“Beyonce's Lemonade is a staggering portrait of self-exorcism in the wake of a personal and continued national crisis. It's a film of blood, genealogy & legacy. Mrs. Knowles presents herself as the result of a fractured family tree where women wronged resurface like phoenix in her images as mythological figures, but the story of Beyoncé's Lemonade is one of humanity. She strips herself bare of any constructed image and is thus a funnel for her own reactionary emotional state and within comes sorrow, pride, guilt and eventually reconciliation and joy. But Beyoncé is not a minimalist artist & her filmic decision making, much like her musical expressions, are maximalist and resemble a megaton force. When Beyoncé makes a gesture she shifts culture, even when those actions & expressions are deeply internalized & carry the weight of an entire history of a blood soaked nation. Lemonade is intertwined in her own personal d.n.a. & the camera follows as she is this idea expressed to its fullest. An idea of black womanhood, family, feminism, femininity, maternity, and livelihood struggling against the currents of a nation which has traditionally cast these people aside. In Lemonade they walk on water.” ~ Willow Catelyn Maclay
“I’ve never offered my soul to any of the ancient hoary hosts, all my occult rituals were about expanding vision. But it’s a testament to the skill of Joel Potrykus that you can’t watch his films without finding empathy, and echoes of one’s own experiences on the business end of the global economy.
“The hopelessness of the modern era- the formlessness of the structures of power that seem to be running things. You do what you have with what you can. So you get why Sean (Ty Hickson, in an amazing performance) would decide to abandon society and head off to the woods, ‘talkin’ to the Devil like it ain’t nothing.’” Despite needing his meds so badly.
“Because money runs everything, what won’t you do for money? Get old school scientific, use the knowledge of the ancient alchemists and get yours. But also, because money runs everything, and nothing else matters, what’s the point of any of it? “It’s weird to call The Alchemist Cookbook, this serrated masterpiece of slow-motion demonic tragedy, this remarkable work of empathy and cosmic melancholy, existential. But it gets at the feeling of now expertly. The stress that eats all joy. The horrors consuming everything at arm’s reach. Even the frustration of trying to protect the innocent from the evil you can’t stop. This subtle, minimalist demonology is captivating; when something concrete does happen, it feels like the subconscious inserting itself into the text of the viewer’s mind, unmaking the certainties with which you gird yourself just to make it out into the world. And every step down the path of negating the self takes its payment. In flesh. In bone. In mind.” ~ Jason Shawhan
No comments:
Post a Comment