Big Fish

I was explaining to KL about surrealism as an art movement and as I was thinking about my options in life and that fork in the road, I remember a movie i watched from years ago. I liked Big Fish, because it was pure surrealism - it was a movie that toed that thin line between fantasy, lies, and reality. I am not entirely sure what this movie meant to me, but it reminded me of a few things:

1) I am drawn to art in a metaphysical way that’s hard to convey to someone else in words, but it’s ok because what other people see as inconsistent and illogical in art is to me the exact beauty of it. I am entirely comfortable with - or should I say prefer - (seeming) chaos, uncertainty, unexplained nuances because it gives me the chance to navigate those ideas and images with my own compass and interpretation. i like open-endedness and endless debates so movies with indefinite endings don’t bother me. (but i do have a certain threshold for nonsensical movies that pretend to be arthouse - i usually diss those with no relent)

2) You know those movies where main characters do stupid things like follow a bunny down a rabbit hole, eat something that shrinks her and then follow the same bunny around? Or the other where the character follows an iffy looking witch down a deserted path leading to nothingness and end up having the adventure of his life? Those characters who are the main protagonists of any good fantasy/sci-fi movie but might be the outcast of society, victim of crime and deception in real life. I am somehow predisposed towards choosing adventure, taking risks and making leaps of faith as the years pass. I suspect it might have to do with my strict upbringing and structured life path thusfar that gives me the confidence to take risks, knowing that I can always bounce back and get back on the safe road to mundanity. Or it could simply be a suppressed part of me bursting out to take risks and to venture into the unknown. Or it could be a function of age where risk-taking is the norm. Whatever it is, it’s hard for me to be satisfied with the safe road to security - I need a good challenge, an awesome adventure or simply room to explore uncharted domains.

3) Random thought that came with remembering the title of the movie: At this point in life, I would like to be a small fish in the sea than a big fish in a pond - because the small fish can only have enough space to grow in the sea. the pond is a little too crammed.

4) my indication of a good decision is one where i'm listening to my heart and there's an adrenaline rush to my brain after deciding. keep me away from casinos hor.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I cried through Benjamin Button, and didn't feel the 3hrs were that long. It's amazing, if you know that I'm the sort who can't help being bored in the middle of a 90min film in a cinema. Indeed, a multi-layered film as i like it. but i agree with reviewers that there's something very sanitized about it; the storytellers do their best to make Benjamin an "Everyman", to the extent that he really is one.. and you really forget that he "was born under unusual circumstances" as it proceeds.the only thing that i started noticing was how Brad Pitt got more and more handsome as he starts to become younger and younger.. and there was a point where he returns to look like his "Interview with a Vampire" era.

Anyways, I have this nagging feeling that the short story would be more thought provoking and insightful than the film itself. but, i'll definitely watch the movie again. Just to think through the lessons packed in it again.

after the movie, the first thoughts were that Ser thought it was like Forrest Gump, i saw a sublime link between Benjamin Button and Big Fish.
Life, is as colourful as you want it to be.

Benjamin Button's postcard to his daughter which was one of the quoteworthies in the film.

"For what it's worth: it's never too late ... to be whoever you want to be.
There's no time limit, stop whenever you want.
You can change or stay the same;
there are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best or the worst of it.
I hope you make the best of it.
And I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you never felt before.
I hope you meet people with a different point of view.
I hope you live a life you're proud of.
If you find that you're not,
I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

Koizora

i fear that i might be detaching myself from reality by immersing myself in movie and TV. perhaps it's a sign that stress is setting in once more, this season of the semester. it's much easier to do nothing constructive and stay in virtual reality without worrying over how my timeline is faring. Yet withdrawal symptom of emptiness looms after the screen stops moving and the static picture reminds me that i'm still where i am, with that mountain of work to do and that lack of excitement and colourful emotions that these characters have. My emotions? two-dimensional boredom. Watching people who laugh and cry and live purposefully makes me envious. oh well :(


everything you would expect in a tear-jerking, heart-wrenching love story between a couple whose love spans over high school and beyond. love it for its beautiful cinematography, perfect characters and dreamy landscapes, hate it for how much of a utopia the movie etched into my head. still, i would watch it again. and again, maybe.
sigh.

Youth without Youth (2007)

i watched a Surrealist film today. i didn't understand a minute of it. i can't believe it. i finally have to concede that there are films that COMPLETELY elude me. i'm stunned. the reviews were all bad, which i'm guessing because the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes are mere mortals like me. I found a mini surrealist treatise on the film and wow, it STILL eludes me big time. NO more Picturehouse for me for a while.

the diving bell and the butterfly (1)

why movie posters can look scandalous and irreverent to the spirit of a film eludes me. but it was a good film, which made me fall in love with French all over again and it nourished the lingophile in me. I love the beauty of the monologue Jean-Do recites in his solitary diving bell and can only metaphorically weep at my incompetence and his confinement; that i could only read the translated English form, like listening to Chopin Waltz No. 69 through the fingers of a mediator.

I got my hands on the book the next day, that i may savor once again, the resonance of the quotes which tugged at my writer soul. I wish i could rave more on the film tactics, but i was too wowed by the subtitles to give due attention to cinematography. that would take a separate viewing. i promise to fulfill my irreproachable role as an amateur film critic.

the first film that we watched together and might be the last for now, as seul, he takes off to France.

