Manderlay
02.26.07 (12:44 am) [edit]While I was jotting the previous entry down, the movie Manderlay by Lars Von Trier came back to my mind. What was discussed in the movie was slavery and the damage and the dynamics it caused to people and how the fixation was formed as the way it is. Since then the US has been fatally divided into two different people, blacks, later joined by other minorities as well, as the subjugated and whites to rule, which pretty much sums up the current society and the political state today. This sort of objective contemplation on the historical subject matter often offers us America a cutting edge of criticism and/or views that hold some truth that we often tend to overlook. This movie's also supposed to fall into the category; it does present an interesting observation on the history of slavery in the US as what is perpetuated up to today in the level of perception and reality both of people and how detrimental it has been to human psyche to both parties, the ruling and the ruled. However, the most honest sentiment that I had about the movie was below:
I do not want to hear that from this director. It is always the easiest solution to draw something theoretical and didactic out of what you do not have to take the consequence of. To be short, it is quite useless to see anything interesting or intelligent from someone who does not live the predicament. He, as usual, took a quick look at somewhere he never belonged to nor will he and cut a tiny slice of the essence of what seemed to be the core of America as saying here! This is the structure of their predicament, never forgot to add ‘how silly of them not to recognize this idea like mine so clever and so interesting that I cannot help but showing to these silly people. He almost managed to divert audience's minds from what is always urgent to something sophisticated, logically right but does not really help what is to be helped in the polical discourse in films where racism is still active and practiced or even capitalized, whether you like it or not. How easy could it be for a white Euro director who just passed by, ironically just like his heroine, US to pose a deep and free thinker, who actually would not be affected by the issue and forget once he was done with the production?
The movie is dealing with a remain of slavery that was supposed to be rid of by the time when it was set, 1930. A cross states traveler, the daughter of a gang family, caught the unlawful convention in a plantation and began running it by her new rules without any old convention, just to discover that the plantation was operated by Bla ck leaders of the plantation, who chose to stay slaves for a view based on that they were not ready to be released and seek their own ‘freedom’ out by themselves but deliberately hid that they were voluntarily remained there to anybody outside of a couple of ruling figures. People, once enslaved, are forever slaves, as far as these few clever black leaders in the plantation.
The movie unfolds rather a fable than any realistic or naturalistic movie we could usually find. All the sets it employs here are even less than what a movie can usually do without. So the whole scenes appear to be a theatric set that was filmed. I actually find the method clever and refreshing. If only I could get over this fundamental distrust for this filmmaker.
Chym-a did not go to White Castle
02.24.07 (12:05 am) [edit]I did not get to apply for the contest, so I would not be happy to see what was settled anyway. Although I have no personal prejudice against a Black guy's dating white chicks, I might be put out a bit given the nature of thier historical fixation for them and justifying it no matter what they say. Besides, the girl he picked was cute, and I had to assume that she was picked for her safe looks rather than her rather dull statement of what the good she was proud of doing for Black folks. Oh, whatever, you cannot get your hope up too much because he is after all the Assimilated one as he claims. You cannot argue about it. I would not have made it on the day even if I got picked. (...interminable monologue...) However, how lame. You would be even more disappointed when you find out how uninteresting it seemed to be by 'she said, he said' about how it turned out in a vedeo they had for a while. When I serched for it to paste here, thouhg, it seemed to be totally gone. TOO BAD!!!
scences of a marriage
02.23.07 (5:53 pm) [edit]I went to Conneticut a day after Valentine's day with G to visit J and his family. He had had a lot to celebrate in his life such as his marriage, his baby who was born last summer and the new house the family moved into. To top it all off, my beloved G was a day past of a birthday boy; his birthday was V day. How handy it was to remember!
J used to live with us in Brooklyn before he married up in reverse of the conventional inter-class method to this psychiatrist, who pays the whole househould expenses in addition to J's tuition for his grad program in the local institution. How pleased I am to learn that he found the awsome and perfect mate that even brought his awatited son to the world, on top of putting bread and way some more on the table. Besides she cannot wait to have another baby. Jeese, I said secretly to myself when I discovered how wonderful their new house J's parents in law bought them, where J practically was idling away or babysitting when their live-in Polish nanny was not around. The rest of the times, he occasionally goes out for class that does not meet often or heads out to the local library that he has got his major income from, which obviously seemed very meager when it is compared to his wife's income as a MD.
