Unconventional conventional mynameisben.com entry
Last Friday, by sheer coincidence, my grandma was admitted to the hospital on the same day that I went into the hospital to have some dizziness that I've been dealing with checked out. I had initially self diagnosed it as Benign Positional Vertigo, which is supposed to go away on its own, but that was over three weeks ago so I figured it would be a good idea to get it checked out. After a series of ridiculous but entertaining tests, I was told my problem wasn't neurological and was referred to an inner ear specialist. I'm typically not one to feel sorry for myself but I was annoyed, I had been dealing with this for over three weeks now and it had caused naseua and had generally put me in a foul mood.
My grandma would suffer a stroke later that night and go to the hospital, unable to speak, unable to move the right side of her body, and bruised from the fall. I found out about it the next morning. Thankfully, she didn't break any bones when she fell and I'm told she's making good progress. She's alert, smiling, and still has feeling in her right side even though she can't move it. Obviously, I've set my own issues aside.
I went on with the rest of my weekend trying to keep myself occupied in order to avoid the sense of helplessness that I was experiencing for the first time as a result of being across the country when a loved one is suffering. It didn't help that I knew I wouldn't be able to do much even if I was back home in Washington. I periodically called home to get updates on her condition and watched some movies and immersed myself in HTML and CSS when I wasn't hanging out with Lee (whom I'd like to thank for being around so much this weekend).
I had suddenly become aware that the human body is so susceptible to falling apart in so many ways, whether it be dislodged crystals bouncing around in your inner ear and throwing off your balance or the bloodflow to your brain suddenly stopping. It didn't help that I had also discovered a newfound sense of hopelessness. It was in spite of all this that I went to classes today, more notably: my horror film class.
(here comes the conventional part of the entry)
In class we watched the much hyped at the time but now much maligned Blair Witch Project. Although I didn't see it in theaters when it initially came out, I saw it on video soon after and actually enjoyed it and found some moments to be genuinely terrifying. My latest viewing was more of the same and to my surprise it seemed to have worked on the rest of the class as well since the occasion was marked by silence throughout the duration of the doomed expedition.
What made the film so succesful, in my opinion, was that in a medium that appeals to the senses of sight and sound the film deprives you of them. What does that leave you with then? Shakey camerwork and sound design that's only as discernable as it needs to be to freak you out.
In a typical film you either see something or you don't, with this film the camerawork is so chaotic and inept, even when it's not shakey, that you can't really focus on anything. Especially in the most intense scenes, there's light flashing at you from the screen but it's almost abstract with little bits of pieces of the world that you can pick out. You're seeing things but you're not really seeing anything. The sense of security you would get from being able to see your surroundings is subverted first by the oppresive darkness that one finds in the middle of the woods at night and also by the broken promises of the camera that is there to show you what you want to see but doesn't really show you anything.
Sure, being in the woods at night is creepy but when the characters really start to lose it is when they start hearing things outside of their tent. The sound design for these parts is purposefully frustrating. The moment you begin to hear something faintly, one of the characters screams "HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT" and the sound is gone. Everytime you start to hear something one of the characters screams something or some other noise covers it up. The characters aren't going to shake the mics around to prevent us from hearing so instead they just scream at the top of their lungs. It's annoying but it really does the trick.
Ultimately, the film is a bit unsatisfying but it's good for a few scares. The stylistic choices that I mentioned are effective but can also grow a bit tiresome. In my case it also caused a little motion sickness. But, in the context of my recent life outside of the film world, it was a welcome escape and yet another humbling reminder of the bodily functions that I take for granted.
Two films I've recently seen:
A nice 35mm print of Night of the Living Dead at a midnight screening. It's a great film but the projectionist turned on the lights during the end credit photo montage that gives the film its power. Hardly anyone in the audience seemed to care though, the story was over and that's all that matters in a film right?
George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind which was a really interesting film that I'd like to write more about later. For now I'll just say that I highly recommend it.
