Welcome to my collection of streaming services, MUBI.
I recall being tantalized by MUBI when I first heard about it, which I roughly equate with when Paul Thomas Anderson released that documentary Junun back in 2015, a MUBI exclusive. If that movie had been feature length -- it's only 54 minutes -- I might have figured out that MUBI was available in Australia sooner than now in order to see it, either just to be a PTA completist or possibly even to have ranked it in the year it came out. I always assumed that like some other more boutiquey streaming services, such as the Criterion Channel and Filmstruck before it, the Australian market was out of bounds -- and back in 2015, it probably still was.
Well, a friend of mine did that work of sussing out MUBI's Australian availability for me and gifted me a subscription for Christmas, which I finally activated on February 1st.
Now, as recently as Wednesday, I was still operating under the impression that MUBI had only 30 films available at any given time. The high concept that MUBI originally introduced to us was that it had a film of the day every day of the year, which existed on the site for 30 days and then was gone. It meant blissful relief from option overload, while always giving you a good slate of films to choose from, many of them rarities.
I don't know if that was ever really the total business model, nor could it be a sustainable one in today's streaming environment with only those parameters. I suspect even back in 2015, that wouldn't have been the model because they wouldn't premiere a movie like Junun, which obviously has a cost associated with it, only for it to disappear a month later.
I didn't work that out until I was actually in and browsing the choices, though, and had an initial reaction that was equal parts thrilling and frightening. That reaction was:
1) I've only ever even heard of two of these 30 movies!
Followed quickly by:
2) I've only ever even heard of two of these 30 movies.
The two movies I'd heard of, I'd also seen, which were the film Swallow from a few years ago (about Hayley Bennett swallowing household objects to dull her housewife boredom) and Jane Campion's Sweetie (which would have been a perfect choice for Campion Champion & Bigelow Pro, except I saw it about five years ago).
All the rest were from the definite margins of cinema, sometimes from countries I didn't even know had film industries.
Now, the main point of a service like MUBI is to challenge yourself and see movies you've never heard of. Just trying to find elusive films that are also critically acclaimed is not a great engagement with the site's core concept. Yes, you can find films you never knew you wanted to see on lots of streaming services -- Kanopy is a particularly good example -- but the films on MUBI feel somehow more cultivated and curated. You know some really academic cinephile has gone to the trouble of seeking these out and securing their streaming rights, to greater expand our understanding of the vastness of the cinematic landscape.
But on the very first night, I just couldn't select one of those other 28 films to click play. They were all equally tantalizing, which is to say, none of them felt quite tantalizing enough to be my symbolic first MUBI viewing.
So it was with a little relief, though also some sense of defeat, that I found all the other movies that are part of MUBI's ongoing catalogue. At least I selected one that was listed as LEAVING SOON.
And through this first choice, I did immediately recognize the uniqueness and value of this new venture.
When I watched the films of Agnes Varda for my Audient Auteurs series in July of 2018, Cleo from 5 to 7 was meant to be one of the two films I watched -- in fact, it was the primary reason I had chosen Varda for one of the slots in this 12-month series. Aware of her many other respected contributions to cinema from a series they did on Filmspotting, I still went with Varda and loved both The Gleaners & I and Faces Places. But the reason I chose those films was that I just couldn't find Cleo.
Well, thanks for helping out with that, MUBI.
Just checking right now, the film still isn't available for rental from either Amazon or iTunes. That's a pretty sad outcome for a film that was #14 among critics in the recent Sight and Sound poll. So not only did watching this as my first MUBI movie scratch a five-year-old itch, it also removed the second highest ranked Sight and Sound film that was on my list of shame. Only Claire Denis' Beau Travail (#7) was higher ranked in that poll among films I haven't seen.
Alas, I wish I could say that Cleo was 100% a success story for me. I should have known it was a dumb choice for a day in which I'd gone into the office for the first time since mid-December -- office attendance is pretty scant during an Australian summer -- and was exhausted from a very busy and tiring last few months. As is increasingly the case when watching from my all-too-comfortable couch, I had to pause the movie multiple times for short/long naps, even though it's only a very manageable 90 minutes.
By the end I did work myself into a strong appreciation of it, finding it to be a thematic precursor to something like Before Sunset. Both films include a jaunt (mostly) on foot through Paris as the light starts to fade and as everything assumes the heightened significance of limited time -- in Jesse and Celine's case, because they may never see each other again and have to make a decision, and in Cleo's case, because she thinks she might have a fatal illness. In these two hours, Cleo's life literally flashes in front of her eyes, as she has impossibly short yet somehow elongated ten-minute windows doing different things that are gratifying to her soul in some way. (I know it's not fair to "compare" these two films, Cleo certainly being considered the more seminal of the two, but I can only go by the sequence in which I watched them.)
However, I do feel like this first Cleo viewing is only laying the groundwork for a second viewing, when I'm more awake and can be more finely tuned into its meditative wavelength. I supposed that may not be on MUBI since it's supposed to be leaving soon, but maybe it will pop up again on MUBI in the future.
Even if the movie was not a slam dunk win for me, due to issues with me and my viewing circumstances rather than the film, the experience MUBI provided me was a slam dunk win. The ability to see an all-timer at the click of a button, when none of my other streaming services have any significant focus on films that came out 60 years ago, was just grand. (Incidentally, I was pleased to see that Cleo is not nearly as "ancient history" as a person might think, as the actress who plays Cleo, Corinne Marchand, is still alive and well at 91 -- herself certainly not a victim of the imminent demise that hangs over her character.)
I'd certainly like to use MUBI more often than every 30 days, and the next time, I will definitely opt for one of those 30 movies of the day -- probably intentionally choosing one I haven't heard of, even if ones I have heard of are available.
I don't really need a new streaming service, considering that we have also just added Binge -- which I haven't even started using, that's how new it is. (This carries HBO programming in Australia.) But I always need a new streaming service that is as different from the others as MUBI is, and I am psyched as hell to be off and running on this experience.
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