I think I read somewhere that Obayashi did, in fact, canvas his daughter and her friends for their childhood fears and then put them in the movie... the "attacked by futons" scene in particular being based on a real incident.
i know house has a (tampopo-esque? though i haven't seen tampopo) reputation as "wild and crazy good time" but it honestly does really frighten me. it's been a couple years since i've seen it but i can still remember the geography of the flooded house, and the way all of it circles around the last, exhausted shot of the girls embracing. though the tonal whiplash is so extreme that i feel like that feeling might have been an artifact of my mood at time of watching, maybe i'll spend my next watch laughing hysterically
I would say I wasn't scared but I definitely wasn't laughing either. I think the way this movie is both wacky and really sad if you scratch at the surface is why it works for me. I feel like it's a movie about how the dead hate the living, as expressed both through the aunt's character and through Gorgeous.
I do find it interesting how what happens to Fantasy there at the end is totally ambiguous, as is Gorgeous's comment at the end that her friends are asleep but will wake up when they're hungry.… It feels like there's something meaningful about the order in which the girls go and the way Fantasy persists until the end, but also in the possibility that Gorgeous has essentially frozen all her friends as girls forever.
My first Obayashi movie was Hanagatami, which was one of the most singular movies I’d ever seen. Meaning to see more by him, I promptly forgot about it and moved on. A few years later I decided to see House, not even realizing it was Obayashi, but it’s immediately evident that the same insane director made both of these movies. They’re totally different but could each only have been made by one person.
I'm gonna have to get some of the Region B releases of his movies! I feel like House has been pretty successful for Criterion, so maybe they'll release some more eventually.…
That video essay by kogonada is so good. Have you seen any of Obayashi's "modern anti-war trilogy" (the films he made in 2012-2017)? They're much more explicitly about the atomic bomb, but equally bonkers (the editing in "Casting Blossoms to the Sky" is insane) but also very moving.
My dog refuses to let me listen to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring". Go figure
No, I've only seen this one! But I have a region free Bluray player and I'm under the impression more of his work is available in Region B, so I'm going to look into it.
When I tried to watch Lost Highway Boswell wouldn't stop barking at it… I think something about the sound design bothered him?
it's tagged in my head as "movie that ruined her career" [probably not true?] which i feel like is often "a movie in which somebody does something interesting"… like i think in the cut is a terrible movie and am not on board with attempts to revive but meg ryan is great in it and definitely trying something new.
I think I read somewhere that Obayashi did, in fact, canvas his daughter and her friends for their childhood fears and then put them in the movie... the "attacked by futons" scene in particular being based on a real incident.
yeah I believe it! It feels very real
i know house has a (tampopo-esque? though i haven't seen tampopo) reputation as "wild and crazy good time" but it honestly does really frighten me. it's been a couple years since i've seen it but i can still remember the geography of the flooded house, and the way all of it circles around the last, exhausted shot of the girls embracing. though the tonal whiplash is so extreme that i feel like that feeling might have been an artifact of my mood at time of watching, maybe i'll spend my next watch laughing hysterically
I would say I wasn't scared but I definitely wasn't laughing either. I think the way this movie is both wacky and really sad if you scratch at the surface is why it works for me. I feel like it's a movie about how the dead hate the living, as expressed both through the aunt's character and through Gorgeous.
I do find it interesting how what happens to Fantasy there at the end is totally ambiguous, as is Gorgeous's comment at the end that her friends are asleep but will wake up when they're hungry.… It feels like there's something meaningful about the order in which the girls go and the way Fantasy persists until the end, but also in the possibility that Gorgeous has essentially frozen all her friends as girls forever.
My first Obayashi movie was Hanagatami, which was one of the most singular movies I’d ever seen. Meaning to see more by him, I promptly forgot about it and moved on. A few years later I decided to see House, not even realizing it was Obayashi, but it’s immediately evident that the same insane director made both of these movies. They’re totally different but could each only have been made by one person.
I'm gonna have to get some of the Region B releases of his movies! I feel like House has been pretty successful for Criterion, so maybe they'll release some more eventually.…
That video essay by kogonada is so good. Have you seen any of Obayashi's "modern anti-war trilogy" (the films he made in 2012-2017)? They're much more explicitly about the atomic bomb, but equally bonkers (the editing in "Casting Blossoms to the Sky" is insane) but also very moving.
My dog refuses to let me listen to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring". Go figure
No, I've only seen this one! But I have a region free Bluray player and I'm under the impression more of his work is available in Region B, so I'm going to look into it.
When I tried to watch Lost Highway Boswell wouldn't stop barking at it… I think something about the sound design bothered him?
what are your thoughts on Mother!
I haven't seen it… this is sort of a crazy thing to say but I don't think I've ever seen a movie with JLaw in it lol.
this is bananas to me… you might like mother honestly
it's tagged in my head as "movie that ruined her career" [probably not true?] which i feel like is often "a movie in which somebody does something interesting"… like i think in the cut is a terrible movie and am not on board with attempts to revive but meg ryan is great in it and definitely trying something new.