Category Archives: movies

movies, philosophy

>Into The Wild and the ego

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Photo shot in Sweden, way up north, summer 2006.

Sean Penn’s latest feat, the beautiful and astonishing film Into The Wild, really gets your mind going. In itself the movie might not be that amazing in what it shows (even though there are some truly breathcatching scenes revealing Mother Nature in her true majestic pride) – it’s what the film plants in your mind that’s the most interesting aspect, I think. But in a way, there’s nothing new here. People have always broken up from their daily lives and sought out a more meaningful existence. I guess it happens everyday, with the exception that most of us who have those wild ideas of living alone in the middle of nowhere never turn those ideas into reality…

Based on the book Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer the film tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a young gifted university graduate who leaves everything behind (parents, sibling, friends, money) to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness. This is his reality and this is his choice – as opposed to enduring the Spectacle, a consuming reality chosen by others. Freedom and moral inquiry are the keywords here, and Chris was widely influenced by the works of Henry David Thoreau, Jack London and Leo Tolstoy – like so many others before and after him. Hell, I’m reading Thoreau every now and then and every time I start to think about life in a cabin besides a pond in a forest unknown, where I can read, write, walk, listen and explore my freedom. I guess everybody have those thoughts when reading that book.
However, I’m so deeply rooted in the consumer’s society I probably wouldn’t make it through the first night, but I’ve made some choices that will sort of pave way for a more genuine life style a couple of years ahead. That’s my great plan anyway.

After having rented shitty apartments in shitty neighbourhoods and shared flats with friends for over eight years (which was kind of hell for me at times, since I enjoy being alone, not having to socialize and attend their parties) I decided to get my very own place. When the opportunity arose – money! – I bought an apartment in an area which suited me perfect. It’s close to the city, but it’s got all the nature you could ask for and that’s a good start when slowly trying to get away…
Also, I quit a lot of things which mostly brought me headaches. I quit doing the film club, I quit my stupid job and got another one which is awesome. Recently, even though my job is awesome, I decided to cut one day so now I work four days a week instead of five to be able to do more reading, writing and the stuff that really matters to me. I quit a lot of other shit as well, just time consuming mindless crap that I could do without. A visit to the Northern parts of Sweden living the life I’m seeking for five days also made it very clear to me that that’s the way one should live. I want to devote more time to reading, writing and exploring, preferably in an environment where I can live and dwell alone.

All this, in conjunction with the film and the books I’m reading, naturally makes me think a lot. It raises a lot of questions. Is breaking away from humanity the same as escaping from reality? Is it taking the easy way out, escaping all the problems? The ultimate egoism? Well, since I have no hope for humanity, and truly believe in a dark, sterile, dead future, why should I care about others? Well I do, because I’m a humanist as well. A misanthropic humanist. Wow…
But I guess it’s my way of dealing with reality; to be creative, dynamic and to constantly develop and nurture new “skills” and ways of thinking. To do that, one certainly needs time alone.
But hey, looking at how deeply rooted I am in this consumer’s society it’ll probably take me another thirty years to get my cabin and pond. Still, that’s what I’m hoping for. I’ll have to learn to cook first, though.

In an upcoming article I’ll hopefully relate all this to Spengler and modernity. Meanwhile, in case you missed, here’s some stuff I wrote earlier that kind of connects with these issues:

Living with the dying
Oswald Spengler – The Decline of Cultures
Här finns inget varaktigt och allmängiltigt (about Spengler in Swedish)
Great movies of the 80’s: Threads
Society’s sickness
Situationism – Part 1
Situationism – Part 2
Situationism – Part 3
Planet Earth and misanthropy
The art of psychogeography

Relevant blogs:
Oskorei
Fimbulvinter

To buy the best swedish translation of Thoreau’s Walden, click here for more info.
And to watch another great movie, check out Grizzly Man.

movies

>The best movies 2007

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>Here’s 15 of my favourite movies 2007. Sure, there’s some 2006 movies on the list, but this is Sweden – we’re a bit behind. And I really had to include Farväl Falkenberg since I totally missed out on that one in 2006.
One movie that I couldn’t find on IMDb is the fantastic Zeitgeist, probably because it’s a homemade over the top piece of conspiracy theories. You can watch the whole movie online at the official Zeitgeist The Movie site.