Juxtaposition

I'm glad i can finally "release" my film paper now that submission's over. i heart it alot, because I "sense" the writing flow, even more coherently than they were in my mind as i crafted it. Writing to me, is more than a set of words, sentences or paragraphs strung together. It is a very beautiful and elegant woman, articulate in her longings and pensive thoughts, sensitive and sincere. Every time i start on something, it's like knocking on her door and asking her what she has to convey. Going deeper and deeper into her pensive thoughts and emotions. By the time a piece of satisfactory writing is done, i feel that i have connected with and understood her. Weird as it may sound, t's a living relationship.

“Write an essay that discusses Chungking Express in relation to In the Mood for Love, or In the Mood for Love in relation to Chungking Express. Your essay should be centered on one or a few key points. Your essay must also contain some discussion of Wong’s use of the film medium in the two films.”

Wong Kar Wei’s films invoke a sense of déjà vu; an evocation of romantic longings and fleeting chances. Juxtaposing the two films, one finds Chungking Express (CKE) idiosyncratic, whilst In the Mood for Love (ITMFL) nostalgic to the point of being larger than life.

The Concept of Time

Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, eternity can be the tick of a clock. -Mary Parrish

In CKE, the sense that time is moving forward is strong. The monologue of 223 reveals an obsession with time and remembrance; each centimeter of contact is recounted, each minute a significant marker of time. There is a positive anxiety to capture memories and time; a “canning of time” in order to capture the meaning of what has transpired in his life. The story of 633 is less relentless in its pursuit of time, but the blasting music “California Dreaming” constantly reminds us that Faye’s utopia has not yet come and behind the fast food counter, she is in a state of waiting. Even when Faye breaks into 633’s house, “Dreams” replay each time, giving us a premonition that something is waiting to happen.

ITMFL on the other hand, slowly ushers one down the memory lane nostalgically and leaves one unable to leave it. Time is almost static in ITMFL, with a looming clock that has no second hand to signify the passing of seconds. Time moves in blocks of moods rather than units of minutes, with Lizhen’s dazzling array of cheongsams as the only significant marker of time in the story. There is the stylistics to reinforce the languid pace; the tracking camera that follows Li Zhen up and down the steps with her thermoflask gives a nostalgic significance to the moment. Shot in slow motion, the whirling, tendril-like cigarette smoke from Chow dances against the light hauntingly and bids the audience to remember the smoke, to remember the wistfulness of that moment. The timelessness of memory pervades.

Emotions.

Events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.

-Eudora Welty

The use of slow motion in both films highlights the emotional state of the characters relative to the world around them. If 633 was lost in melancholic thoughts after being jilted, Li Zhen was trapped in loneliness with her husband’s absence. In CKE however, the presentation is more literal; 633 drinks black coffee at a snail’s crawl in melancholy as the world around him rushes forward. The same cinematic technique is used more subtly in ITMFL as Li Zhen’s slowed-down, stretch-printed ascent and descent along the stairway with thermoflask in hand, as well as her languid graceful movements near the mahjong table as she mingles with others; exemplifies her loneliness despite the activity and people around her.

Another dimension to the slowness of events portrayed is Kundera’s secret bond between slowness and memory, where slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory.[i] The inter-title at the start of ITMFL sums up the mesh of unspoken emotions, raw longings and misty sight of the past in Chow’s memory.[ii] Chow’s memories of meeting Li Zhen at the noodle stalls, enjoyable times in 2046, and pensive moments in his newspaper office are all slowed down and savored. The intensity of 633’s memory of his failed relationship is likewise represented in the extreme slow motion of his coffee drinking. For 223, time is stopped altogether to mark the significance of the moment where he bumps into the blonde and Faye.

In both ITMFL and CKE, close proximity does not mean emotional closeness. The characters get close enough to the point of touching, but not quite. 223 recounts his “0.01cm” distance from the blonde and Faye respectively with a matter-of-factness; Li Zhen and Chow similarly brush past each other along the narrow corridors and stairways, with an air of quiet reticence between them. In CKE, the emotional distance was that of alienation as people are lost in their internal thoughts, whilst the repressed behaviour and emotions of Lizhen and Chow are as much a result as social decorum and respectability as Lizhen's unwillingness to be like their spouses, who have gotten into an extramarital affair. The irony is that Lizhen and Chow were slowly falling in love too, albeit in a waltzing pattern of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”, but their love is unconsummated and therein the beauty of a mood for love, forever embalmed in memory.

Attire in both films hence becomes a vehicle for emotions and passions to be expressed; consequently, restraint of attire is a reflection of restrained emotions. The more carefree attire of 223 and Faye is a contrast to the prime and proper 633, where in public space, his hair is always immaculately combed and shirt tucked in. The blonde is always decked in her wig, sunglasses and raincoat. The duo finds emancipation from their restraint by the end of the movie segments. Symbolically, 633’s shirt is un-tucked when Faye comes back from California and the blonde drops her wig after murdering her lover. Along a similar vein, attire in ITMFL reflects the required restraint of passions in 1960s Hongkong[iii] and both Chow and Li Zhen have their hair and attire immaculately in place throughout the movie, juxtaposed with a less formal and promiscuous Ping. However, emotions are never emancipated for the couple; Li Zhen remains composed as tears roll down her cheeks in room 2046 when she realized Chow had already left for Singapore.

