Thank God for Miyazkai
10/2/03 14:52![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienI just got back from my Cities 229 class, on Colonialisim.
For those of you who don't know my professor's method of introducing a topic, he usually shows a film--something more or less guaranteed to make you think, but usually something more than slightly disturbing. Rush and I, who took one of his classes last year, would routinely walk out chatting about how he couldn't possibly show anything more disturbing, and then next week wonder where he'd dug up this film.
I just finished watching a more-or-less solid hour of the movie The Battle of Algiers. It's a film that was done 'like' a documentary, about the bloody revolutionary battles fought in Algeria against the French in the 50's and 60's. It was banned when it first came out in France; it was too new, too raw; and, generally, the French people as a whole hadn't had time enough between the event and the film.
I can see why. I came out of the classroom feeling literally sickened; I can stand to watch some things, and not others, and this fit into the category of "things I can't watch." Except I had to.
And we're only halfway through the film.
I came back into my room, washed some dirty dishes, and sat down to watch the Miyazaki music video that Sei had sent to me back when I was helping her copy all her old files over from her dying computer at the end of last year.
Maybe it's naive of me to smile and think about tadpoles and cats and all the sun and goodness in the world, right after watching another film so profoundly depressing.
I think we need both types of films, don't get me wrong.
But I wish the world was more Miyazaki, and less Battle of Algiers.
For those of you who don't know my professor's method of introducing a topic, he usually shows a film--something more or less guaranteed to make you think, but usually something more than slightly disturbing. Rush and I, who took one of his classes last year, would routinely walk out chatting about how he couldn't possibly show anything more disturbing, and then next week wonder where he'd dug up this film.
I just finished watching a more-or-less solid hour of the movie The Battle of Algiers. It's a film that was done 'like' a documentary, about the bloody revolutionary battles fought in Algeria against the French in the 50's and 60's. It was banned when it first came out in France; it was too new, too raw; and, generally, the French people as a whole hadn't had time enough between the event and the film.
I can see why. I came out of the classroom feeling literally sickened; I can stand to watch some things, and not others, and this fit into the category of "things I can't watch." Except I had to.
And we're only halfway through the film.
I came back into my room, washed some dirty dishes, and sat down to watch the Miyazaki music video that Sei had sent to me back when I was helping her copy all her old files over from her dying computer at the end of last year.
Maybe it's naive of me to smile and think about tadpoles and cats and all the sun and goodness in the world, right after watching another film so profoundly depressing.
I think we need both types of films, don't get me wrong.
But I wish the world was more Miyazaki, and less Battle of Algiers.