What other films / tv make use of this interesting narrative technique?
October 19, 2020 7:27 PM Subscribe
In the tv show Giri/Haji, they used this interesting narrative technique out of the blue. What are some other films or tv series that make use of a more surreal or experimental film technique within the context of a mostly plot-driven film? [very vague spoilers about a narrative technique in giri / haji, but no plot actual spoilers]
At the end, Prior to this scene, the show was a pretty standard cop drama but it got momentarily weirder without any explanation. What are other shows which are 90% normal but suddenly have a weird scene which shifts the narrative style?
To be clear, I'm NOT looking for:
1. Films where the plot itself is surreal or where characters just do surreal things as part of the plot.
2. Films where there is no plot, or characters regularly do things that cannot be explained by the plot.
At the end,
spoilers
during a very dramatic scene, without any explanation, the characters break out into danceTo be clear, I'm NOT looking for:
1. Films where the plot itself is surreal or where characters just do surreal things as part of the plot.
2. Films where there is no plot, or characters regularly do things that cannot be explained by the plot.
I loved Giri/Haji; that scene was fantastic.
There is a scene in Fleabag that does something similar. Fleabag is pretty firmly rooted in reality (her asides to the audience notwithstanding), but in this scene she is sitting in a crowded train car and suddenly the people around her start reacting to the music on the soundtrack, grimacing in pain briefly and then quickly reverting to their neutral I'm-riding-the-train expressions.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:23 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
There is a scene in Fleabag that does something similar. Fleabag is pretty firmly rooted in reality (her asides to the audience notwithstanding), but in this scene she is sitting in a crowded train car and suddenly the people around her start reacting to the music on the soundtrack, grimacing in pain briefly and then quickly reverting to their neutral I'm-riding-the-train expressions.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:23 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Baby Driver has a thing where (sometimes) the music Baby is listening to coordinates in a very specific way with what’s going on, particularly car chases.
posted by Violet Hour at 8:34 PM on October 19, 2020
posted by Violet Hour at 8:34 PM on October 19, 2020
I haven't seen Giri/Haji so I may not get the exact reference, but extrapolating from the other comments, Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman does some interesting rhythmic syncing throughout the film and features a wild, anachronistic, dance sequence out of nowhere:
posted by lilnublet at 8:44 PM on October 19, 2020
posted by lilnublet at 8:44 PM on October 19, 2020
The movie Booksmart, which I cannot recommend highly enough, has an unexpected animated interlude in the middle of it. It is a fantastically watchable movie that also happens to meet your criteria.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:53 PM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 8:53 PM on October 19, 2020 [3 favorites]
Actually let me say definitely Dollface. It'll happen in the first episode, you'll know it when you see it. Or you can look up trailers on YouTube.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:09 PM on October 19, 2020
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:09 PM on October 19, 2020
The movie Radioactive, a biopic about Marie Curie (on Amazon Prime in the US), all of a sudden goes to a scene set in a future time period with no explanation or warning; it subsequently has a couple more similar future sections in the movie before it's over and they connect at the end. It takes a few minutes the first time it happens for you to puzzle out what is going on, and then the other scenes like it make more sense, but I legit had to pause the movie and check if the streaming hadn't somehow accidentally bounced me into something completely different.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:58 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 9:58 PM on October 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Skins is a UK teen drama which was presented as a bit controversial at the time of airing because it depicted drugs/sex/what have you. It's of dubious quality, although I remember the first few seasons being pretty good. Anyway, in the series 1 finale, something dramatic happens and the characters all break into song and sing an ensemble of Cat Stevens "Wild World" (in their separate scenes, like they aren't singing to each other). The show is pretty straightforward up until that point and the song scene is non-diegetic, they make no note of it within the universe of the show.
posted by cpatterson at 11:51 PM on October 19, 2020
posted by cpatterson at 11:51 PM on October 19, 2020
There’s a nice, unexpected sidewalk dance number in one of the Modern Love episodes. I also remember being struck by a sudden choreographed (but non-dance) sequence in Elia Suleiman’s spellbinding Divine Intervention.
posted by progosk at 12:09 AM on October 20, 2020
posted by progosk at 12:09 AM on October 20, 2020
The TV show Six Feet Under does this kind of thing occasionally.
posted by phoenixy at 2:12 AM on October 20, 2020
posted by phoenixy at 2:12 AM on October 20, 2020
The 1999 film Magnolia (written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) has a scene that very much fits into this category. If you want to watch just that scene out of context, you can find it on youtube, although I think it's much more powerful if you just watch the film and let it surprise you.
posted by yankeefog at 2:20 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by yankeefog at 2:20 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
>Baby Driver has a thing where (sometimes) the music Baby is listening to coordinates...
It's an Edgar Wright thing, the moves at The Winchester in Shaun of the Dead are also syncopated to "Don't Stop Me Now".
P.S. Where you say 'sometimes', I saw every action scene in the film as matched to the events of the supporting piece of music.
posted by k3ninho at 2:53 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's an Edgar Wright thing, the moves at The Winchester in Shaun of the Dead are also syncopated to "Don't Stop Me Now".
