High Fidelity and “Top Fives”

 

One of the best movies on the relationship between music and the mood of a movie, while being an active part in the actions of the main protagonist (a scene between John Cusack and Bruce Springsteen sums it up perfectly). In that regard, High Fidelity is a movie for audiophiles, as well as cinephiles. All nerds, for lack of a better word.

The dialogue between John Cusack’s Rob Gordon and the spectator, makes one feel like he/she is taking part in the action, not just watching, but also thinking and listening along with the character.
The songs are great in the whole movie, but the most interesting part is the discussion between the characters about music and the way they all relate with it and how it affects them.

Well, Rob is the owner of a record store and spends many of his free time, as the shop is lacking in costumers, is discussing music with his co-workers, as well as costumers, sometimes against their will (in one case with Jack Black’s character and a particular costumer). And this microcosm is entrancing, as one moves between the everyday life at the shop and the occurrences in Rob’s love life that drive the plot forward, always with a sound track in the back of his mind.

 

________________________________________________________________

One thing that does stay with me after re-watching it several times is the obsession with the “top fives” that the shop clerks often discuss, culminating in the creation of “Top Five Records” by the main character. And, as such, I’m going to start making my own “top five”, a monthly Spotify Playlist with my most listened to songs of said month. You can view it on my artist Facebook page at the end of every month starting this week!

 

Here's my Facebook page for reference:

 https://www.facebook.com/ravbx/

Locke-2013

A movie in that focuses on the protagonist driving down the highway while answering calls on speaker, trying to juggle his private and professional life with several callers. That is the basic premise of Locke. And it even though it seems like a very limiting idea for a movie, for example, as it happens in Inside with Willem Dafoe (where the protagonist is sutck limited to an apartment), here the interactions between the driver and the callers are the the solution worked out as the means to take the action away from the limited space of the car in which Ivan Locke is driving (albeit not in a phisical sense).

    Tom Hardy plays said Ivan Locke, who is going through, probably, the worst night of his life, and is trying to keep his life from collapsing, while talking to his boss, co-workers and family. And here to the disembodied voices of the callers are the soul of the movie, making up for the absence of the proper conversation in presence one is used to.

Sometimes, when one is at a crucial point in life, several events come crashing down at the same time, and the first instinct is to try and preserve everything as it was before the "storm" it. But a “storm” never leaves everything like it was before, and thar is what Ivan realises during a particular conversation with his wife: he is trying to have it all, but now that the “storm has it”, it’s impossible for that to be. Several life changing moments like this show up throughout the movie as the conversations take place and it keeps the pacing on edge of a knife. Locke is at its’ core, a movie about trying to survive a storm, and about what one hopes for the future to be after the storm.