The INLAND EMPIRE
12.20.06 (5:31 am) [edit]I just got invited to see the movie INLAND EMPIRE by G in last minute in West Village tonight; we dined together afterwards with a couple of drinks (one drink for me and a couple for him) and cut it rather short than what it could be as a typical night in town recently.
I just tend to start feeling lower and lower limitlessly when I am sitting alone in my place, so it was a good night out when I am off from work. The city looked pretty dead with a conspicuous number of cops that I could not feel unaffected. I could breathe only in a night like this to feel relaxed for no risk that I am taking for taking a night off.
Yet I feel rather impatient than unwinded away from the rountine, and that is the wierd thing for sure about how my mind works.
The movie Inland Empire was quite impressive for me in regards to the director Lynch's keen awareness of two issues; collective consciousness (or unconsciousness) or a singular narrative that puts different people together, or archetype as people often phrase, and how to seek out to materialize it. He seemed to focus this time on how to bring out multiple stories of different women, which seemed to be frangmented and mysterious at first, to be ultimately narrated as one story to unify differences into one as somehting like 'history of women' (herstory)&nb sp;to the point that we could call the unified story 'feminism'. I am afraid it sounds cheapened and corny when I succumb to the general vocabulary to describe the whole complexed visual experiences in the film, but to get down the process of verbalizing to discuss what is not to be discussed so easily, somebody has to initiate something. So I put this down here for a starter for Lynch seemed to be pretty good at the attempt of exploration as we see in the film where we understand that we do not have an easy answer to it.
According to G, Lynch recently published a book on guess what; New Age-ish themed book on meditation. That makes a total sense to me especially after I saw the movie. It is all about collective (un)consciousness, and how to overcome your tiny ego and connect one's experiences of an individual to the universal one. All those women in hte film were ultimately "UNITE"ed, and it was noteworthy that the film almost looked as if it was his interpretation of Sweet Charity, to muse on what makes the women's profession possible and why they do it. Or it becomes an archetype when someone gets aware of the brutality that every encounter of man and woman triggers, from ancient times to today. So Lynch was another artist who ended up recognizing the brutal scenary of the crash of interests of men and women, it was just that he set the angle from women's side as opposed to men's justification of violence, and it was the triumph of the film.
I did not notice Nastasja Kinski was there as the credit went. This movie had a whole set in Polish where parading a bunch of Polish women, and come to think of it, she is a Polish decsent even though I almost forgot about it, to say the least of her whose father, Klaus Kinski, the famous horror actor from Poland.
The New Year Resolution: to post everyday!
12.19.06 (5:37 pm) [edit]There seems to have been some changes here in the tblog host again. The good thing is that I can edit easier than ever before; I can get down to the editing process without fliping the whole site all over to reach the editing point. The bad thing is that the stats no longer reports the accesses in detail, or is this only a temporary technical difficulty?
Thanks to the technical development that I welcome anyway, and I announce that I will post everyday from this year end; it is just that I would like you to understand that it will take place not only in this site but also to be inclusive of two other sites that I have (check my link here in case you are interested in more frequently updated adventure of mine with lots of thrills, thoughts and wonders).
who is she? She is nhazean.
12.18.06 (6:52 pm) [edit]Just when I was on the search on Singapore, I happen to hit a series of this woman's video. She made me think so many things, such as what the internet is doing to people, why certain things prevail while others do not, or relativity, location of cultures, what is fatalistic elements in them...etc. I believe more people should check out her random monologue vlog (video+blog); too bad she does not seem to have any conventional blog, and more too bad that she has not establised any form to stylise her ideas and performances to convey to audiences any better than presenting herself as 'weird' or 'mad woman' unless she is happy to impress very few people like myself who like to see this 'unedited part of the universe.'
clean
12.18.06 (6:35 am) [edit]While the movie hit the point that Nick Nolte confessed to Maggy Chueng that he still believed in forgiveness in Clean (2004 by Olivier Assayas), which I revisited for no particular reason last night, I understood what the moviewas really about, if had taken quite long. I saw it about a couple of months ago for the first time, completely unimpressed except by Chueng's somehow composed and redeeming performance, which actually brought some prize to the work (the best actress from Cannes).
