Whenever a cinema aficionado goes to the movies, it’s like the outside world ceased to exist. There are certain aspects that come to one’s mind regarding both the visual art and the flick’s leitmotiv – and there’s certainly a thin line that separates the connoisseur from the occasional theatre-goer. The name of the producer, the camera angles, the soundtrack, the filmmaking and the post-production – it’s like everything is tattooed on one’s mind when s/he leaves the building.

It gets some time to defrost the whole experience and take a closer look at what has just been sensed. It’s that process that Lost At Sea tries to conjecture with this ongoing feature. Focusing on the fall season for three months both at Norway’s Bergen Cinemateket USF (by the way, USF stands for United Sardine Factories) and Bergen Filmklubb, this is the place to discuss and comprehend what has been done so far, and what we achieved in recent years, as far as the seventh art goes. So, the bottom-line could well be: LAS goes to the movies but lets you sit nearby.


.: Week 2

Winston Smith is what you’d call a very dependable bureaucrat working for the government. His duty is to rewrite history and erase all evidence that some people existed. Caught in the middle of these misty affairs, and unlike his closest mate at work, Smith starts the rather obscure task of taking some notes in a journal that he keeps for himself.

Directed by Michael Radford, 1984 (U.K., 1984) engulfs the difficult job of gathering all the beautiful mess put together in the well-known George Orwell novel, sadly the actual precursor of reality TV and the Big Brother concept. Sometimes, just sometimes, History is not fair with their children and this is merely an example.

But as far as the plot goes, Smith (played by John Hurt), like many of his contemporaries, is under constant surveillance, permanently being watched by monitors all over the place. When he successively breaks the strict code that would prevent everyone from freely thinking and having sex, he is imprisoned, interrogated and tortured. That’s pretty much what happens with reality TV nowadays, we should add.

Set in London, the film explores the trauma of a post-atomic environment, and the subsequent fears in a society full of control freaks, who even want to poison and be in charge of the individual’s mind. A historical document of great importance and accuracy – just in case all hell breaks loose in this world soaked in propaganda, and you just need something to relate to.


Martin Scorsese is such a wise guy. For those who actually know him from his stellar career in cinematic documents like GoodFellas, Taxi Driver and, more recently, Gangs of New York, it’s always funny to see how the artist grew up to become one of the most respected and talented men in contemporary cinema.

Boxcar Bertha (USA, 1972) is an amusing tale of train-robbery tactics and labor unions and other social gatherings, which took place in America during the Great Depression. Saying that this is Scorsese at his best is erroneous and dangerous. In fact, this is a very laid-back and amateur slot in the ever-growing History of Cinema, which is just fine.

After the death of her father in a lousy accident, Bertha (Barbara Hershey) hooks up with Bill, a passionate union leader. Surrounded by soon-to-become outlaws, Bertha inevitably embarks on a life of crime. Of course, a gang this loose and floppy, lacking in organization what they overachieved in adventurous spirit, is a tragedy starting to happen. A beautiful historical masquerade that amuses more than teaches. A must-see for those fond of Scorsese’s early and latter work.

.: Week 1

Our first entry to this cinematic vault is Dementia 13 (USA, 1963) by Francis Ford Coppola. And the plot goes like this: there’s a guy, John Haloran, who dies of a heart attack. His wife Louise freaks out because, with John dead, she won’t get a slice of the big cake, i.e. her mother-in-law’s inheritance. So the fatal blonde writes a letter to her late husband’s mother, forging his handwriting, and saying that sadly he had to go to an important meeting in New York. Not wanting to be a definite spoiler here, this does sound like a been there, seen that thing, doesn’t it?

With a plan being cooked in her mind, she rushes to the Haloran’s property, an ominous castle in Ireland, to attend a family ritual in memory of little Kathleen, who had drowned in the lake seven years before. And then the story gets twisted here and there. To put it short: it’s a low-budget, black & white, horror flick with few aspects that we’d consider to be head-raisers.

Some trivia: when assisting Roger Corman in Ireland, a young Francis Ford Coppola was allowed to use the set Corman had been using for this particular film, if he could meet Corman’s schedule. Sure, Dementia 13 comes from the sixties, but I’ve seen more intricate and appealing films both right out of Coppola’s brains and the genre itself. Remember Apocalypse Now? It has nothing to do with it. Who holds the big axe – is what you really get to know in the end.

Now adding my five cents to the whole thing, I must say that, with all the editing and production options considered, Dementia 13 is so crap it’s good.


Buffalo ’66 (USA, 1998), directed by Vincent Gallo, is the movie that follows. Billy Brown (Gallo himself), a moody convict released after ten years in jail – who doesn’t get moody after ten years, anyway? –, abducts Layla and asks her to act as his adorable and dedicated wife when he visits his parents. The girl (the beautiful Christina Ricci) buys his story and overacts, showing a strong character not known when she first popped in the screen. The big detour in Billy’s persona will come by the end, obviously fuelled by the wonderful girl lying on the bed in that cheap motel.

Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, this is Gallo’s debut as a director, and it’s a hell of a debut. Self-indulgent and visceral, his work both as an actor and a director is a take it or leave it artistic statement. I’ll pretty much take it.

Relying entirely on his real (or fake) grumpiness, the man doesn’t always make the right choice for his flicks, but succeeds in mesmerizing the audience into his troubled spiral of scrambled and mentally-ill imagery. In fact, he does break some ground here.

And the line "Are your parents vegetarians? I hope so, because I don’t eat meat – ever!" will always resonate as a sample of Gallo’s maniac in-depth work in everybody’s tastes and beliefs. Poor girl!

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Helder Gomes, a Senior News Editor with LAS, is currently living in Bergen, Norway.
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