First half is much more fluid and informative than the second, which despite its intention of narrativising SWANS’ post–Jarboe era, feels rather aimless and lacking in its documentation. It was a surprise to see myself in this briefly toward the end, at their last UK gig in their 2010-17 iteration. This project was clearly a labour of love, but a documentary on SWANS – of all bands – should be far more compelling than this ultimately is.
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My Brain is Screaming to Rest 2020
A brilliantly visceral piece of work, magically imagic, layers upon layers, ladders becomes snakes, and the snakes were ladders all along, you see? And the sound only further coils around all those things. Finite tightly and infinite brightly. And darkness sings its own song too. Always. And I’m very touched to be mentioned in its making and visitation.
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In this lingering Twilight Sparkle. 2020
There’s something about this... I can't put my finger on it.
This is the kind of thing I would presume I would take a strong disliking to, but somehow I'm beguiled by it's looseness and eeriness in its paradoxical non-art approach.Cinema concrète.
Hauntological bastards abound.The monologue at the end is special. Rupert Spira meets Beckett's The Unnamable meets Artaud... and some kind of Lovecraftian shadow lies beneath, outside.
Very interesting piece of work.
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Sangha 2020
Kyle understands filmmaking better than most, because he doesn’t think it; he feels it. What I find most admirable about his work of the last few years is how much experimentation — both image and sonics — are interweaved into his work, yet with such subtlety. It’s something very few filmmakers have any idea, concern or craft for: subtlety.
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Materia Obscura 2009
“I am in the future... I know nothing of what was before.”
“This future to be dissolved.” — Robert Pinget -
Liberté 2019
Albert Serra’s latest, Liberté is the first film I have seen in quite some time, and the first film in a much longer time that I have truly been anticipating. It didn’t disappoint.
The film’s scenes do not evade real-time or linear time between each cut in the same way that most cuts in films do. Instead, each subsequent scene seems to continue almost precisely - yet abstractly - where the previous left off, only voyeuristically focusing on a different…
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Sleep Has Her House 2017
For anybody who wishes to see Sleep Has Her House (or wants to simply own a copy) it can now be purchased as a Blu-Ray quality digital file (16GB) from my website: scottbarleyfilm.com/Store
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Werckmeister Harmonies 2000
Language, you are, in all your beauty, so inadequate, so incapable of expressing what this film did for — and to — me.
After being in a oneiric state of true awe for 144 minutes, with the final shot of the film, I surrendered something within me. That’s what it felt like. Something was released, forced out of my chest, and I saw it rise, and I saw my body turn black, charred and withered, like a dead tree. Then…
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Annihilation 2018
Sorry to friends who loved it, but Annihilation is embarrassingly awful.
I don’t know what’s worse: the film itself, or the critics who compared it to 2001 and Tarkovsky.
All that the reaction to the film proves, is that people are very, very hungry for truly good “sci-fi” films, and will lavish praises on dumb films, filled with abysmal sets and special effects, and worse - derivation - to ease their discontent with the sci-fi milieu. How about we avoid…
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Ulysses in the Subway 2017
One of the greatest experiences I have had this year. Unique and profound.