Top 10 films

Recently, cinema has become one of my main passions. I'm gradually becoming more of a cinephile, but I'm still not all the way there, so this list is far from complete or definite. This list, I must make clear, is a personal selection from what I've encountered and what I've liked the most. Other directors I will be looking into this year are Ingmar Bergman, Tarkovsky, Jean Renoir, Sam Fuller, Eisenstein, Louis Malle and many, many more. I'm rather pissed off at LOVEFILM as they were extremely reliable last year, but they're not sending me the Tarkovsky movies I want to watch..... Anyway, here's the list...

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10

Psycho

Written by Joseph Stepfano and Samuel A. Taylor; Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

No matter how endlessly emulated or talked-about, you can never escape the sheer brilliance of that shower scene and the scintillating Bernard Hermann score... The neurotic protagonist is brilliant and disturbing, and Hitchcock's psychological revelations towards the end of the film are subtly suggested throughout the rest of the film.

9

The Producers

Written and directed by Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks insists that the horrors of the holocaust can be meliorated and alleviated through comedy and satire. He may be right, considering how downright hilarious the song-and-dance 'Springtime for Hitler' routine is. An accountant and a producer realise that they can make more money with a flop than a hit, but if backfires! The script they chose eulogizing Hitler turns out to be a monster hit! Along with The Big Lebowski and Brooks' even sillier outing Blazing Saddles, this is a film I know entirely off by heart.

8

The Second Heimat

Written and directed by Edgar Reitz

Recently reviewed in my blog, this film has the claim of being the longest picture ever made - clocking in at about 25 hours. But you can also digest it in its television format which is divided across 13 episodes. Set from 1960 until 1970, it follows the young musical prodigy Hermann trying to pursue a career as a composer, meeting several characters in his university studies. The film, like its predecessor, alternates from black and white to colour to achieve a lush and unprecedented artistic effect.

7

The Big Lebowski

Written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Endlessly watchable, this film follows the life of ageing hippie Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski who, after getting his rug soiled by some goons, embarks on Chandler-esque plot roughly ignited by the hostage of a pornographic actress by some nihilists, and so much more which is, frankly, confusing and irrelevant. But this film is meant to be confusing, and the underlying storyline is merely a pretext for the highly charismatic central characters to interact. The Coens splice everything in their signature style: Chandler, post-modernism, dream sequences and so much more. A cult classic.

6

Bicycle Thieves

Written by Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Gerardo Guerrieri, Oreste Biancoli and Adolfo Franci; Directed by Vittorio De Sica

One of the central films of Italian Neo-realist cinema, this a truly heart-wrenching portrait of poverty and a struggle to survive. Using amateur actors, it is greatly involving and deeply moving. It is no surprise that the Academy Awards felt compelled to award it with 'Outstanding foreign film' seven years before the existence of the category.

5

A Man Escaped

Written and directed by Robert Bresson

Quiet, sparse, contemplative, minimalist.... You know the ending by its title and everything else that occurs in the film, but Bresson manages to overwhelm the viewer with a magnificently restrained style... not to mention the sublime Mozart score.

4

Aguirre, The Wrath of God

Written and directed by Werner Herzog

Herzog's riches achievement, this is a hectic journey into the heart of darkness. Aguirre is a crazed obsessive searching for a futile, doomed quest neither he nor any of his followers are capable of obtaining. Not only is it astonishing to look at in terms of framing, but this is the most important film starring the unforgettable narcissist Klaus Kinsky.

3

Alphaville

Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Lemmy Caution enters the topsy-turvy world of Alphaville, where everything is seemingly different. The concept of the individual has been lost, and anyone speaking up is murdered in strange ways. Also, dictionaries are bibles, love is replaced by sensuality, women are bar-coded and words are replaced.... Far stranger than anything in1984. There are allusions to everything under the sun, although these can go over your head and won't hinder the enjoyment of the film. The best segments from the film are often the confrontations the protagonist has with Alpha 60, a computer which gives Borgesian monologues about time and space.

