MILK
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- Price:
- € 12 regular
- € 0 Cineville gratis
- Valid for Cineville More info
- Free for year members
18:30 Doors 19:00 Blow Out (1981)
Together with Heat, an Agency that represents filmmakers, we present a bi-monthly movie night curated by their wide array of passioned creators, designed for everyone looking to connect and be inspired. Every edition will center around a unique host and their inspiring guests; they’ll select a main film that showcases what they are all about and motivates them within their creative field. And they will take you on a two-hour journey into their vision.
This edition is hosted by Bear Damen, with Brian de Palma's 'Blow Out' from 1981 as the main film. In this mystery thriller John Trovolta plays the main character Jack, a sound engineer for B-movies, who is outside recording sounds for his movies one evening, when he witnesses a car end up in the water. Jack manages to save one of the occupants, Sally. When it turns out that the deceased driver of the car was an important senator, Jack is put under pressure to forget everything. Jack, who as a sound expert knows for sure that he heard a gunshot before the fatal accident, embarks on an obsessive search for the true nature of the so-called accident.
Before the film Bear will show his own new short film Synthesize Me (14'). In this short coming-of-age film, teenager Violeta finds a way to revive her deceased mother’s synth equipment. The consequences for her, the city and her father are surprisingly drastic.
Melkweg often hosts different types of programmes at the same time, such as concerts, club nights and films. Please note that there may occasionally be some noise pollution from other programmes during the screening.
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Bear Damen:
Synthesize Me thematically deals with grief. But it also explores the technical side of ‘creating’ specifically, making music with synthesizers in a period piece set in the 1980s. It shows Violeta, the main character, building music from scratch using vintage gear, focusing on the sequencer and how and where she loops little motifs of notes. The synthesizers are also written into the film as the catalyst for the inciting incident. They cause both characters to plummet even further, emotionally and psychologically, and force them to see each other’s worlds.
To compare a short film and DePalma’s vastly different classic in that way feels of course kind of crazy, but it does share something with Blow Out. Where it’s Travolta’s job as a sound recordist that kicks off the story. Both films center around characters who work with sound, and how that work pulls them into something deeper, whether it’s conspiracy or emotional reckoning. The way Travolta’s actions editing the film are a masterclass in action editing a fun & games sequence. There’s a kind of obsession that builds, and the gear becomes more than just a tool, it becomes a way into truth, memory, and even danger. And also, this would now just be a few clicks on a computer or a phone even. Like De Palma romanticizes tape reels and shotgun mics to tell a truth about death, and does so in a style far ahead of its time, Synthesize Me leans into the tactile world of vintage synths, letting the audience sit with the loops, the layering, and the rhythm of someone trying to create something meaningful from nothing.
My personal feeling toward Blow Out, a deeply personal film for De Palma, shot in his hometown, is that it almost feels like a perfect audition for Mission: Impossible, even if the two are twelve films apart. Brian De Palma’s 1981 film Blow Out holds a significant place in his filmography, reflecting both his personal experiences and artistic influences. The concept for the film was partly inspired by De Palma’s collaboration with his sound technician, Dan Sable, during the production of Dressed to Kill (1980). Unsatisfied with reused wind sounds, De Palma sent Sable to record new audio, highlighting the director’s commitment to authentic soundscapes. Pauline Kael, perhaps the most difficult but truthful film critics to have ever lived, deemed it a ‘great movie’. For me as a Kael devotee that kind of says it all.