This time, however, the movie struck me so close to home, and it was almost painful to see it to the end, although enjoyable. The change happened probably because of where I am situated in my life now, and I was feeling sensitive about what the movie handled; I could not sympathize more this time with Emily (Chueng), who has lost everything after her serving time in jail for drug habit that consequently took her boyfriend Lee's life away. Now that the custody of her son she had with Lee was taken by Lee's parents (Nolte as the father), Emily's struggle to adjust to her new life in a world with nothing left for her fair share but the price she had her life to pay back, where everybody refuses to forget who she was, but no one wants to accept who she is trying to become of.
It took another look, and some more turn of life, to me to realize the movie was really about the redemption, and more importantly, what would make Emily to determine to face what it would take to bring a change in her life. This case in the film was her son, an only tie she had got left to sustain herself in the world, and Nolte's belif in 'forgiveness' as I described. What ultimately made it plausible instead of succumbing cheesiness, which might be very likely to happen to a lot of productions, was the director's unsentimentalism; it is even naturalistic to depict the practicality to reason the reason why Nolte's willing to support Emily's detox + rehab stint, even when she was half deceptive to attempt to take her to San Francisco w/o notifying so; it was attributed simply to his wife's ailment and his foresight that the couple's would not be cabaple to take care of their grandson so long, as opposed to any emotional issue upon Emily.
The theme somehow appears to be familiar. It is about what it really feels like to be lost and alone, and you are not growing younger, but you are still free to go back to drug infested life style if that is what you pursue. I just survived the battle with the drug problem of my husband that ultimately destroyed the marriage, and no longer believe in the redemption nor resurrection in the environment that involves any need of those; the couple is doomed when they have to look for any of those to begin with. This film though would bring another angle to the issue that I already discussed in the previous entry about Bad Santa, and I found myself hit by the same issue twice in a row without knowing by these two totally different movies. It did not cross my mind when I saw last September, when I was still with my husband and still got my hope to stay in the relationship even though it would never be easy.
Clean was not a kind of work that appeared necessarily interesting to me, as this director never impressed me ever. Yet the beauty I still get to see in these sad landscapes does make me wonder; where does this shining tone come from? It is so unusual. How can you bring audiences to see the light in the dead end darkness? This has got to be quite a level of technique to attain for a director, or it might be simply the trait that comes from his personality. The optimism that somehow guides us in the film is understated but there is no doubt it is there, like a blinking light in the darkness, for this is the ultimate realism we are dealing with as a narrative device as opposed to an idiotic overstatement of loud cheer made in Hollywood. The whole tone is hopeful and literally 'clean' just as the title goes despite its realism that often looks harsh. And another wonder this movie brings us is every landscape we follow as the protagonist travels is shot with amazingly serenity, from Ontario to Paris, and London of the location where Emily's son and his grandfather stay for the time the franma to pass away, even in the desolate ones in Canada where Emily sees Lee's body dead by overdose. It is worth examing why so. The whole thing made me think how much a film reflects its maker's worldview.
Bad Santa
12.11.06 (6:03 am) [edit]Time flew tonight, and I know exactly why. Due to alcohol consumption that I ended up getting engaged in, I did things that I the least fancied about, and did not get to do what I had really planned to get done, as it always would turn out when you wound up drinking. That is the reason that I do not drink aside from a money issue that I kept in mind once; I do not drink partly because a sensibility purpose, and more of partly because drinking all seems to be an endless series of wast, money, time and energy, or sex (that does not happen to me for the decipline for working), you name it. And it is becoming more of so to me nowadays. In other words, I am becoming more vigilant and taking control over everything as possible. Yes, I know I sound anal. I might be, and I find it funny provided I was the least that kind ten years ago.
So, I ended up in a bar, the one that miraclously lets you smoke after some hours, and I was with G, my friend (former live in partner, a long time ago), whose drinking habit actually has gone beyond my tolerance as it always did at some point of our relationship, so I might as well keep away from him as I occasionally needed to in the past. In the bar on seventh av. Bklyn, yes that one with GLBT community, they play movies, and today I happened to catch the least anticipated movies during the time when I was nursing a bit of drinks. The first one was 'Charlie Brown's Christmas' and the second was 'Bad Santa.' I unfortunately got quite sickened and frightened by the latter one, if absorbed enough to sit through by the end of it, and questioned G if he knew how the movie was accepted by the audiences when it was released.