2

Blue Velvet

Written and directed by David Lynch

This is a film which shows the underlying darkness fervidly thriving beneath the superficial calmness and tranquility of suburbia. The gateway into this underworld is a severed ear...

1

2001: A Space Odyssey

Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke; Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Astounding sets that awe the viewer as much now as they did in 1969; astounding classical music, both modern and romantic; an astounding ending which is open to interpretation; and the monolith.... This is far more than a mere science fiction movie, this is dazzling.

Runners-up: Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino; Branded to Kill by Seijun Suzuki; A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick; Citizen Kane by Orson Welles; Annie Hall by Woody Allen; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by Luis Bunuel; Videodrome by David Cronenberg; Vivre Sa Vie by Jean-Luc Godard; Barton Fink by the Coen Brothers.

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For some fucked up reason, I can't get the font I want when I list the directors for each film... It appears correctly when I type it up as a draft here, but when I post it it keeps fucking up! Frustrating....

Thoughts on psychosis

Culmination

Psychosis is a culmination of a series of events, thoughts and experiences. In my case, it was also an explosion of anger, hidden feelings and despair against the rest of the world. All this culminated in an episode that came and went. People that drift into madness have often made the wrong moves in life, and they have taken the wrong decisions to get them in a bad situation. Psychosis can often stem from intense solitude; it can stem from forced and concentrated impositions of self-imposed rules. I had an underlying psychosis building up within me for years and years. I hallucinated when I was about 5 years old, affecting my perceptions of reality. After school ended at the age of 16, I slowly withdrew myself from others. By doing this, I expanded my outlook on life considerably. Consequently, these dark tendencies were brought out into the open and gradually became more and more extreme and intense. My angry outbursts became very frequent, and I developed an assortment of 'unhealthy' habits. This kept developing for about a year until I restrained myself, and then came a smorgasbord of racing thoughts and delusional beliefs culminating in my episode.

Natural distortion of reality

An episode is a natural distortion of reality, rather than one induced via chemical means. An episode, or an experience derived from schizophrenia, is often preceded by a build-up of events and issues whereas a drug 'trip' is done instantly. A person with a mental illness is often rather complex, having several layers to themselves and prone to introspection. People who take drugs, who are looking to 'distort' reality, are often merely looking for a 'good' time and a way of spending a good time - often a more refined way of going out and getting drunk. Mental illness is far from a jolly experience and, consequently, a more painful one. It is a far more different and natural distortion of reality than drug-taking. Drugs also disorientate one after having taken the drug; you become more complacent and will often be "at one with the universe". You have trouble between distinguishing what's beautiful and what's not. Mental illness is closer to one's self than "been at one with the universe". It is, therefore, a more natural distortion of reality.

Delusional thoughts

My episode's main drive was delusional thoughts. In the mind of the individual, everything he perceives is the truth. When this interior truth gets out of hand and doesn't correspond with normal, everyday life there is a clash between interior and exterior worlds... Before my episode, an assortment of delusional thoughts crossed my mind. To start off with, I thought I'd caused a controversy with my writing and that I a documentary about me and an old MSN contact had been made where we played games and tricks on one another. I thought also that by using the basis of Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, a psychologist had arranged together a whole crop of young teenagers who were confronting the education system by playing child-like games on each other on an intellectual level. These thoughts got out of hand after staying up for three days, and they got even more extreme. I thought that ininity had arrived and that I'd live forever by reading every single book on earth, and that I'd kill my English teacher with my 'terrorist novel'. This all came to me after having a conversation with my mother who rather miracolously got me to sleep through a strong dose of medication that got me to sleep after staying up for 3 nights. The day after, I wrote out all my delusional thoughts which alluled to several artists I liked as god. This day I got taken to a psychiatric ward where I thought I'd sleep for years until 2156, the year derived from the chapter where I thought I'd appeared in Cortázar's Rayuela. When I woke up in the psychiatric ward where I kept doing inexplicable, odd things and I kept having these delusional thoughts. My behaviour alarmed people so much that I got taken to an intensive care unit in Derby. I remember been driven there: I was at the back of the van, looking out into the motorway not only thinking it was 2156, but getting numerous other delusional thoughts as well. Before getting into the main part of the unit, I was locked in a 'de-escalation room', where I thought would be some sort of contact with Jorge Luis Borges. Throughout my stay in the unit and later in other wards, my delusional thoughts slowly diminished their potency.... They are very difficult to articulate.