All in all I think 2007 was a pretty bad movie year. The amount of stupid high school comedies and blockbuster action flicks was overwhelming, but I guess that’s what the teens like. Having said that, I’m really looking forward to the new Rambo movie! It seems way out there, and sometimes that can be awesome. Repeat the mantra: Everything bad is good for you…
To balance what I just said, I promise I’ll go visit Cinemateket more often.

Click + for covers and general information.

movies, philosophy, politics

>Planet Earth and misanthropy

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>Originally posted November 01, 2007.


The BBC series Planet Eart is truly amazing. I got it on Blu-ray the other day and wow… 550 minutes of pure brilliance. I’ve seen a lot of these programs before, and the first twenty minutes didn’t quite cut it for me, but then these jaw dropping scenes of fantastic footage, time lapsed stuff and brilliant slow motion sequences began to appear and I was on my knees worshipping.




But since I’m a dystopic kind of guy holding a deep pessisism for the future (which has been nurtured for so many years), I ask you: how can you not be misanthropic after watching this series? How can you not loathe the human race? What better way to save the planet than to end all human life? What better way to end all suffering than to end our profane existence?
We’ve been destroying the earth and ourselves for so long and there is no change up front as far as I see it.






If I could I definitely would.
movies

>Great movies of the 80’s: A Short Film About Killing

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>Originally posted July 07, 2007.

This is one of those movies which will make you feel uneasy. The opening sequence, a dead cat hanging from a rope, sets the pace, and then we’re off into the landscapes that constitutes Warsaw and its Polish dullness, darkness and dirty floors. The movie’s got a muddy colour tone throughout the whole 84 minutes, almost Twin Peaks-esque, which adds a lot to the overall feeling. It’s a slow movie, but very dense in actual content. It certainly gets your mind going.

We follow three parallel lives that intervene in a realistic way (not Memento– or Lucky Number Slevin-style, that is…): the anti-social loner who’s aimlessly drifting through the city observing people who are treating each other rather bad (just enough to make for some unnecessary irritation), the lawyer who’s eager to make an impact, and the arrogant cab driver.


It’s about the small annoying, unnecessary things we do in our everyday lives, like disrespecting each other, things that add up to mayhem in the very end. It’s also about the consequences of boredom combined with sick minds. And ultimately it tells the story of two (three? four?) murders, one of them being sanctioned by the state, and the other one might just as well be a result of just that – capital punishment. The vicious circle spins infinitely…

And I promise, I had no idea that Krzysztof Kieslowski directed this movie when I saw it. I’m no big fan of his movies, even though I find them interesting at times, but had I known he was behind this I might have approached it differently, being more sceptical. Good for me I didn’t know, then.

A Short Film About Killing (1988) is actually a feature lengt adaptation of his hour long piece belonging to the Dekalog series (modern representations of the ten commandments set in a socio-realist Warsaw in Poland). This one is obviously the “thou shall not kill” commandment in all its glory.

gaming, movies

>Att tillåta sig själv att vara dum i huvudet

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>Originally posted june 21, 2007.

I’ve started writing for the Swedish paper Tidningen Kulturen. It’s first and foremost a weekly periodical published on good ol’ paper, but some of its content is published online as well. My first text is an attack on mindless reviewers and critics. The whole paper is in Swedish, so… bring out your dictionaries, you people of alien origin.
—


Att tillåta sig själv att vara dum i huvudet

Lågt vördare idioter.
När man nattetid plöjt Deleuze, kanske beskådat Tarkovskijs Stalker ännu en gång, tänkt till kring världspolitikens dagsfrågor och vurmat för kulturell bildning och fan vet allt bra och nyttigt man gjort under ett dygn, då är det kanske dags att klä av sig naken, inta liggläge i nån gammal maläten fåtölj och placera hjärnan på fotpallen för en timme eller två. Låta förnuftet släppa taget.
Man måste nämligen tillåta sig själv att vara dum i huvudet ibland.