Hence, the voluptuousness of emotions in ITMFL that reside within the characters bursts unto the colours around them. “Unbearable nostalgia”[iv], that of knowing the inevitable death of one’s love, is hence imparted to the vivid colours of Lizhen’s cheongsams, the bedsheets of Chow’s room, even the colours of the aged walls. Those colours are reminiscent of a time charged with pent up emotions, a time that was more colourful in Chow’s memory than what actually was. They lure the modern audience into believing that the 1960s had more vibrant colours, more life. Rather than an accurate portrayal of the real 1960s, it is perhaps more fittingly, Chow’s subjective memory of a wistful past. Emotions in CKE are similarly displaced onto inanimate objects and rituals. 633’s melancholy from being dumped by his air stewardess girlfriend is displaced onto his bar of soap, rag, soft toy. 223 creates a ritual for himself (buying cans of pineapples with an expiration dated 1 May), imparting much emotional tenacity to a senseless activity. Faye’s adoration for 633 is similarly displaced onto her routine of cleaning up 633’s apartment. Both Faye’s break-in into 633’s house and Li Zhen’s break-in into Chow’s apartment in Singapore is a metaphorical and oblique way of moving into the heart of the man they yearn for, because both lack the courage to bring their feelings to fruition. When dreams threaten to come true, Faye puts it on hold by escaping to California. Li Zhen on the other hand, remains silent on the phone even as Chow waits for her to speak.

Space

Love is space and time measured by the heart. –Marcel Proust

In CKE, the high density of the whirling mass of faceless people who surround the characters and crammed spaces[v] creates a deep sense of alienation. ITMFL however, is reminiscent of a time where people were crammed together in a claustrophobic space and forming a community where they borrow newspapers from each other and have meals together. Characters are always negotiating crammed, narrow spaces and corridors. The spying camera places the audience as a voyeur and neighbour, always behind something, peeking in and eavesdropping in a living space with high human density. The only time that Li Zhen and Chow could be free from prying eyes and chatter is during their dinners together and thereafter, along the lonely night streets that were stripped of other people or street furniture. Even on the broad streets however, they are frequently shot behind the barred windows and in a cab, maintaining them in a claustrophobic space, signifying their trapped existence in a close knit community where tongues wag at the slightest misstep one makes.

At the same time, space is presented as a repository of memories. The occasional empty shots of the street lamp, the common corridor between the two families and the empty street void of people long after the characters leave. The space takes on a life of its own, inviting the audience to fill in the elliptical gaps in the story. Lizhen walks past under the street lamp and after a short delay, Chow walks past in the opposite direction. Will they meet the next time they pass through? The street lamp seems to ponder as the original score carries the characters through the space. True enough, they do, as the rain patters down against the light from the street lamp.

Juxtaposition

CKE as as forward-looking and hopeful as ITMFL is nostalgic and wistful. The stories might be different, but underlying them, Wong's distinctive themes of memories, chance and regret remain the same. The concept of time, display of emotions and use of space echo these themes in the two films.

---

[i] “There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Consider this utterly commonplace situation: a man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down. Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still to close to him in time… the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting” (Kundera, Milan. Slowness. Trans. Linda Asher. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. pg 35-35)

[ii] It is a restless moment.
She has kept her head lowered,
to give him a chance to come closer.
But he could not, for lack of courage.
She turns and walks away.

That era has passed.
Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

[iii] The landlord lady criticizes Lizhen for wearing beautiful cheongsams “just to get noodles” and the boss finds the new tie by his young mistress too flamboyant.

[iv] The “unbearable nostalgia” describes a situation in which, even though one’s beloved is present, one sees no future, or “your beloved’s death is, invisibly, already present”. (Kundera, Milan. Identity. Trans. Linda Asher. London: Faber and Faber, 1998)

[v] Both 223 and 633’s apartments, Midnight Express Chungking Mansions are all crammed spaces.

The Road Home - 我的父亲母亲

The movie moved me to tears unexpectedly; I didn't think that a simple story set in rural China was going to touch my heart. Undoubtedly, it's going to remain one of my favourite films. It was a story of love set in the 1950s in rural China, between Zhuo Di (Zhang Ziyi) and the village teacher. The story starts off in black and white, with a business man on his way back to the rural village of his birth to take care of his father's funeral. He comes back to find a grief stricken mother who insists that her deceased husband be carried by men on foot from the morgue in the city back to the village by a long winding road. Through preparation for his father's funeral, he narrates the story of his parents' love, which bursts forth in rich colours onscreen, emblemed in the enigmatic child-like wonder of Zhang Ziyi's delicate features. Her role as Di is captivating; an illiterate 18yr old girl who falls in love at first sight with the village teacher.

Finally, a picture of a couple who love each other simply because they fall in love; not because they were 2 individuals seeking love in an alienating city, nor because of lust or emptiness of loneliness or idealized notions of love. A love story that lasts 40 years and refuses to end even with death. A love that can withstand the test of time and unmet expectations, because of the faith that they loved each other.

To think that the modern single talks about managing expectations and moving on to the next possibility of love. As if love was instant food that had to gratify or else; as if breaking up and divorce and "we fell out of love" was the norm. I think the modern man has lost something true, something pure, something that lasts. Perhaps it was the fact that we think our possibilities are endless, that we can afford to play the field a little longer, that we have the faculty of choice, that we deserve only the best, that we will only know if we love one another if we "try it out". The irony is that all these chasing after what we think is the formula for true love only pushes it further and further into the realm of imagination and ultimate frustration.

