Describe a film’s VIBE

Describe a film’s VIBE

The Triplets of Belleville was a tough one to get into – I watched portions at a time, but eventually I got into the whimsy vibe.
Every film has a vibe – that vibe is central to its art – if you don’t get the vibe, you don’t get the art. Michael Mann’s work has a vibe, so do Tony Scott’s films.

The OP has to go first. So….
Abderrahmane Sissako’s Waiting for Happiness
The vibe?
It’s getting on to summer – the eternity of ocean waves rolling up on hot sand, the hazy-blue horizon, a soft warm night breeze, colors of sunset, Oumou Sangare on the CD, and waiting for happiness to arrive.
Yeah, and that’s the vibe I’m into now…

What is your film’s vibe?

Nice idea Robert, I’ll give it some thought and come back later on. Glad to see you found the vibe for Waiting for Happiness so pleasant as I enjoyed that one too.

Greg:
Here’s a challenge: please describe the vibe for Eric Rohmer’s Perceval (1978) .

I couldn’t do it, but I know you love that film …

I’m like the Chinese dude serenading a local beauty on the karaoke machine. It seemed like a pretty good life to me.

BK,

Oh, I was just riffing on RWP’s thoughts on Waiting for Happiness and describing a scene from that film.

The Vanishing:

An overripe afternoon suffused with sickly yellow light, the smell of earth, bleak, bland, mundane, the hint of chill in the air as twilight comes on, the lights on the highway in the distance, lonely towns passing by, stale memories.

Blade Runner:

past and future merging into one murky dream drenched in feeling, familiar and alien, timelessness, moving through molasses

:lmao How could I forget that scene?

C’mon, no riffs… something central to a film’s art heart.

Oooh good ones Kate.

Yeah, basically the wispy, whimsy, and quiet classics threads are all threads in search of a specific vibe. Sometimes its easy, like if you want some good ol’ fashioned swashbuckling with verbal elan to match so seek ye some Errol Flynn or PotC movie, but what do you do when you want a movie “like” Woyzeck ? It’s easier to go on to the same directors, actors, themes, story points, but underlying those things is a vibe that set you alert, kept you involved. Much more difficult to describe.

Thus:

The wooden craftsmanship of insanity, the way militaries and psychologists shave and mold, the trembling twig wanting to snap, but falling over in a blunted knock instead.

Movies with similar vibe: Jiri Barta’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Other than the vibe, the rest is completely different.

—PolarisDiB

Hmm. Perceval, that’s a tough one. Maybe something like; celebrating Christmas with your significant other’s extended family for the first time?

No, that won’t quite do, maybe something less familiar like following a group of hotties into your first Easter mass while tripping on mushrooms would be more accurate…

Cool thread, although I don’t know if I’m into a specific vibe right now. Nathan started a thread on Meet Me in St. Louis and there’s definitely a kind of wistful, idyllic family vibe that I like in that one.

No time to put anything down now, but must say that even at this junction of its short life this thread is already exquisite.

Donovan’s Reef – Haltime at the Aloha Bowl, Navy vs Notre Dame, you’ve got a hip flask of rum, ten bucks on the over, and the score’s tied at 31.

Inception – A greyhound bus ride from Kansas City to Omaha sitting behind a guy who is describing the final season of Lost to someone who hasn’t seen the show.

Those are two good ones – could the vibe of Perceval be understanding and communicating understanding or is that not a vibe? a film vibe is the ‘about’ expressed indirectly in poetic terms?

Meet Me in St. Louis (response to Jazzahola)

CANDY! EFFIN’ SWEET! SUGAR! GOD NO! ROTTEN TEETH! GACK! CHOKING! MORE SUGAR! Hey at least Tootie’s dark… WHY DOES EVEN THE MUD ON THE STREET LOOK LIKE WHIPPED CHOCOLATE?!

(That movie gave me cinematic diabetes. I’ve had to give myself insulin shots of Buster Keaton ever since).

—PolarisDiB

For me, the vibe thing is trying to substitute the feel of one environment for that of the film, so I’ve been thinking in more concrete terms, but really, I don’t know. My thinking with Perceval was to get the feeling of unfamiliarity, ritual, a little sex, growing to something more meaningful while still odd, plus music.

Call me Hansel ’cause

all I see is Ginger Bread inhabited by Marshmallow Peeps. Even that horse looks like something you receive for Easter.

—DiB

So sort of a tooth-ache vibe…

Inception – A greyhound bus ride from Kansas City to Omaha sitting behind a guy who is describing the final season of Lost to someone who hasn’t seen the show.

Nice.

And you’ve got something against those yummy easter treats DiB? You’re a cold customer…

“So sort of a tooth-ache vibe”

Exactly.

“And you’ve got something against those yummy easter treats DiB?”

How can I pay attention to the actual movie when I’m busy wondering how many licks of Judy Garland’s dress

does it take to get to a conflict in the plot?

—PolarisDiB

Oh, and I agree with Kate re: appreciation of the Inception vibe description.

—DiB

Bah. Conflict is soooo overrated. Hey, there’s an idea for a thread!

Not when the movie is pure unrefined cane nostalgia.

—PolarisDiB

Damn, I’d better put on a coat. I can feel the chill from that cold heart of yours from here!

You did notice that the trolley went clang clang clang and the bell ding ding ding didn’t you? How can you deny the deeper truth of that?

The vibe here is the pain caused by the chill of cold ice cream on a sensitive tooth dentin.

I’m beset by anti-musicalists! Fie on you both!

Aw, Meet Me in St Louis is as delicious as a triple chocolate fudge cake smothered in ice cream and wasabi sauce. That’s one yummy film. And how is there no conflict? The thought of them having to leave their town and the people they love is conflict! Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas may usually be annoying sentimental pap, but when Judy Garland sings it in that perfect scene it turns into amazing sentimental wonderousness that makes me bawl like a baby :’)

Yes! Finally someone who can see the light!