time machine // database // travel guide
timespace coordinates: 1935 England / 1940 Battle of France – Dunkirk
Atonement is a 2007 romantic war drama film directed by Joe Wright and based on Ian McEwan‘s 2001 novel of the same name. The film stars James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Vanessa Redgrave, and chronicles a crime and its consequences over the course of six decades, beginning in the 1930s. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 2011 Los Angeles
Under the Silver Lake is a 2018 American neo-noir mystery film written, produced and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Set in Los Angeles, it stars Andrew Garfield as a young man who sets out on a quest to investigate the sudden disappearance of his neighbour (Riley Keough), only to stumble upon an elusive and dangerous large-scale conspiracy.
Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out gave the film a perfect five rating, calling it “Hypnotic, spiraling and deliriously high” and stating “the ambition of Under the Silver Lake is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you’ll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird.” Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave a positive review, calling it “a bizarre and outrageous drama grounded in the consistency of Garfield’s astonishment at every turn. […] Aided by cinematographer Mike Gioloukas’ sunny visuals and a searching Disasterpiece score, the movie becomes a bittersweet ode to wanting answers from an indifferent world overwhelmed by superficial distractions. The homage can be irritating and some of the transitions work better than others across an unwieldy running time — but even the flaws speak to the movie’s beguiling raison d’être. It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist.”
Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave a positive review, calling it “a down-the-rabbit-hole movie, at once gripping and baffling, fueled by erotic passion and dread but also by the code-fixated opacity of conspiracy theory. The movie is impeccably shot and staged, with an insanely lush soundtrack that’s like Bernard Herrmann-meets-Angelo-Badalamenti-on-opioids. When it’s over, though, you feel like you’ve seen a meta-mystery made by someone who spent too much time scrawling notes in the margins of his frayed copy of Infinite Jest. (wiki)
NeonCode is a one hour long cyberpunk-retrowave adventure game (one-man project). It was inspired by classics such as the Blade Runner-movies, Miami Vice, Grim Fandango and the games of Telltale. The game is mixing the open world gamestyle with some classic adventure game elements.
***NeonCode is a free adventure game***
timespace coordinates: rural upstate New York during the 1980’s
We the Animals is a 2018 American drama film directed by Jeremiah Zagar and written by Zagar and Dan Kitrosser, based on the novel of the same name by Justin Torres. The film stars Evan Rosado, Raúl Castillo, Sheila Vand, Isaiah Kristian, and Josiah Gabriel.
“Dreamlike and haunting, We the Animals approaches the coming-of-age odyssey with a uniquely documentarian eye.” rottentomatoes.com
Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.
Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian Maier, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.
Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.
Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond; Lovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czech: Valerie a týden divů) is a 1970 Czechoslovakian surrealist horror film directed by Jaromil Jireš (1935–2001) and based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Vítězslav Nezval (1900–1958). It is considered part of the Czech New Wave movement.
The 1970 film adaptation of Valerie a týden divů was shot in 1969 starring 13-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie, with a supporting cast of Helena Anýžová, Karel Engel, Jan Klusák, Petr Kopriva, among others. It was filmed in the Czech town of Slavonice and surrounding areas. The film portrays the heroine as living in a disorienting dream, cajoled by priests, vampires, men and women alike, and blends elements of fantasy and horror films.
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Promotional trailer advertising the first public screening of a newly discovered print of Jaromil Jire’s legendary erotic horror-fantasy HERE
TimeSpace Warps 