The 16 Scene Puzzle

I tried to blog every day, but then I ran into a patch where I didn't have anything to write about. It has been 11 days since my last post and now I have too much to talk about. Just this weekend I watched 7 movies, and I could do a blog about each one. There was Sunshine, The Simpsons Movie and Hotel Harabati that I saw in theaters and The Tao of Steve, Into the Blue (blu-ray), The Full-Metal Alchemist (Anime), The Secrets of Nikola Tesla.
I'll start with Sunshine. If you don't like sci-fi, I don't think you would like this movie. I really liked it, and that wasn't just because I was the only person in the theater when I watched it. I guess it was just no competition with The Simpsons Movie playing at the same time. This movie had elements that reminded me of Alien, 2001 A Space Odyssey, 28 Days Later and The Fountain. The movie begins on Icarus 2 on a mission to reignite a dying Sun after the first mission to do the same failed. The movie really does a great job maintaining suspense throughout. I just don't know why they named the first space ship Icarus, that just seems like bad luck and to not change the name for the second mission just seems like testing fate.
The Simpsons Movie was just great. I honestly didn't have many expectations for this movie. I do enjoy the Simpson when I catch it on TV, but I am a fan that does not actively seek it out. I don't really get excited for new episodes, and I don't even think that I have a favorite episode or character. I guess I just take for granted that the Simpsons will make me laugh with it's perfect comedic timing, wit, sarcasm and ridiculous situations. That said, I was far from disappointed with this movie. I enjoyed the movie from start to finish and laughed the whole way through. I would recommend it to anyone that likes the Simpsons. They didn't ruin any characters and it was much better than an average episode of the show.
The last movie that I saw in the theater this weekend is the one I really want to talk about. Yesterday I went to the MFA in Boston to catch the end of the French Film Festival that was held this month. I had never been to the MFA, and I guess technically I still haven't -- but I intend to go back. The film that I watched was called Hotel Harabati. I really want to say that I liked this movie. I really do. But I find it as hard to state my opinion of this movie as I do to state my opinion of a movie that I never finished. The most I can say is that I liked the scenes in the movie, but not the movie as a whole. It seemed like this movie was never finished. I thought that I read all of the subtitles, despite the woman in front of me moving her head every five minutes. I looked online for an explanation to this movie, and I found none. I found that the director deliberately left holes in the movie, to be filled in, and said things like "Yes, it is a puzzle, but life is a puzzle" when asked about it. This is not really fair. It isn't enough to string together scenes an expect a story to pop out of it. You have to have a story in mind, and tell it through scenes. That is how storytelling works no matter the medium. I get the distinct impression that there really wasn't a story behind the film. If I don't understand the story, I cannot understand what the director or writer is trying to tell me. One of the big reasons that I like movies is because through story/art things about the human nature or life are revealed. Little nuggets of life lessons that really can't be summed up in a single sentence. The nuggets take an hour or two to tell, but they usually do tell. This film cheated. It wants me to use nuggets I already have to make it work as a story, but the problem is they don't fit. Usually if a movie is missing plot or character elements, two things can happen: Either they are revealed at the end in a moment that takes you by surprise but leaves you thinking that you should have figured it out but didn't, or what is left out can only be explained with one explanation that makes sense logically within the confines of the story. This movie either doesn't make sense or it was so poorly put together that not everyone can understand it. The director claims that it is a puzzle, but a puzzle has two qualities that this movie does not. In a puzzle, every piece is used, explained or used to aid in explanation, and these explanations must be logically sound. It is not enough if the answer is just "It was a dream the whole time, so none of it makes sense --hahaha what a great puzzle." You have to have provided some clue to let me know that a dream world is a viable possibility within the story. I am not saying that I believe that Hotel Harabati was supposed to be a dream, I am saying that I don't know enough to rule that out as an option. Without enough information, sometimes a puzzle can never be solved. It reminds me of the 16 square puzzle. At almost every dollar store you can find a puzzle that is has 4 rows and 4 columns and 15 boxes numbered 1 to 15 and usually a circle occupying the 16th spot to keep everything tight. You remove the circle and slide the boxes around to scramble it and try to get the numbers back. Most everyone knows this puzzle, but here is the thing about this puzzle that most people don't know. If you start the puzzle with it solved, and scramble it and give it to someone and they can't solve it, you can laugh at them. Because you know there is a way to get all of the numbers in numerical order, but if you cheat and break the puzzle so the pieces fall out and put the numbers back together scrambled, there is a 50/50 chance that that puzzle is unsolvable. Which means that if you give that to someone to solve and they can't, you can't laugh because you don't know if it is solvable at all. In the same way, scrambled scenes aren't enough to make a movie. Just because they are numbered 1 to 15 doesn't mean that you can make them make sense. Until I hear a real explanation of what happened in this movie, or what it is about, I am going to treat it like a broken 16 square puzzle.