Det är i detta tillstånd, den kravlösa dumhetens tillstånd, man bör recensera vissa typer av kulturella yttringar för att de ska komma till sin rätt. Den allmänhatade förståsigpåaren bör i detta fall regrediera till puberteten och de värkande knotterbollarnas tid, kanske häva en till pojkrummet insmugglad lättöl och spänna sig framför spegeln – allt detta för att kunna insupa vad som komma skall.
Och det som kommer är i det här fallet 300, Zack Snyders film som blivit så sågad av den kulturella eliten, samtidigt som den blivit så hyllad i – dataspelstidningar!
Och det är här förståsigpåarna går bet, för till vem riktar sig filmen? Ja, inte är det till överkulturknullade, rödvinspimplande livsnjutarskribenter i alla fall. Nej, det är hormonstinna fjortisar (jag är en sådan i en 32-årings kropp, när jag lagt ifrån mig Deleuze…) som ska underhållas. De för vilka IRL är lika med online, där kontakter knyts bakom stängda dörrar i anarkistisk frihet.


300 är som ett fett intro till en next gen-konsoll. Hela filmen är så alltså. Fullständigt bisarr. Fantastiskt korkad. För ändamålet dock alltigenom klockren.
Förståsigpåarna jämrar sig över historisk inkorrekthet, krigspropaganda och imperialistiskt inflytande på oss mindre bemedlade. Gällande det historiska: filmen bygger på en serietidning som är allt annat än historiskt korrekt. Slutdiskuterat på den punkten.
Krigspropaganda? USA-flirtande? Måhända. Det är som sagt i ett vidare begrepp mer eller mindre ett dataspel vi snackar om (visst kan USA:s utrikespolitik liknas vid just detta, ett dataspelsmässigt agerande), och den som inte räds sanningen vet att det är välgjorda våldsspel (Grand Theft Auto-serien) som röner större framgång, varar längre och skapar mer givande debatter än gulligulliga pusseldito med moralkakor till frukost. Detta är nuläget. Ni behöver inte gilla det, men ansträng er åtminstone en sekund och försök greppa perspektivet genom era solkiga postorderlinser. Det är trots allt ert jobb, ni lågt vördare recensenter som sågar på IQ-befriade grunder.

300 är en IQ-befriad rulle. Det är väl ingen som förnekar detta? Tar man den för vad den är och placerar den i sin rätta kontext bör man också skapa sin kritik därefter. Få av förståsigpåarna har gjort detta. De har mestadels gjort sig lustiga över den där Jean-Pierre Barda-bögen i guldkalsonger. Man kan undra om de läser serier, spelar dataspel eller någonsin gjort en omvärldsanalys. Kanske är de bara kåta på uppmärksamhet och vill synas i media?
Det går att jämföra äpplen med päron (300 med Casablanca), men det är inte smart. Det är IQ-befriat. Vi fjortisar skrattar alltså åt er idioti och drar vidare längs den virtuella allén.

300 – March to Glory har i dagarna släppts till Playstation Portable. Varje vettig varelse som har spel som sitt intresse och levebröd har givetvis sågat skiten, men jag ger mig fan på att om en sådan där pseudoviktig förståsigpåare recenserat spelet hade det blivit full pott. ”Wow, det här är inte illa jämfört med mitt gamla Game & Watch!”
Vänligen gräv er egen grav och tillåt mig knuffa er däri.
Put up or shut up.
This is the end.

Mattias Indy Pettersson
—
Published in Tidningen Kulturen #16/2007, June 12th

movies, politics

>Great movies of the 80’s: Threads

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>Originally posted June 10, 2007.

