Pendulum Man

Trance

The moon up there looks like a cat’s eye through smog, but by the time I’m home it’s a suggestion of one, an illusion.

I don’t remember seeing Edinburgh so empty for a long time. The temperature isn’t cold, isn’t warm - it’s just neutral. It carries an almost physical reaction of approval. I remember winning a pub quiz and taking the prize fund outside onto Bruntsfield Links at 2 in the morning. I remember going upstairs to a flat I never saw before or since to feed someone’s cats out of a downpour. I have no idea why, or what we did afterwards, apart from argue, probably. I realise that I don’t remember with any clarity which one the Thirlestane Road double window is that denotes the front room I drank away an entire nine months in. Nine months passes a great deal quicker these days.

Anger is an admission of defeat, says D. Boyle’s silly latest outing. Cod psycho-drama, flashbacks, Danny’s trademark writing-on-the-screen that he could not resist, one nice touch of the ketchup bottle in the foreground during a bloody interlude (Ecclestone in Shallow Grave - “You didn’t saw his feet off”). I think anger is more a selfish thing, but it can rule me. I don’t think it’s a defeat. I think it’s an admission of weakness, of the corporate training that can do nothing to affect my buzzing brain and shaky hands under self-created pressure. But defeat seems final, finite, fin. I don’t think anger means getting to close the chapter - isn’t that the point?

Ultimately I deal with anger and frustration worse than some folk who have far more pressing problems. Even if they appear to be happy, even if they appear to be fine, whatever shields they have manufactured to assist. Me, I just miss you from my head down to my toes.

Catherine, I Feel Sick

Oh look, here are your new favourite band. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?

Dans la Maison

(Spoilers)

“It is a collection of observations of things that happen in life, and as I’ve learned, life happens everywhere.”

- Sune Rose Wagner on The Raveonettes’s Observator

So what is happening dans la maison, then? Part-voyeur, part-androgynous teen outsider (inevitable that the insufferable Catcher In The Rye would get a mention), part straightforward Oedipal complex fantasy. Mostly, what happens is a condemnation of sorts; there are no stories in stable family homes (just pizza and TV), so let’s write a more compelling, observatory alternative, have your lead character instructed to do what it takes to precipitate a script, even if his personification of a Chekhov’s Gun ends up fracturing that home. First of many subtexts - contentedness and drama do not mix.

I see now, I see it clearly again; the power of film is usually in the fleeting, in the sense of vague inspiration. Film is a misleading mistress, a manipulative leading lady who likes to pretend she is full of the profound but actually exists as more of a portal, an annoyance. In the scheme of things, nobody sees uniquely enough to become a director who can capture a picture, nobody splits their personality well enough to act convincingly. It’s not like being moved by pop music to pick up a guitar and learn the introductory open chords. It’s not like reading a novel and sitting down with an empty typewriter to create a reaction.

So, if we are not to make film as a result of film, what’s the cinema for? “Entertainment, entertainment, don’t be so serious”, I can hear the hollow words ring and ring, and they are capable of making me feel stupid for even bothering to think at all – but entertainment needs to be able to be analysed and absorbed on any level, as momentary pleasure, or high art, or in the form of a mentor-and-would-be-pupil arrangement if need be (Jonathan Meades, Jack White, Clive James, Kevin Shields, if you’re wondering). For most of us, the consumption of film does not produce any form of practical imitation, flattering or otherwise. It gets read, discussed, argued about, ordered in lists; but few enhance their understanding by trying their hand and producing the craft. Movies, to me, have always inadvertently pronounced my limitations rather than freeing anything interior. This would seem like a shame, but the real reason I stopped being actively interested in cinema was the depressing tidal wave of pure pop – the triumph of the willing rejection that film could be anything other than entertainment. The idea of homages to any of that is about the only concept that could worsen the state. I was jaded enough. I quit.

“I don’t care for compliments, but you write well.”

So what’s the point? It’s not often that a film leaves me with an itch to write, for the sake of it, because I no longer want to be a lousy writer, because I could maybe, one day, with effort, be fine at it. Not just in response to what was in the night before’s movie, just because. Even my beloved Wonder Boys didn’t conclude like that – with the feeling that “just because” was enough. This is a different idea to something like, say, 500 Days of Summer’s knowing preoccupation with urban conservation, where kids got interested in architecture because that was precisely what was intended to happen. Sales of Alain de Botton’s canon must have spiked, which certainly can’t be a bad thing. But instead of feeding us with a spoon, of telling us what to turn our minds to, Dans la Maison contains an aura, not an overt message, not anything specific, no sponsored hobbies. It feels literary in structure, but the dialogue is natural, and awkward, and brilliant, and doesn’t flow properly, and is something we might envisage hearing in reality, but is still slightly too highbrow for that. Nobody is lecturing on right and wrong. Stalking, literary merits, failed art and failed books, wasted potential, dreadful marriages, falling in love with the maternal figure present only because she happens to be there, talented emotional manipulation of both friend and mentor. It just happens. Take what you want from it.

