Rashidi-Devereaux Cinema: The First Three Feature Films

 

Closure of Catharsis (100 Min HDV Stereo B/W UK & Ireland 2011)

Idea & Director: Rouzbeh Rashidi

Synopsis: ”A man (James Devereaux) sits on a park bench talking to the camera, trying to weave together a thought that won’t cohere while commenting on passers-by, his ‘guests’… Mysterious images intervene, overturning the serenity of the park-bench monologue. Rouzbeh Rashidi’s new feature proves as engagin as it is elusive.”

 

HE (122 Minutes DSLR Stereo Colour/B&W Ireland 2012)

Idea & Director: Rouzbeh Rashidi

Synopsis: HE, the latest work in the ongoing collaboration between Rouzbeh Rashidi and actor James Devereaux, is a troubling and mysterious portrait of a suicidal man. Rashidi juxtaposes the lead character’s apparently revealing monologues with scenes and images that layer the film with ambiguity. Its deliberate, hypnotic pace and boldly experimental structure result in an unusual and challenging view of its unsettling subject.

 

Boredom of the disgust & monotony of the tediousness (95 Min DSLR Stereo B&W Ireland 2012)

Idea & Director: Rouzbeh Rashidi

Synopsis: Rashidi continues his collaboration with actor James Devereaux in this unsettling and ultimately touching portrait of an isolated actor possessed by film history.

New short film: The Lillies Are Just Around The Corner [video]

 

A strange hitman picture.

Rouzbeh Rashidi's 3rd zero budget feature film, Bipedality (2010), can be watched here...

Rouzbeh Rashidi's third zero-budget feature film "Bipedality (2010)", featuring Dean Kavanagh & Julia Gelezova, can be watched here: www.youtu.be/xYXSPEhVr5U

"Total cast and crew of three people including the actor and actress. There wasn't any script or pre-writing planning for this film and all the shots were taken only one time without any rehearsal but occasionally actors were given notes to read in order to provoke certain feelings and then filmed the scene straight away. The three main segments of the film were shot in only three days but the inserts and pillow-shots were taken over a full year in various parts of Ireland."

 

 

www.experimentalfilmsociety.com

Aki Kaurismaki's Match Factory Girl [Stills]

Kaurismäki took his penchant for despairing character studies to unspeakably grim depths in the shockingly entertaining The Match Factory Girl. Kati Outinen is memorably impenetrable as Iris, whose grinding days as a cog in a factory wheel, and nights as a neglected daughter living with her parents, ultimately send her over the edge. Yet despite her transgressions, Kaurismäki makes Iris a compelling, even sympathetic figure. Bleak yet suffused with comic irony, The Match Factory Girl closes out the “Proletariat Trilogy” with a bang—and a whimper. —The Criterion Collection

The Great Acting Blog: "The Acting In Fassbinder's Fear Of Fear"

Fassbinder's Fear Of Fear is a quite brilliant tale about Margot, whose harmonious family life with husband Kurt and daughter Bibi, unravels as she begins to suffer from anxiety attacks leading to alcoholism, an illicit affair, and a spell in a mental hospital. Margit Carstensen's performance as Margot is sensational, and marked as it is by a spectacular emotional acuity. However, one of the really striking aspects about this film is the general excellence of all the performances; from Irm Hermann and Brigitte Mira as Carstensen's nagging in-laws, to Adrian Hoven's seduce-and-destroy Doctor Merck, to all the performances in between, each possesses a precision and intensity.

I wondered how these performances were arrived at, and so had a little nose around the internet, but could find precious little about Fassbinder's thoughts on the subject. However, I did find this comment he made about working on Berlin Alexanderplatz, which may help to explain his general conceptions about acting: - 

"I find it awful when a person in a film talks the way people talk in real life. In my opinion that robs a thought of its general force. It eliminates the general state of fearfulness. How should I put it? It reduces everything to something the moviegoer can reject, simply because he doesn’t happen to speak this dialect, doesn’t move this particular way in real life. In my opinion artificiality offers the only possibility for giving a broad spectrum of moviegoers access to the specific world of an artistic work".

It's hard to know what process Fassbinder and his actors went through, but due to their predominantly theatrical background, one would assume that there would have been a decent rehearsal period, which means that there was an opportunity to shape the performances, fitting them into Fassbinder's overall vision for the film. Furthermore, Fassbinder wrote the script himself, and so would have created the structure he wanted the performances to slot into. This all helps to create the uniformity of style which the actor's performances possess. This, coupled with the considerable talents of the actors Fassbinder employed, would help to explain the general level of excellence. But what of the style?  I would describe the acting in Fear Of Fear as distilled; there is a clarity of idea and action in each scene, which leads to very precise intentions, everything we see the actors do is deliberate, and therefore meaningful. Fassbinder blocks the actors very carefully, almost to the point of choreography. This all adds up to the "artificiality" Fassbinder mentions - we are witnessing performances rather than snap-shots of life. This artificiality is characteristic of "the specific world of an artistic work", or, put another way, artificiality renders a work artistic. 

Margit Carstensen in Fassbinder's Fear Of Fear [1975]

My Film Of 2012 ....

Intriguing, unusual and simple, great performances, stunning black & white.