P.S. Where you say 'sometimes', I saw every action scene in the film as matched to the events of the supporting piece of music.
posted by k3ninho at 2:53 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bollywood films are so full of this that "Bollywood" has almost become the trope name.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on October 20, 2020
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on October 20, 2020
This reminds me of a question I asked years ago. It got 90 answers. You might find some things that fit what you're looking for in there!
posted by phunniemee at 5:32 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 5:32 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's not surreal in Bollywood films, that's part of the expectations of the genre.
There is a form-breaking musical interlude in season 7, episode 7 of the otherwise-pretty non-musical Mad Men, "Waterloo," and a random dance duet in Episode 10 of noir cop show Babylon Berlin (or season 2 episode 2). Although there are a few other musical numbers at the club in Babylon Berlin, this one is tonally completely different, and clearly surreal.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:41 AM on October 20, 2020
There is a form-breaking musical interlude in season 7, episode 7 of the otherwise-pretty non-musical Mad Men, "Waterloo," and a random dance duet in Episode 10 of noir cop show Babylon Berlin (or season 2 episode 2). Although there are a few other musical numbers at the club in Babylon Berlin, this one is tonally completely different, and clearly surreal.
posted by ChuraChura at 5:41 AM on October 20, 2020
Response by poster: Here is my thoughts:
What I found interesting about Giri/Haji's use of this technique is that it deliberately does not tie into the plot or a single character's emotional state and it isn't done to release tension for a laugh or a scare. It felt like dialogue would not sufficiently resolve the emotional tension they had built up, so they had to switch mediums for a sec. And they did this in a crime drama, where logic is usually the most important thing. This is why I referred to it as experimental. Here's the scene in question (major spoilers, obv), which takes place:
Some other random thoughts:
- First, I wanna say I wrote this question late at night and I used the word "weird" because it felt new to me but very open to answers that tell me why this technique is not actually that weird and I only think it is weird because I'm unfamiliar with the director's influences or that I just outright misunderstood it.
- This does not remind me of bollywood because music in bollywood films is not experimental.
- I guess I'm looking less for things where the surreal thing is "explained" by a single character's mental state - by their being on drugs or anxious or whatever.
- I'm not just looking for musical synchronization, especially if it's part of the plot. In Shaun of the Dead (a movie I q like), the characters fight to the music from a jukebox at the pub. In Baby Driver, the main character has headphones. So it feels woven into the logic of the film, especially in comedy where it's typical to break the rules for a laugh.
non-diegetic
thank you for word
posted by i like crows very much at 5:43 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
What I found interesting about Giri/Haji's use of this technique is that it deliberately does not tie into the plot or a single character's emotional state and it isn't done to release tension for a laugh or a scare. It felt like dialogue would not sufficiently resolve the emotional tension they had built up, so they had to switch mediums for a sec. And they did this in a crime drama, where logic is usually the most important thing. This is why I referred to it as experimental. Here's the scene in question (major spoilers, obv), which takes place:
plot spoiler
at the climax of a tense confrontationSome other random thoughts:
- First, I wanna say I wrote this question late at night and I used the word "weird" because it felt new to me but very open to answers that tell me why this technique is not actually that weird and I only think it is weird because I'm unfamiliar with the director's influences or that I just outright misunderstood it.
- This does not remind me of bollywood because music in bollywood films is not experimental.
- I guess I'm looking less for things where the surreal thing is "explained" by a single character's mental state - by their being on drugs or anxious or whatever.
- I'm not just looking for musical synchronization, especially if it's part of the plot. In Shaun of the Dead (a movie I q like), the characters fight to the music from a jukebox at the pub. In Baby Driver, the main character has headphones. So it feels woven into the logic of the film, especially in comedy where it's typical to break the rules for a laugh.
non-diegetic
thank you for word
posted by i like crows very much at 5:43 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ex Machina is a dark serious existential sci fi movie about AI that has a sudden and unexpectedly hilarious dance sequence with Oscar Isaac. Good film all around but that was hands down the most memorable scene for me.
posted by mannequito at 6:44 AM on October 20, 2020
posted by mannequito at 6:44 AM on October 20, 2020
Hal Hartley does this in his films. Here's a scene in Surviving Desire (1992) where a character is joined by two strangers in a silent, choreographed dance. IIRC, it is neither explained nor commented upon in any way in the film.
posted by googly at 7:01 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by googly at 7:01 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh, based on your clarification, Booksmart doesn't fit your criteria. You should watch it anyway, though, cuz it is really great and was criminally under-attended.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:32 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:32 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think what you are describing happens in several scenes from Cuties. One is described here:
'Doucouré often opts for dream logic to formalise Amy's internal anxieties about her femininity. The embroidered flowers on her blue dress begin to bleed, anticipating the beginning of her puberty.'
posted by sizeable beetle at 7:57 AM on October 20, 2020
'Doucouré often opts for dream logic to formalise Amy's internal anxieties about her femininity. The embroidered flowers on her blue dress begin to bleed, anticipating the beginning of her puberty.'
posted by sizeable beetle at 7:57 AM on October 20, 2020
Oh!
