Please Do Not Sit on the Artwork

jhnbrssndn:

mills:

Plastic Bag, by Ramin Bahrani, narrated by Werner Herzog. Posted by the excellent Petitchou. I saw this film at the Telluride Film Festival thanks to the absurd generosity of Tragos and his wife A. We were introduced to it by Herzog himself, in the midst of seeing the premiers of Bad Lietenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? Some notes:

First, I don’t blame the pastic bag for its unfortunate association with that overrated, treacly lecture to the fly-over states called American Beauty, the tagline to which was actually, appallingly: “Look Deeper.” Just as the most beautiful words in our language are sometimes uttered by idiots or spit as lies though insincere smiles, so too are images sometimes misused.

Second, the movie was not, for me, political. Instead, it spoke to my lifelong anthropomorphization of objects, a silly emotional habit which usually takes a maudlin tone before I snap myself to reasoned attention. It surely comes from children’s books. I worry a lot about how the can of soup left in my house years ago, now dusty in a kitchen cabinet, its labelling out-of-date, its contents undesired, feels. I wonder if it wishes it were to be used. I think sadly of its demise and cannot bring myself to throw it away.

The inanimate world is almost entirely comprised, in my imagination, of victims: spoons that live in drawers or mouths, old shoes that I should have liked more, trinkets someone loved by who can no longer protect them. This sort of projection is easily contained, amusing enough, yet momentarily affecting and oddly persistent.

Thus: this movie was like a fantasy wrought by my imbecilic imaginative relationship with objects, complete with wonderful narration and an effortlessness to the visual effects that amazed me. It also fascinated by its easy assertion of millennial time: this is what life would be like if it lasted forever. It reminded me a bit even of Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters.

My only real complaint: I didn’t like the ecstatic music at the end. Other than that, I loved it, and hope you do too.

Ramin Bahrani might be the best working filmmaker in America.  I wish that ANY movie I’ve seen this year was as inventive, well-told, and deeply-felt as this short.