So where do all of you stand on Jia and Weerasethakul? (Me, I love them too.)
Also, in my experience I've found that Tsai's presentation of sexuality can be troubling for some viewers, as well as his fondness for camp elements. Does his gay sensibility have anything to do with how one feels? Positively of negatively? And not to imply that this is connected to one's own sexuality or by extension any "phobias." (Writing as gay man, I confess a loathing of much of "gay culture," in cinema and elsewhere. Madonna, for example, has always seemed to me to be nothing but one station in an unholy trinity I think of as "the plagues of the 1980's", alongside Ronald Reagan and AIDS.) But I confess I respond to something in Tsai's "queerness" (maybe a better term here), and likewise in Weerasethakul. They both seem representative of a some cultural shift that finally allows queer filmmakers to create without having their queerness seem like the totality of their identity.
Not only that, but haven't we all - be honest - been bored occasionally by films we love, especially the difficult ones? It depends on my readiness to be receptive on that particular occasion. For me, I've been enraptured by films that have bored me on the second viewing, or simply put me to sleep, only to view them again and find more beauty still. For example, Dreyer's GERTRUD - anybody? - Jia's THE WORLD, Godard's WEEKEND (among others), as well as works by Griffith, Vertov, Naruse, Rivette, the Dardennes, Hong Sans Soo. I still can't get my attention span around CLAIRE'S KNEE and I suspect it must be me because I love Rohmer above most all other cinema.StevenJ0001 wrote:Anyway, dismissing either as "boring" is unhelpful and simply suggests a lack of patience on the part of the viewer, IMO.