Synopsis
Villagers find their situation growing increasingly desperate when their community becomes engulfed in an endless winter.
2012 ‘La cinquième saison’ Directed by Peter Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth
Villagers find their situation growing increasingly desperate when their community becomes engulfed in an endless winter.
第五個季節, Het Vijfde Seizoen, П'ята пора року, Пети сезон, Die fünfte Jahreszeit, La quinta estacion, La cinquième saison, La quinta stagione, П’ята пора року, 第五个季节
A mournful elegy shot in pale, wintry tones, a small farming village turns to desperation when the earth slowly becomes barren. The cause is an enigma, a possible ecological catastrophe, and the result is quietly horrific: a tangible "what if" that delves into somber recesses and social breakdown.
A bit like what would have happened if Béla Tarr and Roy Andersson co-directed The Wicker Man. See it.
What if Winter refused to let go stopping Spring from weaving its calmer air onto the nature that so desperately awaits it? How would the green shoots sprout once again, animals find their nutrition or the crops find a way to sustain their growth? How would we respond to a chill that lingers on as the source for so much of our economy and food rapidly dwindles?
These are the questions we see facing a village in Belgium, indicative of a problem facing the entire world. Set in the near-future, Mother Nature has gone AWOL leaving winter on an eternal pause reeking havoc with a way of life mankind cannot do without.
The husband and wife directorial team of Peter…
Just when I was thinking to myself that we need more directors to counter the Bela Tarr's, the Angelopoulos's, the entirety of Romanian New Wave, to represent a slice of Eastern Europe that isn't so grim, that isn't so ghastly, it does a complete 180 on me and proves that in terms of Eastern Europe, it truly is always and forever Apocalypse Now. Two weeks of bliss two years of hell. Those giant stilt things were where the real nightmares were at, I won't soon forget the image of their heads bobbing up and down behind houses before fully emerging. The devil is here, the camera is scared to move, the settlers are dissolved into their weakest components, their desparation to overcome the quandary is crippling. The only viable scapegoat is used, yet the ashes still fall
Unrelenting and unkind, 'La cinquième saison' makes itself to be a cruel tragedy of nature where transcendence of humanity into a tableaux of devouring presences bring in a sensation of extreme coldness, exposing the filthy nature of man on unyielding situations. The merry days are gone. The springs don't bring warmth anymore and children don't laugh. The isolated existence of 'La cinquième saison' is suspended in a purgatorial loop of utter dread, where the nature takes the metaphorical personification of death, inverting it's optimistic effects on the people who are gradually succumbing into the inescapable vortex of inhumanity.
Apart from the obvious dramatics of deteriorating relationships and sexual brutalities, Peter Brosens and Jessica Hope Woodworth's ugly face of mankind thematically…
50 movies and six months in to 2013 and The Fifth Season has become the frontrunner for movie of the year. As Ronan Doyle said in his excellent review it really is The Wicker Man as made by Roy Andersson. It's beautiful to look at, mesmerising at times, paced to perfection and almost so subtle that you might miss the apocalyptic overtones that would mark it as another product of 2013's Year of The End. Should I trademark that?
Nr 18 on All Films I Saw 2015 (Ranked)
Why the hell didn't I find this wonderful film until three years after its release? I need to start taking my research more seriously!
The story line in "The Fifth Season" is simple: in a small rural Belgian village, where the inhabitants are heavily dependent on farming for survival, suddenly mother nature turns back on them and brings Murphy's Law to mind.
My thoughts are instantly drawn to Luis Bunuels "The Exterminating Angel" (1962), in which the director examines the collapse of social conventions when people are put in extreme and unusual situations. The theme is precisely the same in "The Fifth Season". However, whereas Bunuels movie escalates towards the end,…
Voti alti e apprezzamenti vari per questo film e per questo genere di film sottolineano una volta per tutte quello che pare un vizio di un certo tipo di cinefilo: avere la pelle d'oca per un'ottima fotografia, un'autorialità esagerata e senza spessore, una scrittura che si finge misteriosa ma è inconsistente, nonché alcune immagini in serie, rigorosamente ferme, costruite in modo superficiale ma pittorico, prive di significato ma perfette per una buona storia su Instagram.
Suggerisco, a tal punto, la visita a un museo.
In genere si dice "americanata" quando un film scavalca il limite del buon gusto nello stile e si poggia su una scrittura prevedibile, il cui unico intento è spesso rendere partecipe lo spettatore a tifare per i buoni contro i cattivi. Guardando La quinta stagione ho deciso di definire "europeata" tutti quei film, compreso questo, con un approccio autoriale eccessivo, fatto di reiterate inquadrature ferme, che rimandano all'arte pittorica, e che poggiano su una scrittura ermetica, ai confini con l'incomprensione. Ovviamente si parla sempre di film superiori alla migliore americanata perché quanto meno soddisfano a tratti il gusto estetico. La differenza sta nel fatto che qui il divertimento e lo svago si trasformano in sbadigli e smorfie facciali che equivalgono a un "sì ok, ma perché?"
یادداشت چند خطی ای که نوشتم رو اینجا هم میزارم تا در تجدید دیدار دوباره از فیلم خط تغییر نظرم رو نسبت به فیلم ببینم.اگر تغییری باشد.
فصل پنجم برای سینمایی های خاص
اگه دنبال یه تجربه ی متفاوت باشید با سوژه ای خاص و مهجور قطعا سراغ این فیلم میرید.نیمه ی دوم فیلم فوق العاده است.تلاش کارگردان از خلق نظامی که نابودی کشیده میشود از مهربانی ها و روابط به پنهان شدن در پشت نقاب و جنایت میرسد.پایان بندی فیلم چیزی شبیه به داگویل لارس فون تریر ولی در ساختار فصل پنجم بی همتاست.اثری که باید چندبار دید تا فهمید چه تجربه ای را از سر گذرانده اید.برای هضم کامل فیلم.
حجم استعارات فیلم هر عاشق سینمایی رو مسحور میکنه.از طرح های نقاب ها تا شترمرغ های پایان فیلم.
به فیلم فعلا نمره ای هم نمیدم.باید زمان بگذره و دوباره ببینمش
Ο Bruno Dumont ξαναγυρίζει το Wicker Man.
Μόνο που αυτός δεν είναι ο Bruno Dumont.
Και αυτό δεν είναι το Wicker Man.
Review taken from my 2012 Cork Film Festival coverage for Next Projection
When it came to VOD in August, I called Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth’s debut feature Khadak a “startling ascent into higher planes of expression” while lamenting that “their unwillingness to fully embrace the possibilities of their atypical style does their creative inclinations a disservice”. I’ve not had the fortune to see the duo’s follow-up Altiplano, the second part of their thematically-linked trilogy that comes to a close with The Fifth Season. Whatever the failings of their first film, the pair boasts a startling visual talent, their scope and compositions making irresistible the prospect of bearing witness to one of their films on the big screen. There’s not…