* The movie All That Jazz. It's a semi-autobiographical film about the choreographer Bob Fosse, which ends with him having this massive allegory-of-your-life-story over-the-top production number hallucination before dying. (Bob Fosse had not actually died at the time of this film.)
* The film adaptation of the musical Chicago. The musical was intentionally staged as a surreal thing, but the movie handled it by implying that the various musical numbers were all themselves surreal hallucinations that the lead Roxy was experiencing while she was going through a traumatic experience. I thought it was a great way to square that circle.
* There was an episode of the TV show Chicago Hope where one character has a brain aneurysm, and the whole episode is presented from his perspective with a mix of real-life events interspersed with people randomly breaking out into show tunes.
* And then there is The Singing Detective, a story about a mystery writer with debilitating psoriatic arthropathy, a skin and joint disease, which may be partially psychosomatic; the "real life plot" sees him in the hospital coping with a flareup, and there are also segments which are flashbacks to his childhood and other segments where he's working out the plot for his latest novel. As things go on those three plots all sort of cross and interact, and any one of them could see someone breaking out into song. (Robert Downey Jr. was so impressed with it he produced an American remake.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:11 AM on October 20, 2020
* The movie All That Jazz. It's a semi-autobiographical film about the choreographer Bob Fosse, which ends with him having this massive allegory-of-your-life-story over-the-top production number hallucination before dying. (Bob Fosse had not actually died at the time of this film.)
* The film adaptation of the musical Chicago. The musical was intentionally staged as a surreal thing, but the movie handled it by implying that the various musical numbers were all themselves surreal hallucinations that the lead Roxy was experiencing while she was going through a traumatic experience. I thought it was a great way to square that circle.
* There was an episode of the TV show Chicago Hope where one character has a brain aneurysm, and the whole episode is presented from his perspective with a mix of real-life events interspersed with people randomly breaking out into show tunes.
* And then there is The Singing Detective, a story about a mystery writer with debilitating psoriatic arthropathy, a skin and joint disease, which may be partially psychosomatic; the "real life plot" sees him in the hospital coping with a flareup, and there are also segments which are flashbacks to his childhood and other segments where he's working out the plot for his latest novel. As things go on those three plots all sort of cross and interact, and any one of them could see someone breaking out into song. (Robert Downey Jr. was so impressed with it he produced an American remake.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:11 AM on October 20, 2020
Whether or not I'd characterize it as otherwise plot-driven is debatable, but I'm Thinking of Ending Things otherwise might fit the bill. The surrealism is there throughout, but ramps up substantially/become undeniable at a certain point.
posted by quatsch at 8:41 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by quatsch at 8:41 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
EmpressCallipygos mentioned The Singing Detective by Dennis Potter; there are two other Dennis Potter series in this vein, Pennies from Heaven with Bob Hoskins, and Lipstick On Your Collar which features a very young Ewan McGregor. All three feature characters breaking into popular songs of the era they are set in (30s for Pennies, 40s for Detective and 50s for Lipstick) in the middle of 'normal' activity. It's really interesting to watch these three in the order they were made, and see the different ways Potter used the musical numbers. Sometimes one character sings just one verse, other times there's a whole song-and-dance number by multiple characters. The songs are almost always used to signify both the emotion that is flowing in or between people in the scene (which the characters are generally too repressed, too inarticulate or too emotionally entrapped to express) and the uplifting power of music.
There are also other narrative devices used; breaking the fourth wall at the end of Pennies, for example. In one episode of Lipstick which I watched a few nights ago, when the scene reverts to 'normal' drama, a character absentmindedly kicks away a balloon from the song and dance number, which of course only happened in one character's head.
Potter is not unproblematic, but he is brilliant, and generally compassionate to every one of the deeply flawed people in his dramas.
posted by andraste at 4:01 PM on October 20, 2020
There are also other narrative devices used; breaking the fourth wall at the end of Pennies, for example. In one episode of Lipstick which I watched a few nights ago, when the scene reverts to 'normal' drama, a character absentmindedly kicks away a balloon from the song and dance number, which of course only happened in one character's head.
Potter is not unproblematic, but he is brilliant, and generally compassionate to every one of the deeply flawed people in his dramas.
posted by andraste at 4:01 PM on October 20, 2020
On Day 35 of 400 Days of Summer, after Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sleep together for the first time he does a dance routine to Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams” with a bunch of random people in a park, most of whom are wearing blue. He sees his reflection as Han Solo, the UCLA marching band appears, and there's an animated blue tweeting bird.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:26 PM on October 20, 2020
posted by kirkaracha at 11:26 PM on October 20, 2020
Oh, The Fisher King! There are some sequences of surreality there largely because of Robin William's character, who's in a somewhat mentally-altered state because of PTSD. Over the course of the film a couple of characters kind of help him out - one of whom is a woman he falls in love with, and there's this fabulous sequence where he spots her across the main hall at Grand Central Station.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:24 AM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
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Edit to add: I kinda think you should edit out what the technique actually was, because it is a pretty big spoiler.
posted by EllaEm at 7:46 PM on October 19, 2020