I just ask for that simplicity. I hope it's possible.

In the Mood For Love

It's hard to describe it if you haven't watched enough of Wong's films, but it suffice for now to say that his movies are like sophisticated dreams that invoke a sense of deja vu. Dreams that have a touch of demure glamour to it, thanks to Christopher Doyle's unmatchable cinematography. There are also the stylistics; slow motion, whirling, tendril-like smoke dancing against the light, tracking camera, lush and voluptuous colours, haunting music, motiffs that appear in cycles to entice and capture you. But more importantly, Wong's distinctive themes of memories, regret, chance remain consistent throughout his films and evoke in one deep nostalgia of a time past, be it the one in the story world or in one's own memory. It's almost he is able to reach inside of your mind and represent those emotions that are most delicate and inexpressible. That is why his films are true art.

"At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time."

The stunning cheongsams wore by Lizhen are achingly beautiful. Unknowing, the array of cheongsams are the only marker of time in the story, given that almost the whole film revolves around the 2 characters and the narrow spaces around them. What is not said speaks louder than the actual words exchanged. The repressed behaviour and emotions of Lizhen and Chow are as much a result as social decorum and respectability as Lizhen's unwillingness to be like their spouses, who have gotten into an extramarital affair. The irony is that Lizhen and Chow were slowly falling in love too, but Wong refuses for them to consummate their love and therein the beauty of it all.

It is a restless moment.
She has kept her head lowered,
to give him a chance to come closer.
But he could not, for lack of courage.
She turns and walks away.

That era has passed.
Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see, but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

The thing about Wong's movies is that you can easily be infatuated with the first film that you see, because of the novelty of it. It's a beautiful piece of literature that you can ruminate upon even as the credits roll. Almost like eye candy, what you see and feel can entrap you unknowingly. Slowly, you fall in love with Wong's dream, a mesh of unspoken emotions, memories, raw longings and misty sight. The heuristics are not always logical, but in any case, a beautiful raphsody that's haunting. The story carries over themes and characters and motivations from other stories that he has made and the more you know about the other characters (by watching more of his films) the more revelations hit you, deeper and deeper. The parallels between the characters and films will not hit you the first time; only if you give yourself space and time to connect the dots.

warning: spoilers ahead for 2046

Its "sequel" 2046 will carry over the central character Chow to his life after parting with Su Lizhen. 2046 is however less focused, almost a compilation of Wong's films to date; one cannot fully appreciate it unless having watched Wong's earlier works. But even if one eventually learns to appreciate the parallels and metaphors, In the Mood For Love is a film hard to trump, even by Wong himself, armed with a formidable cast. One gets the feeling that all that is to be said seem to have been said in In the Mood for Love anyways.

Personally, I found it hard to get through 2046 without watching In the Mood for Love. It was only in lieu of the latter that i found the motivation for Chow's promiscuity and ironically, saw past that promiscuity to see the real point of the movie. As if exacting revenge on a passive and prim-and-proper him in the past with Lizhen, Chow turns 180degrees to become a womanizer and heartbreaker but he is unable to love, unable to commit, unable to lend his heart to Bai Ling for even a while. More women enter his life, but everyone of them is a reference to a different figment of Lizhen (Maggie). He has flings with each of them, as if to undo the moral restraint that has held them back in 1963, but one discovers that despite the breakdown in his moral restraint, his emotions remain habitually constrained. He was stuck in his memory, that regret of lost love and nostalgia for a time past. Chow's inner motivations never change; he was perpetually stuck in the inertia of 1963 even as the world and the women around him changed.

Faye, who plays his landlord's daugher cum android in 2046 approximated closest to being Lizhen's substitute, being Chow's partner in writing of swordfighting stories, just as Lizhen had. But she was the only one who had a purely platonic relationship with Chow, because she was already in love with a Japanese (Takuya Kimura). Her delayed response to Takuya's "Do you love me?" was an emblem of the too-early-too-late motiff in Wong's films. A single tear drops, silence drags on, and Takuya says "Sayonara". Why did she hesitate? Did she really love him? He has no answer and hence travels to year 2046 to find the answer, because it is the place where nothing ever changes. Halfway through the 2046 story, Chow takes over the persona of the time traveller, as he seeks the answer to why Lizhen did not leave with him in 1963. Did she love him? Or was it because they met too late and she was already in love with her husband, who's always at "Japan" for business trips? In the end, Faye leaves for Japan to marry Takuya, just as how Lizhen chooses her husband over him. Faye and her Japanese lover was an eerie parallel to Lizhen and her unfaithful spouse.

The furistic part of 2046 with Faye and Liu Jia Ling as androids and Takuya Kimura as a time traveller is likely to drive you crazy if you don't understand their metaphoric existence and motivations. It was again, about regret, memory, restraint, repressed love that was never expressed in time. of being simultaneously too early, too late. I wonder however, if Wong had stretched 2046 too far. There is potential in expanding 2046 into an epic if more thought can be put into the furistic part of 2046 instead of the 60s affair with Bai Ling. Or, cut out the 60s part together and expand the time travel concept. One suspects it's because the camera and Wong loves Zhang Ziyi a little too much and wouldn't let her go.

