Kampf der Königinnen (Steiner, 2011)

The yearly cow battles in the canton Valais of Switzerland to crown the queen of cows is a spectacle.

I've missed this movie twice at festivals and was looking forward to see it now. Steiner tried to weave a documentary-style story around the actual event, trying to bring the characters closer together. He didn't manage that on all accounts and once in a while I dropped out of the narrative, wondering where he was going with that. I really liked the genuine farmers that breed those cows for fun (they don't give milk or meat) and let them fight each other in a increasingly popular competition once a year.

These are not your vachequirit cows, they are more sinister, they seem dangerous, they're heavily built and they look very powerful. I have been told that the cows are obliged to be pregnant to able to fight, because otherwise they might prove too aggressive. I was a little disappointed that they've let this pretty bizarre fact out of the movie, it might have added to that final fight. Those approximately 12-15 minutes of pure fighting accompanied by a pretty driving interpretation of the Bolero are really amazing to watch.

If I'm doing a fight scene, I'm absolutely going back to this part of the movie. Pure cowdrenalin!

Kommentare

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Time of the Gypsies / Dom Za Vesanje (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

A supernaturally gifted boy from a Gypsy community is forced to survive in the world of crime. The intriguing qualities of Kusturica's films I've seen is his relentless depiction of basically crazy communities. Not just agreeably potty, they're usually outright interstellar-nuts. Here, he follows the fate of the rather harmless boy Perhan, that leaves for Italy in hope of a better future for him and his loved ones. There are some enormously interesting images in the film that kept ringing long after. The ritual in the river and the last scene in the church ruin (with a horse standing somewhere far back in the image...). After sketchily mapping out the scenes it is surprising how rigorously three-acty the screenplay is constructed. The first act seems quite long in terms of time and number of scenes, but there is also a lot of imagery spent on depicting life in this crazy universe, which makes the second part in Italy much more believable. And there is a certa...

The Bank Dick (Cline, 1940) #DTC #848

The grumpy family head and hobby sleuth gets hired by the local bank. I have never (gasp) watched a WC Fields movie before, so it took my pretty long to get used to this - in its time well known - personality that is quite a misanthrope. The pacing of the actual film felt slow and the scenes had not a lot of connection to the grand story, basically just setting the stage for the gags Fields was performing. It is quite interesting if you start to sympathize for such a thoroughly unsympathetic character on screen. Maybe because the man basically just wants to be left alone - everything that happens to him, even under the most contrived circumstances doesn't affect him in the least. It doesn't even look like he is interested in the money. Except for the money part, the disaffectionate personality seems like a rather modern rendering of the hedonistic generation Y, despite all vintage look-and-feel. I wonder about the other films, hope to get around to see them soon.

Detour (Ulmer, 1945) #TSPDT #390

A hitchhiker is picked up by death and then picks up his personal tormenting devil. The plot looked fairly straightforward, but the magic of this gem is that the story strand convolutes until it tightens into a strangling gordic knot - which is pretty much exactly what happens towards the end. The flashback structure are very noir-ish, so was the plot - everything straight down, right from the beginning. I really rooted for the guy to get out of this situation, but every time he takes a decision it actually gets worse - so in the end I was just hoping he might die and get relieved. Most striking was the jaw-dropping performance of Ann Savage. She pops out about a mile and her character is rendered so immensely unlikeable that I wondered that she has not been called the godmother of a new type of acting school (maybe she was?) This is definitively a film worth studying again. Its shortness does nothing to diminish the impact and it is rich on details.

Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

Dieses Blog durchsuchen