I don’t know much about de la Iglesia. Maybe I should as I have seen quite a few of his movies (well, just over half of his features, but still there aren’t that many directors I’ve seen nine movies from) and he has had a prolific career with some international success despite being very Spanish in his output. Or at least I would assume many of the references in his movies are very obscure anywhere outside of Spain.
Let’s start with this again: This is one of those situations where I need to remind myself and anyone reading this that I am indeed white cishet male born and living in Finland with decent income and a good education. I do not want to try to push my point of view over that of any minority regarding any topic that affects them. Gladly, I did find a black voice that does uphold my views and, obviously, is more nuanced than what I have to say about that specifically. You can find that here: One Fetish After Another by Brooke Obie.
Okay, admittedly this is a pretty useless list for anyone who doesn’t know me…
Maybe I should have worked up to him instead of putting him this early in the series.
First off, I had the opportunity to see a screening with Anna Eriksson, the director, introducing the film and having a Q&A session afterwards. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I did struggle through a horrific need to piss to hear her out, because she knew her shit. Also, I have been to such events previously and what was (gladly) missing from this one was the ego some of those people have regarding their work.
I think I might be emphasizing directors here a little too much, but they are an easy place to start.
Who the fuck is Ken Russell? I know the name and I’ve seen some of his huge filmography, but he has also always remained an elusive figure to me. I have never seen that many of his films and there doesn’t seem to be a real throughline in the ones that I have seen. Except that they are all weird.
I will start with an admission: I have seen quite a few of his movies, but I remember them in a weird haze where I’m not sure what is from what movie, so I won’t discuss specific movies very much.
This is something I have been thinking about for a while now, so instead of planning this any further, I just decided to do this. The point being that I am going to write a series of posts about movies, directors and related concepts that might be considered guilty pleasures.