Out of the five, the first one I liked the most. It seemed out of all of them to be the most like how I originally thought the obstructions would be. The Idea of putting the person in a place they've never been in, putting odd limits on the movie itself, and even doing something directly opposite of the original movie was to me the most "obtrusive" to making a re-make. The obstruction where he had to pick between going back to Bombay or doing one without any limits just seemed lazy, because of the uncreative "punishment".
I prefer Jorgan Leth's version more merely for the sake of seeing someone re-make an interesting movie, but with limits set on purpose to create a vastly different version.
The point of the obstructions was to put Jorgan Leth to the test, and as said in the movie to act as "therapy" and help him think in a new way. Jorgan Leth worked with the obstructions very well, especially with the India one where he had to show a miserable scene without actually showing it(though admittedly I'd agree that he went about it the wrong way) and also having the courage to have an extravagant meal in an area where people are begging for money.
If I had to set obstructions for another film, I'd probably have him make an old classic movie modern with internet clips, or make one genre of movie into another.
In the movie the idea of "The Perfect Human" seemed to be a semi-normal person doing regular things, yet I can't get my head around the idea that the "perfect human" was depicted as rich--or at least fancy. To achieve a "perfect human" in any media would have to be extremely opinionated and not meant for an audience, for everyone has a different idea as to what "perfect" is and even then if they thought about it they could still continuously find flaws with their own idea of "perfect".
Blog Responses: December 2010 Archives
My favorite version of Leth's five obstructions would be the animated version. I really liked how they took real images and made them seem unrealistic. It almost seemed to be like a dream state to me, because of the animation. I really liked how it separated the realistic aspect and made it more innocent almost, because I felt as though it was just some cartoon, rather than having a meaning. Overall I enjoyed the simplicity. My least favorite version was the Indian one, for somewhat obvious reasons. It was mildly disturbing to see him ignoring poverty and suffering like that, while he enjoyed wealth and good fortune. I thought the obstructions were what really made the film interesting. I found myself wondering how he was going to manage to work around all the different rules set for each version, and it was neat to see the final outcome. I also believe that it created much more of a challenge for Leth, because when limitations are set, that is when one must start thinking outside the box. If I had to set obstructions for Leth, I'm not exactly sure what I would set. Perhaps I would ask him to only use non-living things, because we have found out firsthand in class how hard it is to make non-living objects come to life. In accordance with the film, I feel as though the perfect human is a normal person. No disorders, sicknesses, deformations, nothing wrong with them, mentally or physically. It was not that they are extremely beautiful, strong, and intelligent. It seemed to be more about lacking problems than it did possessing talents.
I liked most of them but in different ways. I didn't like the Indian one, it seemed to exploit the people's poverty and taunt them. The Cuba one was the most matched to the perfect human I think, it was just a more ethnic version, which was more interesting I thought. I don't know why they hated animation so much, but that one was fun to watch as well. They could do a lot more with illustrating the words. The Belgium one worked, but I thought the prostitute was unneccessary. The last one tied them all up together nicely, it offered a great review on the director's personality as seen by his friend. I think the original was a good starting point, but it was too flat. The black and white was engaging, but I couldn't help but think the tone was slightly racist because all these "perfect humans" were white. I liked the diversity that came about because of the 5 obstructions. I thought that the obstructions worked well, they got the director to think outside the box and inspire him to make films he might not have otherwise made. I think that the art he created is special, it shows him overcoming these great obstacles like they were nothing and making good films. I would say that for future obstructions Leth must make a stop motion animation. Then he would really get frustrated. I think that the "Perfect Human" is really just traits that all humans exhibit in some form. These humans just represent what we look like in ideal form, and some general ways in which we act. I think that they get the message across in film, it would be harder to do in other media just because film captures life as we normally see it, and it makes the message clearer because we can relate it to daily life.