In all, watch In the Mood for Love, and only 2046 if you're a Takuya Kimura fan. (But you will surely be disappointed with the 20 minute screen time that he has.)


Trivia: apparently, 2046 saw the falling out of Wong Kar Wei with his long time cinematographer Christopher Doyle (pity! he's a genius) and with Takuya Kimura. Due to the 5 year shooting and Wong's quirky working style of never having a script and developing the characters onsite drove some members of his crew crazy, enough is enough. Which reminds me how crew members of Greed quit their jobs too because they were convinced that the director was going to kill everybody by shooting unrelentlessly in the middle of Sahara desert.

Fiddler on the Roof

A musical about a Jewish family in 1905 Russia under Tsarist rule.
It's enchanting! I'm looking forward to watching it on dvd.

The Leap Years

"I'm dreaming a little dream of you".. That was what The Leap Years was, a dream that seemed surreal in every way and unfolds quietly and unassumingly. Of chasing after a dream that one knows one can grasp, as long as one believes and not crumble under doubt. The movie confronts the age-old dilemma for dreamers: whether to believe unwaveringly in the existence of The One. Wrapped in the wistfulness of February and magic of Feb 29, the answer that the movie gives is an equivocal "yes". Although it would take a little more to convince the cynics.

My sister didn't quite like the parallel storyline and confused chronological order and the fact that the "most important" happily-ever-after was never shown in the movie. I saw however, a different sort of romanticism, one which didn't try to be optimistic, only honest to itself. The very last scene that was closet to "happily-ever-after" was enough for me. There was for me a sense of closure that didn't need explicit portrayal.

Technicalities wise, dreamy cinematography made our dear sunny island more than a tad romantic; there were no harsh HDB skylines or overexposed scenes of busy streets and crowds, but low key lighting that cloaked the languid streets of Chinatown in a gentle hue of romance and dreams. Talk about looking at the world through rose-tinted lens. i loved the swirling scene in the bar when Li-Ann was with her friends when she recited the line with a sort of pensive reflection, "it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all". The camera movement was energetic and captured the exchange very well. 2 thumbs up for Li Lin's best performance yet. She was Li Ann, a fiery romantic staunch in her dreams; confident, unassuming, positive, energetic, spirited. She sketched, she wrote poems, she dreamt, she waited, she wept. I am utterly enamored by Li Ann. Her older self, Joan Chen, gave a good performance but she was severely limited by her part in the movie, which was predominantly about a trip down the memory lane; the present reality is but a literary device to make it more enticing.



i cringed whenever Qi Yi Wu appeared; i don't think he played the role of KS very well. The guy who acted as Raymond would have given a more convincing performance i believe. To be honest, Ananda didn't have very good chemistry with Li Lin either, but i think Li Lin was the saving grace of the entire movie. Plus the beautiful cinematography and portrayal of a city capable of love and to be loved. Singapore Tourism Board would be very excited. The quotes that pop up once in a while tightens the story rather well but borders on being cliche on their own (Think Shakespeare's "It is not in the stars that hold our destiny but in ourselves"). [i think i heaved a sigh of relief that the epitome of cheesiness "If you love him let him go" didn't come up. It would have been a real demerit point for me.] i also thought it was irritating to not know who Li Ann ended up with because the figure on the hospital bed remained anonymous till the very end. At first, it seemed like a pretty cool literary device to retain an air of mystery as the story progressed, but being too stingy with the cues (such as facial features of Jeremy) made the ending less convincing.

Perfection is plastic, when it comes to dreams. I think the flaws in the movie make the dream a little more real.

3 Iron

A moving film that grips your attention at just the right pace; not too insistently, just achingly poetic, enough to keep you flowing with the film.

Poems don't have to be chronological; they rarely are. This poem flows and intertwines with itself like a well connected web, leaving you with enough stamina to go through the different layers of meaning and connections. At no point did i want to pause or stop the film - something i was prepared to do at the start of the film, if it proved too artistic- by the time the credits rolled, i was grateful for having even thought of watching this 2004 film by Kim Ki-Duk.

It has surprisingly little dialogue; the male lead (acted by Jae Hee) never speaks at all - little wonder that no names sticks with you even after the film ends. Yet the little dialogue that surfaces bring illumination into the intentions of the main characters, giving dimensions to the mute character in a deeper way than i suspect mere dialogue can deliver.

(spoilers ahead. go watch the film before i spoil it for you.)

More accurately, there was monologue, not dialogue in the film.

(a) when there was direct confrontation of other people with the leads, always dotted with violence, by/to the male lead.

These sparing lines gave me the reassurance that i was reading the film correctly, but more importantly, i feel they broke up the peace and serenity penetrating throughout the film and defined the violence and turbulence against the backdrop of Zen Romance (coined by David) The violence didn't exist however to break up the momentum or to add variety to the mood; it was a vital part of the film, a vital part of the character's existence.

(b) Tae-suk's golf accident which implicated an innocent female rider and the male rider calls out to her, attempting to revive her.

(c) when the female speaks her only line in the entire film, indirectly to Tae-suk.

The simple 'Breakfast is ready" was a call of liberation, ringing out into the bright hope of a new morning. Liberation from the oppression of her husband as she realises that Tae-suk, love, has come back into her life. Her wait had been worth it. Honestly throughout the film i was half expecting Tae-suk to be a spirit or ghost or whatever- something a figment of a woman's imagination. Yet the very fact that he existed physically accentuated the surreality of the romance. Kim is a masterful storyteller.

