Week 3 - Lynda

Symbiopsycotaxiplasm: Take One

In Sybiopsctaxiplasm we are introduced to the ‘meta’ factor quite early. There are three cameras shooting the film. One camera is used to shoot the actors. Another camera is used to shoot the camera shooting the actors. The third camera is used to shoot the camera that is shooting the camera shooting the actors. It would be interesting if the kept adding cameras to build on this chain of footage. I was not really sure if the director went into the film with a clear intention or not. I wonder if he ever intended just to show the film containing the actors. With the super lame script and everything. I also wondered if he had intended all this time to leave everything open ended--to let the film create itself. At one point a crew member mentioned that the film could be edited 300 different ways and never have the same meaning. That is interesting to me. I found the viewing of Symbiopsycotaxiplasm: Take One to be an experience. I still am unsure of how genuine it is. But there were definitely certain  moments that seemed completely genuine. For example, the moment when the actor explained that he just wanted to be a better actor. I feel like he actually felt that way. I guess we’ll never really know what was scripted and what was not.

I Am Curious – Yellow

Much like Symbiopsycotaxiplasm: Take One, I am Curious – Yellow was another meta experience. There were many times that I forgot I was viewing a film within a film. At certain points it felt like a documentary—when Lena was interviewing people on the street. Other times it felt completely played out—when certain things would come on the screen such as a question mark. The film definitely plays with the viewer in that way. Whenever we break the wall and are reminding that we are watching a film within a film. It’s like a “oh yeah” moment for me. I became invested in the characters that the characters were playing. Once I was reminded that they were playing characters, there was something taken away from that investment. Possibly it was the lack of genuine emotion. There are moments and scene that make the viewer question what is surely apart of the film and what is apart of the film within the film. A good example of this is when Lena and her “lover” are fighting in the cabin and the director shuts the door. Another example is when the film feels like a documentary—where those genuine responses from random interviewees on the street? I would like to think so. It certainly felt that way. I really enjoyed my experience of this film and the way that it made me switch back and forth between what I thought was “real,” which was fake anyways, and then what I knew was not real, which were the moments when the wall was broken and it was apparent that they were filming a film within a film.