Repression of thoughts

An episde can often emerge from repression of thoughts. There are many disturbing parts of our nature that we do not want to acknowledge, and these often surface out in the episode. Many niggling worries we may have during our childhood may surface again and haunt us. The fact that I had an hallucination at a young age shows how something can be ingrained deep within the subconscious and emerge more than a decade later.

Racing thoughts

In the three nights I stayed up, my thoughts were racing constantly. They prompted me to walk in all directions of the house, constantly thinking over and over and over. When thoughts are bombard at you at this speed, it is diffcult to keep control and this results in the culmination I mentioned before.

Loss of control

Psychosis is characterised by how little control the person has over his actions. Consequently, there is a loss of time too. Like dreams and LSD hallucinations, one doesn't seem to be within a discerinble beginning, middle or end. I had no idea of the dates or the month for the first couple of weeks I was in the intensive care unit. One can often find onself acting with no real motive, and one can find oneself screaming or acting out strange behaviour without any conscious self-awareness.

Outer appearance

A lot of deception and ignorance about mental illness stems from the outer appearance of a person victim of the illness. Before been transferred to a psychiatric ward to Chesterfield I was placed in one in Derby, and I found that the patients were often left to their own resources and ignored. These people were, it seemed to me, worse off than in the intensive care unit, a place where the level of attention is far more intense and concentrated. Most psychiatrists are often so filled with prejudices that they will apply mentally ill people with a label due to their outer appearance, and they will take for granted the underlying personality of the individual. Mentally ill people can often seem threatening, but people choose to ignore what kind of sheer incredible workings go on in the inside of the mind that is far more interesting than the workings of the mind of the vast amount of the rest of the population.

The Aftermath No. 1: Psychiatric wards/Intensive care units

After an episode, a person will often inevitably find themselves in a ward or, worse, an intensive care unit. Often, these places can seem as an expansion of one's own imagination - as if it's part of the episode itself. Sooner or later, this is shattered and you must come face to face with reality. An intensive care unit, in particular, is extremely hard work; you spend every single minute craving for some sort of space - it's restrictive as hell. Yet at the same time, you develop a strange kind of affinity for it and attempt to adapt to new, constraining environments.

The aftermath No. 2: Medication

While I was at the intensive care unit, I consumed a lot of medication which caused me to shake, slur my speech, avoid concentration (I couldn't read at all while I was at the unit), and I couldn't get erections. The doctors have all told me that they did a fantastic job, but I think that the reason for why I sorted myself out was a conscious decision to start and look at things logically. After getting discharged, I was prescribed with olanzapine which made me life considerably more mundane... In a way, two years after my episode, I find that I've got to fight against this medication in order to obtain greater things. With these meds I found my creativity wane, I often felt drowsy and found it difficult to stay up at nights.

Encounters with idiosyncratic people

Before I found myself at the wards, I felt a great deal of contempt against the rest of the world... This contempt could often veer towards misanthropy. However, when entering the wards I found an assortment of idiosyncratic people. It was enlightening to come across people who thought in their own peculiar way... I remember the fat black man who stank of shit, Dennis, keeping an eye on me and conjuring up remarks charged with wisdom... When getting discharged, I was disappointed by the mentality of other people...

A good or bad experience?