The Prison cell scenes of Tae-suk mastering the art of disappearing was mastery in and of itself - removing his identity (shoes), inching towards the shadows, blind spots, ceiling and finally, metaphorically slipping under the skin of someone else (by imitating and anticipating the movements of the person he trails, making use of the blind area that our 180degrees vision bestows) Monologue comes into the picture as shouts of the warden as he confronts Tae-suk with the latter's intent to practice disappearing and not be found.

This metaphorical representation of Tae-suk taking on the persona of the people he comes across, starts right at the start of the film as he breaks into the first house with the family away on a vacation; taking photos with the family photos, bathing, changing into the clothes of the owner, making himself food, watching TV. The comfortness with which Tae-suk slips under the owner(s) skin is vaguely unsettling and brings to mind 2 questions - (a) are the lives of the owners that easily stolen in that few moments that Tae-suk becomes them (b) does not Tae-suk have an identity that is his core at all?

The ending waltzes in with an elegance as the 2 characters steps up on the symbolic weighing machine, but the director relents during the last few secs of the film and asks the question verbosely (awkwardly): Are we living a dream or a reality? The film's attempt to explain itself spoiled an otherwise perfect wordless poem for me. The few words appeared to be one too many. , perhaps giving us an inkling that words are really not the most comfortable language for the director.

He was asking the right question using the wrong words, in my humble opinion. The real tension was not simply reality vs dream, but lies in existentialism vs essence - do we exist to create our essence or does our essence define our existence?

Tae-suk appears to have no personality, apart from his helpful habit of repairing whatever was broken in the homes. He existed in the empty houses of strangers day by day, washing their clothes, watching the cable channels they subscribe to, looking at their family photos, (or photos the photographer took), eating what they ate. Yet did he have an essence of his own as he went about these mundane tasks that we're so accustomed to do without questioning the meaning, or lackthereof?

The prevalence of photos in every house he visited, including Tae-suk's own obsession with taking photos with the owners of the house symbolised our attempt to verify our existence by taking photos. The female lead had an essence that was abused and broken by an apparently bipolar husband , yet she didn't exist - staying the shadows and remaining undetected even by Tae-suk, the intruder in her own home. Her move to cut up her photo in the photographer's house and re-arranging it beyond recognition was another attempt to nullify her existence.

When the 2 characters meet however, existence met essence and they began to live. Tae-suk's eventual removal of the woman's photo in the photographer's house was liberation of the woman's painful existence in an abusive marriage. It set the pace for a more hopeful turn of events to the end. i liked the last scene especially - with the blurring of camera focus on the weighing machine set at zero with the 2 characters standing on it. Both characters had fixed the weighing machine twice in the whole film, a symbol of setting their world to an objective scale. When the needle returned to zero at the end of the film, there is a sense of completion and wholeness, that finally the weighing machine ain't broken no more.

This film proves that a good film does not have to be aided by flowery words; in fact, it was enhanced with the lackthereof, proving that silence speaks louder than words. A real cliche to any self respecting movie reviewer, but i would still say it's a real masterpiece.

Random rants:
It's kinda spooky when he starts re-entering the houses he broke into and everyone went "I feel weird, there's someone in the house". Somehow i thought it was a disjunct with the entire mood of the movie, a little too haunting for my taste.

I'd give it a 4 stars out of 5.

Other Reviewers of the same film:
KFCCinema
Canadian Cinephile
Reeling Reviews
Thoughts on Stuffs
Smart Popcorn
Qwipster

I'm a Cyborg but That's Ok

Is there necessarily a trade off between artistic value and understand-ability in a film? i wish i was enough of a film critic to appreciate "artistic films". Right now I'm just trying to make sense of films that seem to have alot more going beneath the surface.

The first time i got an intriguing feeling that a film is deeper than it seems is when i watched Big Fish by Tim Burton a couple of years ago. Instinctively i felt there was deep symbolism behind the vivid colours, breathtaking cinematography, vibrant characters, touching father-son thread and tall tales. yet as the few of us sat in Cine BK post-movie a few hours, talking about it, i just couldn't put a finger to my thoughts.

I just didn't have the mental capability to read into films. uber frustrating then. but till now it remains one of my favourite movies. it's "un-readability" just adds on to the fascination somehow. To me, that's the mark of a good movie. one that invites and entices, yet retaining a little of that elusiveness that keeps you wanting to revisit it time and time again. i still mull over the movie once in a while when we talk about good movies. (but no, i still haven't figured out the mystery of it yet.)

I'm a Cyborg but That's Ok is a different kind altogether. I'm one of those who watched it on a Sunday Night cooped up at home because it's Rain movie debut. bah. sue me. But it is a good watch. Although mildly disturbing for one (me) so unaccustomed to watching artistic films, especially when i didn't expect more than light fluffy cotton candy. i got a modified candy-eclair instead. (i never developed a liking for those modern candy-chocolate things anyhow. they're just plain weird to my taste buds.) I think one main reason why you can find so many bad reviews both online and by word of mouth is because the movie was marketed as a light-hearted romantic comedy and people who watch it will get the feeling they've been cheated by the time the credits roll. [hey Rain+mental asylum+girl who thinks she's a cyborg just doesn't instinctively equate to ARTISTIC film.]

You've been warned.

