Yesterday afternoon, I traveled to Amsterdam, to meet up with a friend with whom I recently started a pretty cool (film related) project.
It was about a month and a half ago, when he visited me at the little bungalow in the east of Holland, where I then resided. We hadn't seen each other since leaving high school, about 16 years ago and reconnected thanks to the internet.
I told him about my adventures and struggles as a homeless, single, micro budget filmmaker and he told me about his stable - married with children - totally opposite life. When I mentioned one of my creative ideas, a project that I had baptized 'Unforgettable Movies', he listened attentively. After our meeting he told me he would love to work on that project with me, build a website and see where it would take us.
It's now a month and a half later and yesterday we met up for the third time in 6 weeks. The idea was to go to Amsterdam, watch a movie in an impressive cinema overlooking the IJ (a river that connects the Dutch capital with The North of the city) and talk about the project while drinking 'speciaalbier'. One of the reasons we went to that particular cinema was not just the fact that my friend had never been there but also that its musem hosted a Martin Scorsese exposition. Here's the proof:
I remember discovering Scorsese's movies and how big a mark especially Taxi Driver left on me. Watching that movie on the big screen (around the start of the 21st century) was pretty memorable, to say the least. It was nice to see an overview of Scorsese's oeuvre, containing storyboards, memorabilia (like the boxing pants worn by Robert de Niro in Raging Bull) and of course, plenty of screens playing his movies. I tried to visualise my filmmaking future and a museum full of stuff referring to my movies. I guess I need to work on that for a couple of decades ( insert laughter here).
The movie that we got to see yesterday, was a recent (2016) Mexican film that apparently contained a mix of scifi, horror and erotic elements. That was a pretty spot on description. Having a weakness for all things Spanish, plus a love for these ingredients, made me pick this particular film.
La Région Salvaje (apparently known as 'The Untamed ') was nominated for a Golden Lion for best film at the Venice film festival and won a Silver Lion. I won't tell you about the content of the movie but here's one thing I can unveil: it's one of these movies that people walk out on. Uncomfortable at times, evoking giggles, certainly not a (first) date movie. It just about made it into my top 50 ( a guesstimate) of strange movies. While the credits were rolling and I sat down to pay respect to the makers, I told my friend that I was pretty sure the filmmakers were inspired by The 1981 movie 'Possession', starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill. About a minute later, the credits read 'En Memoria De Andrzej Zulawski' (the director of 'Possession').
It comforted me that the creators weren't too proud to show where they got their inspiration and actually payed hommage.
We drank two more beers afterwards, talked about the film we just saw and movies in general. My friend told me he's planning to watch 'Troll 2' (1990) and write a story about that. I'm looking forward to that one, as I have seen Troll 2 and the documentary about it: 'Best Worst Movie' (2009). We then discussed the direction to take with our unforgettable movies project. We recently re-named it 'Our Favorite Movies'. We aim to collect and showcase personal stories of people talking about certain movies that they never forgot since the first time they watched them. Stories about the when, where, with whom and the effect that particular film had on them.
Yesterday's 'La Region Salvaje' didn't necessarily have a lasting effect on me but the situation around it - it being the first movie that I watched with a rediscovered friend at a beautiful location, drinking speciaalbier and talking about our movie project makes it pretty special indeed.
I hope you enjoy this story and will promise you that this is only the beginning.
In my next post I will showcase a personal story of Paul Leach, who talks about his 'favorite movie' experience, discovering the amazing world of Jean Giraud (aka Moebius).
Mentioned movies in chronological order:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/taxi_driver
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/troll_2
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/best_worst_movie
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_untamed_2017
When you think of your favorite movie(s), is there a particular reason why you love it/ them so much?
Is it because of a special person you watched it with? an unforgettable location? something important that happened afterwards? Is it just plain nostalgia or a more complicated story. What details do you remember?
I encourage you to share (a summary of) your 'movie story' in the comments below this post and perhaps we can share it on our blog/ website one day!