3.17 - 21 GRAMS (2003), Change, & Grief

Our next Iñárritu film sees him move from Spanish to English (although the change of language doesn’t indicate a change in mood!) with 21 GRAMS (2003). We talk about screen presentations of grief and the way that the impact of cinema changes over time — and one of us changes his mind a little about the movie...

Next Week
Iñárritu stays in English for the last in his ‘Death Trilogy’: BABEL (also available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/BABEL-Cate-Blanchett/dp/B00FYNX6TU

This Week’s Media
TOKYO TRIBE (2014): Sion Sono, Ryōhei Suzuki, Riki Takeuchi
BACK (2017): Simon Blackwell, David Mitchell, Robert Webb
F.R.I.E.N.D.S (1994-2004): David Crane, Marta Kauffman, Jennifer Aniston

Recommendations
SWINGERS (1996): Doug Liman, Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn
THE WORLD’S END (2013): Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
SICARIO (2015): Denis Villeneuve, Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro
BIG EYES (2014): Tim Burton, Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz
UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929): Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Pierre Batcheff

Footnotes
First, this week, apologies if Sam’s audio is even more ropey than usual (which, incidentally, isn’t for lack of trying! apparently even a fancy new mic didn’t quite do the trick): blame the whirrings of an ancient computer fan. Second, on the subject of revisiting cultural artefacts and one of the TV shows we talk about this week, this is an interesting and funny take on some of the relationships in FRIENDS: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/amp11807508/joey-rachel-friends-together. This is an in-depth piece on one of the greatest practitioners of the ‘mosaic film-making’ style Rob describes: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/filmmakers-masterclass-with-andrei-tarkovsky-cinema-is-a-mosaic-made-of-time. Here’s a reminder of the details of the ‘bleach bypass’ technique: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach_bypass. Finally, here’s more on the artistic movement that spawned Rob’s final recommendation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism