Spiritual/Esoteric/Philosophical Film and Arts Discussion

[Tourist]

This is for a continuation of the conversation we were having in the other thread, if anyone is still game. No lunatics please.

I saw a great esoteric movie recently, the 1973 classic, The Wicker Man.






These islanders have their own spiritual traditions


Our uptight "hero" is having none of it.


There are a few twists along the way

What I found interesting was the unique narrative structure and ambiguity in this movie. The protagonist isn't the most sympathetic character either. It's hard to say what the actual underlying message of the film is. Is there some connection between the rituals in this film and the Burning Man festival?

[Carlito Brigante]

I'll go with it. I watched this movie when I was a kid and got me hooked from the start.



After watching this movie killer whales were never the same.



Technically a Jaws rip off, the movie's still extremely effective.



The killer whale swears to avenge the death of its mother. Killer whales are very intelligent, which makes its killing rampage totally believable.



If looks could kill.

[Tourist]

I'm not sure if I could watch that movie. I've seen pods of orcas in the wild and they're pretty amazing creatures, so it would be hard to watch a movie that vilifies them. Jaws is thematically similar to Moby-Dick. Did you know that Moby-Dick was partially inspired by a true story? A sperm whale attacked and sank the whaling ship Essex in 1820, presumably out of revenge for the killing of his friends/family, although we can't really know why it did it. Ron Howard made a movie about the incident called In the Heart of the Sea.

[Carlito Brigante]

The interesting thing about Orca is that the whale is not really the villain.



This is the bad guy. The whale is an unusually complex antihero. Solid movie.



I'm interested in watching In the Heart of the Sea. The movie looks nice. I wasn't that much into Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World as I was watching it, but their arrival to the Galápagos islands changed things around and had me loving the movie. The journey feels torturous, but the destination was an interesting surprise. I dug that.



The battle scenes look real. These are flat out amazing visuals.

[Tourist]

Master and Commander is a favorite of mine. Another sailing movie I like is The Bounty.


These guys would rather chase girls than take orders



Honorable mention goes to Dead Calm starring a young Nicole Kidman.



A great little thriller about a couple on a sailboat cruise and their unexpected guest.

[Carlito Brigante]

I saw Dead Calm. I'm still grossing out at the scene where he has to breath through the pipe underwater. I have no idea what happened then. It was a long time ago.

There is this small little british classic that still keeps haunting me.



Abandon Ship! Also based on a true story about an 1840's shipwreck.



The lifeboat is overcrowded.



This creepy looking guy thinks it's a good idea to push half the people away into sea to keep the load lighter.



This guy disagrees.

[Tourist]

Interesting. I don't know what's worse, being thrown overboard or being eaten by your crew-mates like one group of survivors from the Essex, who drew lots to see who would be the sacrificial lamb.

Hitchcock's Lifeboat is pretty good as well. The opening scene with the u-boat and sinking of the ship is fairly stunning for a film of that period, but he was always ahead of his time. This one boils down to a microcosm of society having to work together and overcome conflict to survive. I guess that is a tired movie trope by now, but it still holds up well due to strong performances.

[Tourist]

Another good sailing film - All is Lost


Looks like smooth sailing ahead


But not for long


It only gets worse

[Carlito Brigante]

I watched All Is Lost recently. The movie doesn't mince words. Goes straight to the point. I liked that. I love the 70's disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure.



They're having a great time on New Year's Day, although the time zone's a little sketchy.



The wave suddenly crashes the party.



Despite some minor misgivings they slowly try to find their way to the top.



The group faces tragedy at every corner.

[Tourist]

I haven't seen The Poseidon Adventure. It looks like it got solid reviews from the critics, so I'll add it to my Netflix queue.

Last night I watched the granddaddy of esoteric films, Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain


Something about duality


Triangles


The all-seeing board room


Not much of a plot, just a bunch of surrealist symbolism strung together. He borrows from everything - religions, the occult, masonry, etc. Some political and social commentary added as well. It's really too much packed into one film but It was better than I thought it would be, and was definitely worth watching. I'd suggest a few drinks first though.

[thevoid99]

Fucking love The Holy Mountain and El Topo fucking ruled! Jodorowsky is a fucking genius. I still want to see his version of Dune which I think would've fucking out there.

[Tourist]

Fucking love The Holy Mountain and El Topo fucking ruled! Jodorowsky is a fucking genius. I still want to see his version of Dune which I think would've fucking out there.

I really enjoyed the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune. His version would have been been amazing for sure. I'll probably watch El Topo soon too.



I have a hard time finding good movies I haven't seen yet, so I've been exploring stuff that isn't mainstream. I guess I've been looking for stuff that is deeper and more artistic. If you have any suggestions please share them .

[Carlito Brigante]

I haven't seen that one, but if you really want obscure artistic visuals then you need to see Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. The visuals are hypnotic.

[Tourist]

Sure, I'll give Dreams a shot. I've seen a few of his samurai movies and they were pretty cool.

A Japanese anime movie I watched recently - Ghost in the Shell



Every bit as good as everyone says. You can definitely see how it influenced other films that came later like The Matrix.

[Carlito Brigante]

Ghost in the Shell is gold. I still can't decide which one is better, the first one or the second one. This one is not a movie, but it definitely ranks up there as downright bizarre.









It was remade recently and it was pretty good too, but the older one is still way much better.