You’re in for something really dark and depressing here. Mick Jackson’s Threads (1984) really got to me the first time I saw it, and by reading the reviews it seems I wasn’t the only one having a hard time sleeping for a couple of nights. Some say they still have nightmares twenty years after watching this movie.

So what makes this film so horrifying? Obviously because it’s so very real.
It’s set in Sheffield, England, in the mid 80’s during the Cold War, and in short shows what might happen if the world would face a nuclear war. It brings society to its knees, forcing us to go back to our very basic principles and needs. There’s no comfort to be found anywhere. Everything is bleak and hopeless, still the people are fighting for survival. Survival for what? one might ask. Survival to face even more death and destruction? There’s no electricity, no clean water, hardly any food and all hope is gone. Outside the world is dying as rulers of the earth wage their pretty little video game war.
What would you do?


The documentary style along with the grim scenes makes for some truly memorable moments. The fact that it could happen any day, without warning, adds to the realism. You won’t find any over the top Hollywood special effects in this movie, just the disturbing truth of what would really happen living in a radioactive environment while there’s a war going on outside no one is safe from (hi Mobb Deep!). There’s no second chances here.

When will we push the button?
When will the warheads hit?
When will the madness end?


Keep in mind that there are many thousand nuclear weapons ready to be fired at any time aimed at any place in the world within minutes. Look at the US and the Soviet Union at this very moment, june 2007:
USA is planning to place missile defence systems in eastern Europe (according to the US: “to counter the threat from Iran”), and Putin (who fears USA is planning to aim their missiles towards Russia, since he argues that the threat from Iran is non-existent) will respond by aiming his nuclear arms towards Europe!
Holy fuck, this surely is a video game to those asshole leaders!
Seems like there’s a new arms race around the corner… Read about it in Swedish here, and in English here.

You really should watch this film on a proper system, but for those of you who can’t get a hold of the DVD it’s available online here. Please, do NOT fast forward – you’ll miss out on the whole thing, you dumb fuck.

But then again, mushroom clouds and fireballs can look pretty beautiful…



Afterword: Square Leg was a British government project made in 1980 that estimated what would happen in Britain in the event of an actual nuclear attack. It projected the mortality rate at 29 million, serious injuries at 7 million and short term survivors at 19 million.

movies

>Great movies of the 80’s: Manhunter

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>Originally posted June 02, 2007.
Of all the Hannibal Lecter movies, this is the one I like best. Sure, Silence of The Lambs is ace, but the follow-ups are just pure crap. Michael Mann’s Manhunter (1986) captures something special, though. It’s got that 80’s touch that I adore.

Lecter, or Lecktor as he’s named in this movie, doesn’t play a very big part here. He’s in there for a few minutes, looking cool and acting smart, and that’s about it. The main character in my eyes is definitely the killer, Francis Dollarhyde, played to perfection by Tom Noonan.


He’s just amazing! Look at his haircut. Look at the way he has his pants way up to his armpits. And his “mask” is pure perverted genius. And of course he’s harelipped…
Important: Make sure you get the version where his chest tattoo is left out! I think that’s crucial for the experience, since his tattoo is a bit over the top and just diminishes the character.

As for the 80’s vibes, you get some really cheesy, totally unmotivated slow motion sequences, the men are wearing ugly as fuck ties, and it all ends with a typical freeze frame as the end credits starts to roll.
The end credits have this typical modern 80’s song, you know the one where they’ve bought their first keyboard and totally overuse it. The sounds just go “KLANG!” and “BAM!” and it comes out kind of futuristic, dark and depressing. It’s like if Howard Jones tried to compose the score for Terminator or something. The same stuff goes on in Scarface and the first Rocky movie. It’s just weird.
The soundtrack is in itself truly amazing in this sense. There’s some really memorable tunes in there.

All in all, it’s a great thriller that you need to see.
When you’re done, head over to Manhunter – The complete resource site, it’s extreme in its worship of the Manhunter concept. It’s well over 200 pages of information, and the dude even made a breakdown of the soundtrack!
I love the internet.