Sh!t Year/Ellen Barkin Love Thread

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/21/11 at 11:35pm

I got to see Sh!t Year tonight and as a bonus there was a Q&A with Ellen Barkin afterwards. I admit to not really being familiar with her before "The Normal Heart," but that performance made me obsessed for life and this movie just added to that.

It's a very non-traditional movie, and Barkin even described it as a film that could play as an installation at an art museum, which is definitely the truth. It was filmed in black and white and reminded me of equal parts Bergman, Antonioni and Tarkovsky, yet it did not come off as pretentious or overly dense.

The movie is a complete assault on the sense. The sound design (is that a correct term for a movie?) was incredible. Barkin said her entire wardrobe came from her closet; the director even told her not to take off the nail polish she happened to be wearing that day.

The story is presented in a nonlinear fashion and Barkin talked about how she made note cards for each scene for the filming to let her know not only where her character was in the course of her slow breakdown throughout the film, but also what scene would be proceeding and following that scene. This created a connective flow that allowed the film to not feel disjointed and fragmented, although by nature it was.

Will this movie be for everyone? Absolutely not, and some intelligent people will see it and say it's a pile of, well, sh!t, but it is a great piece of film (get it, a film!), and if you want to see nothing more than a brilliant performance by
Barkin check it out.

[TimesSquareRegular]

Posted: 9/23/11 at 7:08pm

This was one of 17 films I saw in June at the Provincetown International Film Festival.

It was the only film that I regretted spending time to see.

Updated On: 9/23/11 at 07:08 PM