Thursday, October 28, 2010

SEVERED WAYS

I just saw the best movie. SEVERED WAYS: THE NORSE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. I don't recommend it though. I can't think of who I would recommend it to. Film students. 19 year olds. People who are smoking pot. It is too weird. But it is absolutely perfect for what it is.

What it is: it is a mumblecore Herzogian black metal prose poem of what it would be like to be alone with a sword and an ax in eleventh century Massachussettes. It is also funny! And brutal. It is so weird and 70s like but also totally up to date and also funny! I don't know how to describe it. Nothing happens. These guys just wander around in the woods. It is beautiful.

The thing I thought as I watched it is: this is the kind of crazy genius shit people do when they are making their first movie, writing their first novel, making their first album. There is weird genius in every scene. And none of the flaws hurt it at all. And there are lots of flaws. But you feel the sparkling energy of "beginnerness" all through it. And an unexpected historical intelligence--that you never see in American film--slipped in almost as an after thought.

What fun. I stayed up until 3:30!

3 comments:

  1. We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs bllllooow!
    Bwaaaaah haaaaah haaaah!

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  2. You made this movie I've never heard of sound REALLY GOOD.

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  3. I hate commenting on spelling, but since I'm living in Boston, the state is spelled "Massachusetts." There is no "e" on the end.

    Very intrigued by this movie.

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