I think it was a good experience to have had an episode, as it expanded my outlook considerably: it both expanded my outlook considerably, acquainted myself with a variety of thoughts and exposed me to visions no-one else has seen. The bad experiences are these 'aftermaths' and consequences of an episode. Ultimately, all psychotic episodes are singular so it is an incredible privilege to have come across visions and perception no-one has seen or known about.

The remote edges #6

Taking these photographs is starting to hinder the enjoyment I get from these walks... I miss being able to wander along happily without any preoccupations... I may postpone this regular temporarily because the weather may prevent me from visiting these places.... we'll see.

This wood is situated at the start of a ginormous valley... It is quite big. After 3-odd years of visiting it I know my way around it, so I shall try as hard as I can to give a precise record of what's here.

The remoted edges #5

Like the previous Remote Edges post, I have sought the best photographs from a limited resource. The weather hasn't been all that good over the last two months, so I've only been able to go out on a couple of occasions.

This month, I shall post photographs from the 'entrance' to the woods situated around the place separating Dronfield from Sheffield... I recall that Jenny remarked "I can't believe no one goes there" about Firth Wood... Well, more people go there than the area I'm covering in this and subsequent posts... So it's more of a privilege to see it, then. :)

Walking through here reminds me of my shitty, awful poem 'The Infinite Plain'... Indeed, it was inspired by it.

Finally, here we have the beginning of the woods... We shall go in there in the next Remote Edges post... :)

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I urge people to leave comments on the last State of Mind post.... It would make me very happy - be it positive or negative.

My bedroom walls 2/2

This is part 2 of the previous post. I decided to subdivide this topic into two posts as it would have been a bit too much to have it all in one big post. It would have also been too time consuming... Thanks to Sofia and Ryan for replying instantly to the previous post, too. :)

Unfortunately, the images seem to be a bit too big to be viewed fully. If you click on them, you're linked into the full thing, however.

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This is a photograph my father framed for me of John Coltrane performing live around 1964, I believe, when he was at the peak of his powers. Coltrane is my favourite saxophonists and one of my favourite musicians. This image is astounding in itself even if you know nothing of the artist.

This is a shirt of the national team of Chile. The shirt is from 1998, a glorious era when Chile where doing spectacularly well, with players like Zamorano and Salas. I often wore this shirt while playing football as a young boy. Displaying this shirt on my wall is a reminder of great times, a treasure that ignites nostalgia.

This is a painting by Willem De Kooning. Out of all the abstract expressionism I have come across, he is my favourite. His paintings are like strange landscapes one comes across in dreams - images that don't mesh together in any logical kind of way but are extremely captivating. My parents bought me this as a birthday request, but this is the only painting print of his that's available for sale.

Underneath De Kooning I have a painting by Hiernonymus Bosch. There is so much going on in his paintings; you can look at them for 2o minutes without getting bored, discovering new facets contributing to the whole. He was a surrealist way back in the 16th century, predating the surrealists from subsequent generations by centuries. Bosch opens up the human head and exhibits our interior world. Fascinating.


This is a painting by Don Van Vliet, otherwise known as 'Captain Beefheart'. I got this painting as a birthday gift, and I deeply grateful to my parents for getting it for me. Van Vliet is a truly exceptional person.


Underneath the Van Vliet painting, I have two literary lists. The one on the left is my 'Top 10 Books' list whilst the other one is a record of all the books I read in 2008. I was up to a lot of reading that year. :)

This is an obituary of writer J. G. Ballard. Not only is he one of my favourite writers, but he has been an extremely significant figure in my life. During my psychotic episode, he was the light at the end of the tunnel... I've always felt some sort of 'contact' with him, so the news of his death came as a disappointment to me. I used to have a photograph of him on my wall (where the Godard image is now) and he died on the day I took that image off! I felt obliged to put this obituary on my wall to compensate for that. He also died a day after I finished reading his last novel Kingdom Come.

This is a little bit of art-work my sister did for me as a Christmas present. She researched into Willem De Kooning when she was told that he is one of my favourite artists. My sister is very, very gifted at art and she has done lots of other paintings and drawings which are very impressive.


