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[REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [USA Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:38 am
by FLL
Credit for finding this goes to gillesvolta, who pointed me at the film and a source.
An 'experimental' film by director Peggy Aswesh. Of most interest to those who like somewhat random experimental films, flowers, and/or OT scenes.
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/grea ... rs/ahwesh/
The film switches back and forth between two Super 8 sound home movies: one of the young Martina (Martina Torr) and her mother (the performance artist Diane Torr) in their cramped New York apartment; the other of Jennifer Montgomery (an actress from another Aswesh film) clowning around in Ahwesh’s own apartment. In both cases Ahwesh is behind the camera. These two home movies are punctuated by beautifully fragile, seemingly decayed and scratched close-up footage of flowers and flashes of leader. Over this footage we hear recited texts from Bataille on the sexual meaning of flowers and Lacan on the constitution of desire in the field of the Other.
The scenes with Martina are the centre of the film. In them Martina narrates her interpretations of images torn from magazines and interacts with her mother and Ahwesh, who stays behind the camera but whom we occasionally hear. The scenes of playacting between mother and child are the most challenging. At one point Martina's mother pretends to be a baby and nurse from Martina's breast. The scene is a powerful document of the creativity and freedom that can be explored in the context of parent-child relationships. At the same time, because of the repressive nature of our own culture in regards to the subject of childhood sexuality, the footage makes its viewers somewhat nervous. Although it is not even remotely pornographic, the intimacy of the footage and its long, unstructured nature provoke us into thought. Why, when there is nothing perverse about the footage, does it make us uncomfortable? As well, there is a strangeness that results from the implicit acknowledgement that, although this is incredibly privileged footage in terms of its immediacy, the footage is also highly mediated – as much a performance as Martina's narrating the meanings of the magazine pictures or as, at another point in the film, Jennifer's threatening to use Ahwesh's microphone as a dildo.
"The epicenter of this film is Martina, a raucous girl about three years old. Naked, amid mounds of stuffed animals, Martina acts out variations on a newly acquired femininity-although when she yells at the camera "I'm not ready," it's almost as if she's trying to ward off gender. Like Ahwesh's other films [...] MARTINA'S PLAYHOUSE, with its crashing montage, has a deceptively thrown-together look. It jumps back and forth between crisp, "properly" photographed scenes and faded, unfocused images scarred by glitches and sprocket holes; on occasion the picture drops out completely, replaced by mottled leader." -- Manohla Dargis, Village Voice, 1989
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Like this post to see ed2k links [299.77 MiB]
Thanks to 'fitz' for the rip!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091490/
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:20 am
by BizarreLoveTriangle
Whoa, sounds fantastic
Those panties look a bit soaked to me
Thanks FLL
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 7:47 pm
by idler
I'm sorry to tell you that this is a double posting. I burned this file on June 6th, 2006 and this is the only board from which I picked eMule links...
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 7:51 pm
by starfish21
idler wrote:I'm sorry to tell you that this is a double posting. I burned this file on June 6th, 2006 and this is the only board from which I picked eMule links...
seeing as how you didn't post a link i'm guessing that the original post is one of the many that went missing then?
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:12 pm
by idler
I'm not sure, but I think the post still exists. I used to share shorts not very long before burning, and the server breakdown was in February/March 2006. I tried to find another short of the same DVD ("Marry me"), and I had to go over the graveyard to find the thread! I think the movie title isn't in the headline, and I'll never find it in a post with a dozen shorts...
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:20 pm
by BizarreLoveTriangle
Both threads of "Marry Me" are easily findable. In fact, the release thread has the highest relevance and the graveyard thread is on the second position.
I am pretty confident that no other thread of "Martina's Playhouse" exists at the moment.
PS. Wish somebody found
[REQ] Ana (1982) [Portugal] too [Image]
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 12:04 am
by Phuzzy4242
Thanks FLL and gillesvolta!
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:13 am
by FLL
idler wrote:I'm sorry to tell you that this is a double posting. I burned this file on June 6th, 2006 and this is the only board from which I picked eMule links...
Not really a "double posting" if the original is gone due to the old database problems. You'd have to say there are hundreds of "double postings" if that's your criteria, since so many which members from 2004/2005 remember have been reposted. I care not one bit if it was here before if it wasn't still here when I posted.
idler wrote:I'm not sure, but I think the post still exists. I used to share shorts not very long before burning, and the server breakdown was in February/March 2006. I tried to find another short of the same DVD ("Marry me"), and I had to go over the graveyard to find the thread! I think the movie title isn't in the headline, and I'll never find it in a post with a dozen shorts...
Searching with the board software (old search), you need to display results by post (not topic) to have a chance at pulling up old corrupted topics. The way the board displays them, if a post is corrupted in certain ways then thread as a whole can't be displayed in the forum index or search results.
The new search (BLT's search) grabs its results in a completely different way. As a result, it has what is left of the old threads. Since this film doesn't show up in the new search at all, I doubt the posts are still there. Also, BLT's search searches the full text of the post, not just the headline.
Yeah yeah, you know I have this, I have been waiting to post it until I can get a chance to watch it, which I prefer to do with all my posts even requests if I can. But since you want it so badly I'll just post it
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:12 am
by kev
idler wrote:...I burned this file on June 6th, 2006...
I was here during this time too, and if I had it I've lost it..
Many thanks FLL!! Looks great..
(NOW if I can only find that 'Venus vs. Me' thread, I'll be set for the night!)
kev.
Re: [REL] Martina's Playhouse (1986) [Short, 20 min]
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:19 am
by idler
kev wrote:(NOW if I can only find that 'Venus vs. Me' thread, I'll be set for the night!)
kev.
Try Belgium...