It just isn't light-hearted romantic fluff. although there are some parts that delivers that warm fluffy love-conquers-all theme, those scenes are promptly succeeded by emotionally driven scenes, flashbacks or discussions with the psychiatrist that shed a little more light into the darkness of the inner worlds of the characters. just when you thought you had the movie figured out, it leads you unsuspectingly down a winding path somewhere else. and then it oscillates back. yet it wasn't that confusing; not after you get used to suspending your logic and rationality for a while, to find that the logic and rationality behind the film is of a different kind.

One that doesn't communicate with you well, because it's said in a foreign language. you can instinctively figure out that its deeper than you can understand, but you're handicapped by that language barrier. so you remain an arm's length away from understanding it completely. some throw their hands up in the air and dismisses the conversation, some pretend to understand while they smile and nod, some others pick up a dictionary (ie. search for interpretations, reviews, dialogue with others)

That's my take on "artistic" films.

I choose the third category for this film.
This movie has to be deeper than what an average viewer can gather, i thought. So i was pretty glad to have my hopes confirmed in the "guide" posted at veoh.com. i appreciate the movie much more, now that i can at least join the dots. the digestion and reflection will have to come later. Nevertheless, without this contribution, i think i'll still be HUH?! hours after watching it:

Cyborg Girl is harder to understand for three reasons: it's setting, it's depth, and a poorly executed ending. The setting in a mental hospital will automatically make it harder to understand, since the pattern of thought from the people we get to know is different from ours. That is why the writer/director left us clear paths to follow so we can watch the pattern that they were creating. Understanding the patterns they show us is difficult, because they are more advanced. This movie is attempting to go where artistic works have gone before, such as, "The Truman Show" or "Sense and Sensibility". Like those movies, what lies beneath the surface is what really counts.

Movie Genre: Some people think that this movie is hard to categorize. I disagree. At its heart, the story is a romance. Along the way, however, the movie does explore several themes.

Movie Themes: Each character we encounter in the movie is developing a theme necessary to understand the messages that the director and writer are trying to show (tell) you. They are not there just to be "random". There is a purpose for each one of them. There are so many of them, but here are some of the more important ones ... 1. Cyborg Girl --- She sees her condition in life, being a cyborg girl, not as a choice, but something she cannot change. It is through her eyes that we see the director and writer wanting us to look at the working world as "robotlike". There is no personal identity. There is no personal expression. Instead, in this movie we find more of those in the mental hospital, than we do in the real (working) world. Instead of working to get money so she can eat so she can work, she desperately wants purpose in her machine-like life.

2. Bi (Rain) Character --- He knows that he has a problem. When he believes that it is for the best, he checks himself into the mental hospital for help. He knows that some things can change, but has only a little hope that it really will. His character is focused on something close to Cyborg Girl's. She wants purpose. He doesn't want to be forgotten. He wants to be noticed and valued. The rejection, as he sees it, by his father and especially his mother proves to him that he is insignificant, or as he puts it, "invisible". The judge at his trial simply reinforces this idea when he says that he will vanish away into a dot. To be a speck, is to be invisible, unnoticed, and unvalued. We know that he is able to overcome this to some degree, because he later buries the item he carries around that holds himself under his mother.

3. Elastic Pants Man --- He appears here and there throughout the movie. He always emphasizes that life endings are really just beginnings. Life goes into full circle. The Elastic Band stretches to its fullest length = end of life. The Elastic Band snapping back to its beginning point = beginning of life. We are supposed to recognize this theme in the lives of Cyborg Girl and Bi (Rain) character at the end of the movie.

4. The Wacko Policeman --- He is another example of the writer and director pointing a critical finger at the working world. In the movie, the policeman has changed because his job took over his life.

5. The Bandaid of Strength --- Throughout the movie, several characters give each other a bandaid that they claim gives strength and protection. Where they put the bandaid on themselves doesn't seem to be really important, except for at the end of the movie.

6. Love, Romantic --- The writer and director made a bold leap by exploring the idea of romance in an unusual place: the mental hospital. Where nothing can seem to break through the real world, or the girl's private cyborg world, or Bi's (Rain's) world of insignificance, love does. If you understand this, then the ending is quite powerful.

7. Love, Family --- This theme is explored in almost every Korean Movie. Guaranteed. Love and loyalty for one's family is important, but it must be doubly important to Koreans since it is emphasized so much. Here, we see the love and loyalty that Cyborg Girl has for her grandmother. We also see the lack of love and loyalty from her own mother. Bi (Rain) does not have love or loyalty from his parents either, especially, from his mother.

8. The Overpolite Man --- I'm not 100% sure, but the writer and director seem be using this character to point a finger at "politeness" in Korean society. While manners are good, excessive rules combined with the improper "humble" attitude obviously can lead to ... useless insignificance. To blame yourself for everyone's troubles does not solve problems. In this sense, "manners" are paying lipservice to what is really needed.

9. The Fat, Pretty Lady --- She seems to be used as a character to point at some of today's over-emphasis on being beautiful on the outside. But meanwhile she cannot discipline her own desires. They control her. She does not control them. (Food and flying)

10. Buried Items -- Both the Cyborg Girl and Bi (Rain) character bury an object in the ground that symbolizes the problem that is holding their life. But the act of burying that object shows us that a change has begun in both their lives. And so on. There are more themes, like with the doctors, the mice, lack of communication, etc.