I do remember when it came out, and do even remember Billy Bob and other casts talking about the movie in the talk shows late at night with brief clips of the film. However, I still wonder if people really found the movie any funny or amusing. This really fucked up person with a serious alcohol problem still kept on working for a series of santa gig tour for department stores, and where he ended up was in Arizona of the holiday season. He had no choice but with his dwarf business partner to team up to work. No matter how fucked up he was, or how horrendous his alcohol problem was, he magically acquired a nice girl friend (the mom of the Gilmore Girls, my favorite) and his petite admirer, a kid who was suffering for a bully problem perpetuated. Because of the bed and board the kid offered, the bad santa narrowly escaped a bust scene whatever he almost got into, while the santa fixed the bully problem for the kid to develop an unconventional healing session for both of them. Ultimately, the movie landed in a magical fairy tale after traveling a winding road.
It might be called 'a good movie', and odds are that was how the movie was received. Still, I could not laugh at all. Probably because this movie was too raw and the likelyhood it depicted struck me so close to the point of depressing. Because I just could not get over the idea how people could get out of control when they began spinning without knowing how to break out the viscious circle, and could you possibly laugh at it? I could not, and I knew what really was bothering me. The whole predicament and the sense of getting wasted were exactly the one I had with my husband. I could not laugh but got overwhelmed with the feeling of going down lower and lower during the whole time of the movie. But you can't blame me for being humorless. That's got nothing to do with any humor. The movie somehow ended with the hope the bad santa lived up to for all those who somehow loved him by trying to become lovable once in his life, which was to be really wonderful and touching, but I think it is naive and optimistic to believe the redemption in reality. What really happens is the oppsite of what the movie wanted to promote and/or to exploit. When a socially dysfunctional figure with addiction problem goes downward spiral, all you can do is to keep away. That is why the movie looked so sad sad sad to me. We have to let him fix the problem if you wish him the best. You cannot involve or expect anything, because you involvement makes the disease worsened. Some people try to get something like love from the dysfunctional situation and end up drowning with him falsely to believe they are sympathizing or redeeming him. No need to do so nor no happy ending like the movie really exists in this reality where the bad santa figure usually keeps drowning, and he is taking anybody who he could grab with him. I felt uneasy to see those who tohught of making a movie exploiting the sad state of a social misfit's going downward spiral, and people accepted it as a laughable production. This movie had got to bring really Merry Christmas, and I am not a Chiristian. Not even Jewish. Athiest.
Brick Lane
12.08.06 (8:35 pm) [edit]I finally picked up the book I had long wanted to read but somehow did not have a chance to do so until very recently;
"Brick Lane" by Monica Ali
this work by the Bangladeshi British author might bring up another INTERESTING issue of Muslim women's lives, how their religeous faith is lived and how their needs to fulfill their individual lives conflict to the community. Most importantly, though, how they struggle to bring about the very concept of basic human rights that are suppposed to be bestowed on men, but not to be ready for women in thei level of awareness the society has.
This protagonist case was initiated bacause of her awakening to love someone when she met someone, and it happened to take place outside of her marriage. She had to learn how to interprete her own desires, which she never allowed herself to follow nor to explore before until the point; she always lived to accept everything that was assigned, decided and imposed upon her life as 'destiny to follow.' Now she had to know what was the destiny and what was the fallacy she should chase away.
This book does not read as one of those insider's expose (sans accent) lit by Muslim women, but it just offers the matter-of-factly look and take on a regular life of a Muslim woman, who was married off her village in Bangladeshi young, barely legal as people in the West might call, to a man two generations older than her. The life was not disheartening to her only if her material needs are met and when her husband not being physically abusive, which implies some dreadful undercurrent; she has to live the perpetual threat that she might be beaten up whenever she misbehaves to the standard the men employ in the culture to measure a woman up whereas women cannot claim their rights to protect themselves from. Her yearning for the better treatment and rights to be a human as oppsed to be an asset and an object for men any longer develops as she starts the life in London, where she is more or less isolated, she stars longing for fulfillment of life that could not be attained when she is living the life with her husband.
Wait for a little while I read on.