Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

Directed by Nina Menkes

Documentary

A solid primer on the male gaze that also ends up touching on aspects of the theory that always rub me the wrong way, but I won’t get into that because that requires paragraphs worth of caveats and background to not sound like “oh yeah well women your theory is wrong.” Was super surprised they resisted the urge to use the infamous shot from the graduate, so good on them there. Was a bit dry at points and probably could have done with being like 10-20 minutes shorter.

The Low, Low Woods

Written by Carmen Mara Machado, Art by Dani

Comic Mini-Series

A good horror(ish) mini-series. The town is like 60-70% lesbians by volume and good lord I have to escape this purgatory of only running into lesbians in media I seem to be stuck in. There were some very nice formalistic explorations of page layout that worked about half the time but is always nice to see – even I get tired of the venerable 3x3 grid. Dunno what else you want from me. Oh yeah the colors where really nice as well. Probably shouldn’t go into the thematic stuff as it’s quite clearly not my area.

Lancelot of the Lake

Directed by Robert Bresson

Film

A bold undercutting of the Knights of the Round Table the likes of which I’ve never really seen before. Very little combat is shown, Bresson prefering to focus on the bloody remains afterwords or the legs of their charging horses. This extends to what would usually be the center showpiece of such a film, the tournament. A never ending succession of grabbing lances, horse torsos, and crowd reacting with surprise. While Bresson maintains traditional face framing for dialogue scenes, when moving between them he favors the legs of both the actors(particular the bare backsides of their armor) and of horses. The fabled Knights squabble among themselves over trivial honor and show a complete lack in all positive qualities. Entire battles happen off screen and we have to piece together who was injured by whom, refusing to dignify their deadly squabbles with screentime. Everyone perishes pointlessly. The conception of the noble knight is just as much of a sham as the Round Table. It was all lies, even within its own context.

God damn I liked this film but thinking about it more it might be outstanding.