All of this begs the really fundamental question; what is real here? The answer is as simplistic as the query - mainly it’s what you would like to be. We see Claude’s horrendous domestic reality for ten seconds of screen time, and it is all the more chilling, and enormously moving, for that. We are left to dwell ourselves. We are entrusted to be thoughtful enough to do so and let it haunt us.

Dans la Maison is smart stuff. I – almost physically - didn’t want it to end, partly because the film making was so effortless, and partly as the wry conclusion (see the artificial curtain pulling across the Rear Window-baiting final shot – not the first time that the fourth wall is breached, each time the schism between reality and fiction twitching further) could only be read as exactly that - a conclusion. Life is not a series of endings; it’s a series of random, ethereal, senseless scripts without a satisfying moral, without decent answers. By choosing to use a finite visual medium to describe one of the bothersome tales in his head, Ozon never had any option but to end his twisting story eventually, jolting us back into our own, rather than allowing us to meander through his any further. That his creations are far more immersive than anything I can come up with means this is not really a pity, but still. Pity.

Anyone can be fooled with pretty words, no matter how pretty themselves, and I wonder if that is such a bad thing after all. Falling for uncanny, comforting reflections of yourself, but improved, enhanced, more talented, is a thing worthy of ridicule - but that still has to be better than having all the answers laid out on a plate. It has to be.

Rave On

“Some people still don’t get what we’re all about so let me explain just a little. When we started out in Copenhagen in 2001 our initial intention was to hire 2 stand-up drummers and an additional guitarist. We wanted the stand-up drummers because of our fascination with the raw and primal beats of The Cramps. We actually wanted female drummers who had a certain burlesque feel to them. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to find 2 drummers, cause we had a tour lined up, so we settled on one really amazing jazz drummer instead. For years we toured as a 4-piece and then as a 5-piece. When that started getting out of hand and the initial idea behind The Raveonettes seemed to get lost in drunken days and drugged-out nights, we decided to start all over again and did some touring as a duo and then finally as a 3-piece with the stand-up drummer we always wanted. Our beats have always been ridiculously simple cause that’s the way we like it, so when people write that we use “…boring, old drum-machines…”, they’re partially right. Boring is just a shitty word for simple and the word old refers to that the fact we pretty much only use old jazz samples from Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Max Roach. We do however use many electronic drum samples as well. We love Suicide too hence the use of simple, raw electronic beats. Everything we do is made with computers and samples. We perform live using an Alesis HD 24 which runs all the beats, various percussion and sounds. We love electronic music such as Atari Teenage Riot, Primal Scream, Miss Kittin, Trentemoeller, Shizuo, Alec Empire and Nic Endo’s solo stuff. We’re 50% electronic and 50% organic(sorry I have no better words for it) and that’s the way it’s always been. We also have a deep fascination with surf music and the Pacific Ocean. The American West symbolizes a mystic and restless notion of the end of the world, perhaps the end of everything and the beginning a something new, a state of rebirth, if you will. It is the theme of many of our songs. We love the simple and powerful songwriting style of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and a lot of our sound is borrowed from these two geniuses. If you listen to “Everyday” by Buddy Holly, you’ll hear the familiar glockenspiel and the simple “hands on knees” beat which is basically what we’re all about. Our fascination with noise comes from Sonic Youth and Atari Teenage Riot. We sometimes use noise as a background layer(Attack Of The Ghost Riders and Sad Transmission)like The Mary Chain used to do so beautifully but mostly we use noise as another solo instrument like Sonic Youth. Sometimes we go all out like Atari Teenage Riot and in my opinion ATR will always be the masters of noise, no doubt about it! Having said all this, I wanna make it clear that we’ve never been opposed to change either so whatever happens, happens!

These are exciting times in the music industry as the old regime has been torn down by newer and better powers. The worlds have changed and the artist is finally back in control of everything, the way it should have always been. This means that if you’re a prolific and creative band you can really please yourself and others by letting everything flow in a continuous stream of interesting music and that’s exactly what we intend to do! Why wait another year or two for new material from your favorite band when we now have the opportunity to release new tunes whenever we feel like it? That’s right, 2008 will see the release of not only “Lust Lust Lust” but also an additional 3 EP’s each containing 3-4 new tunes. The first EP is set for release in September, then October and the last one in November.. We have no idea what direction these EP’s will take as of yet but they’re all gonna be fucking brilliant! Basically think about the glorious year of 1977 when The Ramones released two of their best albums “Leave Home” and “Rocket To Russia”, I wish bands would still do that. we’re taking it all back from the man! It’s time to be in control! Rave On!”

-Sune Rose Wagner, April 6th 2008.

No real criticism meant whatsoever, but I actually thought the Raves were relatively flat when they were touring during this Lust Lust Lust era. The three tranches of touring after that have seen something sparkier, more punchy, less restricted; for a band who have no real creative limits to impose them anyway always seemed a bit of a shame. I do still love Lust Lust Lust though. It captures a really primal conflict between euphoria and brutality, and only Sune and Sharin could ever have made it.

One Line Film Summaries Vol. 7493

Sliding Doors

It’s better to be pushed down some stairs than it is to get hit by a white van.