Post 6

It's been a while since I've blogged and that's because I encountered a hard drive failure with my trusty, old laptop (purchased in 2008). I could have used my tablet, but I prefer this laptop for blogging (not sure why), so on the advice of a friend I purchased a solid-state drive to breathe new life in to this aging PC and, except for a nagging propensity to shutdown from time-to-time (for no apparent reason), things are good for this machine. Of course, this also means I'm back to blogging.

In addition to a lack of blogging for several weeks, I've also not viewed much VHS (or any films for that matter) recently. This is normal for me though, as March-April are the busiest time of the year work-wise in my current position and I typically find that I'm simply too tired to watch & appreciate a film after a long day at work. One film I did screen recently is Ramparts of Clay, a 1971 (actually, it appears to me that it may have been made in the late 1960s) VHS-only (i.e. no Region 1 DVD is available) French film about a labor strike in a tiny, remote, backwards Tunisian village. The production shows a lot of promise, but ultimately I did not enjoy the film. It's extremely slow-moving, having an almost documentary-like feel, as well as being nearly devoid of dialog. And to be honest I'd think this would be right up my alley since I like documentary and love silent (non-dialog) films. However, I found my interest waning during the later stages of the film. However most of all, I was stunned and upset by a scene in which the locals sacrifice a lamb. It seems to me that, while this may have been standard practice in the time & place depicted in the film (rural Tunisia in the early 1960s), this scene appeared to be staged specifically for the production, thus extinguishing this creature's life needlessly. Moreover, there are several shots of this lamb struggling in its death-throes and these are (IMHO) absolutely gratuitous and excruciating to watch. Often I'll put-aside a film for later so as to watch it again, but in the case of Ramparts of Clay I will not do so simply due to this brutal sacrifice scene.