the movie progresses he sees that the life of the samurai is not for him, falls in love with a neighbor in the slums, forgives his father’s killer, and becomes friends with various ‘degenerates’. If you like Japanese movie, there are two main reasons why you should not watch this one. First it debunks the cinematic samurai legacy as well the theme of dignity, reveange, self-respect honour and determination, providing miserable characters and a shallow story. The second reason, is because it is essentially not good. In fact it is lukewarm, with unnoticed directing and bad performances. It reminded me more of a TV soap rather than a movie. However, I am giving it the benefit of the doubt as the theatre was almost empty, and that makes it always weird to watch a movie. Nonetheless, I was wishing I was at the Attikon watching Daisies.

Of course, I did go to Attikon, but afterwards, to see Performance, an over the top artistic film about an east Londoner pushover, that seeks hideout in the home of an eccentric rock star (Mick Jagger) who is trapped in his creative block for the past years. Generally, it is not half as bad as you would expect, it does not become boring, and it is fairly interesting as far as the juxtaposition of the characters, and the notion of the ultimate performance and the spirit of creative inspiration. Don’t expect anything much here, or anything of serious structure. To be honest, the movie does not have much value, but it was OK for me to watch in again an almost empty theatre with a couple of beers.

Anyways that’s it for tonight.