This is a list of 15 records that I wrote when I was 15 years old and got published in The Wire magazine! The list also has a plug to my website which then displayed my musical recordings. Unsurprisingly, no-one visited the site. :)


Here's a shirt of Fernandez Vial, which I also used to wear to play football with. I explain what Fernandez Vial in my previous blog post.

I usually have nothing on this wall, but it currently has yet another item of Fernandez Vial memorabilia. I'm thinking of putting a more traditional painting on this wall to create an equilibrium with the more modern stuff at the other side of the room - maybe Monet or something, I don't know yet.

My bedroom walls 1/2

This is the first of 2 posts where I am displaying my bedroom walls. I was originally going to display it all in one big post, but I have subdivided it into 2 posts because the photographs totalled up to a number of 25. I shall post the rest of the photographs tomorrow.

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This is what the the walls looks like from afar....


Now, peering in....

This is a photograph of me aged 8 next to my hero Themo Lobos. My father organised a special event where he came over and spoke to the students of my school. And he stayed over at our house for 3 days! Imagine that! He was my hero and I got to know him and he stayed in my room! I'm holding up a copy of Bromisnar de Bagdad, one of the adventures from the Mampato series.


This image is a compendium of Themo Lobos' characters... He gave my family this when we went to visit his house in 1999... The words in the speech bubble read: "Con mis mejores deseos y gran amistad para Richard King y su encantadora familia"... The words in the little rectangle are "Saludos para Simon y Laura!"

I cut this photograph from a newspaper article... It is a photograph of Anna Karina and Jean-Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard's Un Femme Est Un Femme. Cahiers du Cinema was a publication Godard was a initially a critic for, and it was a centre for the French New Wave.

This is a photograph of one of my favourite writers, Julio Cortázar. He was an iconic writer (and this is an iconic photograph that's usually associated with him) who became one of the main participants of the Latin-American boom that emerged in the early 1960s. His novel Rayuela proved to be a book that opens up many possibilities to a number of readers. His short stories are considered to be amongst the finest in the form and to be put aside Poe and Borges. Next to him is a clown figure one of my cousins gave to me after her visit to Mexico.

Underneath Cortázar is a small wooden ornament I bought in a Cafe in Valparaíso in Chile during my last visit there. It has a small quote from Cortázar's short story La Noche Boca Arriva that reads as "A un metro del techo de roca viva que por momentos se iluminaba con un reflejo de antorcha."


Here is a photograph of Jorge Luis Borges, smiling. Next to him is an extract of his short story El Aleph. In the extract there is a description of a protagonist viewing an object that encapsulates everything on earth - infinity. I believe that Borges is my favourite writer of any sort.


Here I have VINYL of Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band. I have reviewed this record previously on my blog and it is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of my favourites. It is very difficult to listen to, but once you penetrate into its topsy-turvy world it is marvelous. Yesterday, my parents had a party to celebrate their 25th anniversary and my mother's 50th birthday party, and one of their friends (who I'd never met before) is a huge Beefheart fan, and he went up to my room where I excitedly showed him my vinyl and he explained that his was worn-out and old. :) Next to Trout is a little replica of Fernandez Vial kit, the football team I supported as a boy. Unfortunately, at the moment they're down in the dumps... They're bottom of the third chilean division. :(


This is a photograph of Igor Stravisnky... I have passionately heard his compositions avidly... He is my second favourite composer (after Bartok :)). He was one of the main figures of the 20th century, and pioneers of modernism of any sort. This photograph is a great representation of his work - the piano looks large and phenomenal!

This is a card of Luis Bunuel's Phantom of Liberty. The card came with a boxset of his I own. The film is rather peculiar, bringing together a number of unrelated vignettes together... Bunuel was an excellent director, and one of the most eccentric characters of the previous century.

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Tomorrow I'll post part 2!