The Ending: The end of the movie was not well done, because the viewers (you and I) are expecting something to be said directly about the bomb, lightning, and the end of the world. It's not your fault. The writer and director built up your expectations for that. They didn't deliver. Bad job on their part. Instead, they expect you to put your thinking cap on and tie all the themes together to understand the ending.

The ending is supposed to show us in a very quiet way the incredible power of love. Bi's (Rain's) character says that the pair of socks are not the only things that is wet. The long significant look between the two and the removal of the Bandaid of Strength/Protection from her mouth shows us that it's the kiss that he's referring to. In Cyborg Girl's world, the rules didn't allow her to love. In Bi (Rain's) character's world, he believed that he couldn't be loved. But to both of them, this love has now been allowed to enter their own worlds as something true. If we remember what the Elastic Pants man was always emphasizing, we can understand that the ending is not pointless, but full of hope. By burying their past (literally), and finding a trusting love from each other, they have a new beginning. Far from a nuclear bomb ending everything, love is really the power that signals the end of their old self and brings hope for a new beginning. Anyway, I hope this helps.

Good Night and Good Luck

written and invested by George Clooney; he was actually paid $3 for it as a token amount. it's a black and white film set in the 1950s during the McCarthy era, made in 2004.Alas as the moment the first scenes of a dinner party start, strung together with soulful jazz music in the background, one quietly sinks in the black and white 1950s. Languid, lazy and musical. yet as Edward Murrow started his poignant speech on the state of media, of decadence, escapism and insulation, one is gripped by the incisive critique. Subconsciously, at the back of one's mind, the parallel is drawn to the present debate of freedom of the press and more importantly, the freedom of the mind. As it proceeds however, all eyes are fixated on Murrow (David Strathairn) as he embodies the civic mind and the staunch advocate for liberation of the public mind in an age plagued by a political climate of fear and terrorism, as McCarthyism penetrates the American society.

Good Night and Good Luck is one of the most brilliant films i have watched. I enjoyed it as much as Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors really. This film is of course very different from Crimes; Good night and Good Luck is a political critique and Crimes more of a philosophical musing. Yet both leave you thinking and pondering long after the credits roll.

Edward R. Murrow, the brilliant newsman who would not compromise the freedom of the press, who would not give up on the freedom to think, who brought down McCarthy and his terrorizing communist-witch-hunt in the 1950s. i was really gripped by the excerpts of Murrow's speech at the start and end of the film, cut and spliced in this Youtube video:

Synopsis
"Good Night, And Good Luck." takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations (Government Operations Committee). With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.

Once again, the issue of press freedom, the freedom to think and debate grips my attention. I believe so strongly in press freedom, because it's the only hope for freedom of the mind. to expand, correct and eventually to reach the stage of thinking. the majority of the society today is politically and socially apathetic, leaving an a microsm of the world we live in. What's wrong with that? so many ask. As long as i have my family, my career and my security who cares about political and civil liberties? Who cares about enviromental pollution? Who cares about Third World development?

i think it's a sign of ignorance because the mind has not been trained to think, extolled to contemplate on the bigger issues. it's like people who don't bother to know the fire evacuation plan because the risk of fire (or so they deem) is so remote. other people glance at the fire evacuation plan and rough know where the nearest fire escape is but never bothered about fire prevention. either way, we're missing out on something vital, and i say this for myself as well.

i have a dream

today was one of those suicidal days. but thank God for Ed who smsed from the Down Under. it made me feel better :) although i still don't quite get what you mean by your life being like a bubble about to burst :( sorry, it's poetic alright but i guess will have to wait for you to substantiate more when you blog.

Freedom Writers!

warning: mild spoiler ahead


and Thank God for speaking to me through Freedom Writers.
it totally refreshed me and gave me hope.
like it loads, but love God's raema word most of all because He's a wise king :)

after i sat through the movie, the Word that was impressed upon my mind, is this: This is what i mean by the gift of singleness. i was pleasantly surprised. i hadn't expected it.

i guess it's common to feel the anxiety in university. it seems like the biological clock is ticking so loud everyone in the Central Library lift can hear it go Tick Tock Tick Tock? Single guys fret about being able to pursue whichever girl who's latest on their radar. Single girls wondering if they'll ever get on someone's radar. the rhetoric and grammar might be different but the story more or less the same.

i don't know if the real Erin Gruwell gave up her marriage for the bunch of students but it spoke to me in a profound way. i can't remember the exact line but she said something along the lines of "when i bring about hope and meaning into their lives, i find hope and meaning in mine"? and in response her husband went ahead with the decision to opt for the divorce because he felt he was "asked to lead a life he didn't ask to". it was sad, but my take is that it happened because her husband didn't see the world the way she did; they were at different levels of growth, being preoccupied with different things.

to expand on it, she found her life mission after she got married and her husband wasn't part of that mission. and the gift of singleness is this: that you pursue your dreams with all your heart and mind, with no one else to share that perhaps, but it's that period of solo and privately intimate time when you're young and idealistic enough to grab hold of those castles in the air as blueprint for the concrete construction of your life. it's nice if you've a companion who's chasing it with you, but more blessed with the freedom and space to grow when you're solo.

so that, when two come together, they indeed become better than one :)

so don't worry if you're single. and don't be overly concerned if you've a friend who has remained single for a long time. read: ed, i'm talking about you. this might be the best period of their life yet ;)