J was no different than the time I knew him in my neighborhood;
he has got this habit that I actually do not know how to put, but it almost like a speech defect for mumbling that makes our communication always very difficult. In a way, it is very frustrating when you still try to understand him and be understood by him. In this travel, I remember only people who have given up communication can only accept him and the state we inevitably fall in. That is what people call friendship. I could say this behavioral problem was partly attribted to his long term alcoholism and drug abuse, but now that he is apart from either of them, I just assume that is his make up, MO, or chronicle state, which might be even another charm of him to women. I was reminded how he was popular among women even though he was a disastrous man to have around when any kind of commitment involved. Ironically, seeing his perfect MD wife being very nice and smitten bewildered me and made me question what possibly could be so wrong with this perfect MD who seemed to be not only so competent but also beautiful, too. Couldn't she recognize how bad this match was? J was almost like a criminal figure to people who knew him back then. It was just that his being 'bad' never discouraged people to like him. By the end of this trip, G helped me understand they were working well; it seems it takes a lot more than what I see to understand what people want when it comes to mating that even I myself tried so briefly, half jokingly but the rest, seriously, that did not outlast even for the time J's wife's pregnancy. J's wife's strikingly composed manner reminded me of how things could be different when you are away from the city life where you could get easily sucked up by a problem that comes one after another.
Now the only concern G and I still have is that J's peculiar fixation, or attraction I'd say, to 'youth' in general that we constantly observed.
When we had a tour in the gorgeous house to get a slice of the good and stable suburban atmosphere, J introduced a plain view of the backyard where we remotely faced another house in distance. I knew what he was implying just by saying, 'This is the window.'
Once he called G up in a total excitement to report what he could see from the window. He was almost agitated to describe how well he could see a teenage girl naked in her dressing or undressing moment off guard in her room.
Last Life in the Universe
02.15.07 (2:12 am) [edit]This movie Last Life in the Universe (2003 by Pen-ek Ratanaruang) was way better than I had imagined; whenever I stepped in the local Blockbusters', the box caught my eyes. After I read the brief introduction on the back of the cover, however, I quickly got turned off given it was another mysterious Japanese gangster plot line with a 'cute Asian chick'. I absolutely would not have taken it up had it been for the library material as opposed to any checking out from DVD store or Netflix that I have been suffering for the current addiction for. What it turned out to be was such a delight that it was worth pursuing even with paying for it.
The bruising world and sexual politics is undertoned in this drama; a suicidal Japanese librarian Kenji meets a local girl, Noi. The comomn thing between two of them is that both of them recently lost their siblings; the Jap guy lost his gangster brother and Noi lost her sister by a car accident that hit her right in front of two of them, and that incident actually put them together.
While Kenji shelters in Noi's more than half abondoned and caotic house and cleans in return for the hospitality Noi offers to him, they develop a heartful relationship that is somewhere between frindship/family/love until Noi takes off for Japan, and the librarian faces the consequences of homicide scene he fled unattended in his cozy and isolated apartment.
Asano, the Japanese actor who acted Kenji, was convincing enough to manifest the complexity this role signifies; the power and undercurrent of ultra violence Japanese male embodies to Thai people's history and current politics where girls are entertain Japanese that constitutes mostly of sex tourists. The movie unfolds in the business that is specifically targeted to Japanese male by certain constume performance that is to immitate Japanese school girls' uniforms, and Noi's dead sister was one of those hostesses in the uniform.
Everybody knows that Thailand acqired its notoriety and a huge amount of profit out of the world biggest sex tourism at some point in last three decades, but not a lot of people know in the world who invested for the business, capitalized and profited the Thai sex industry; Japanese investors. So the relationship between local Thai and Japanese men are hookers, their dependents and their pimps. Asano's role was to show the unwilling participation and resistence to the visceral politics, and violence he repeatedly get involved even though he is the least wishing to, is the metaphor and reflection of the reality Japan has to play it hufe role of.
Although it might sound deplorable premise and connotation, this drama never succumbs to the common vocabulary or the cliched political struggle. What this movie manages to capture was beauty of people and fulfilling view on life if you know what to see and what to appreciate. The beauty in the despription of the local landscape and people opens audience's eyes to wonder how little politics, sociology and statistics could convey to outside of the community, and how distorted and underrepresented Thais are to people all over the world. The visceral political situation is never about the local people's lives but the distortion and miscommunication. You get the essence of the wonder only if you see this movie. The suble but the very articulate observation is achieved because the materials they deal with and they are really lucid about it. It would have never been the same it this drama was about the local and American, but only with Japanese people, this bitter sweet movie was achieved.
And the seemingly only 'cute and easy local chick' was the most dignified caracter in this movie; she was offering this man she could have hated/thrown herself at one time deal of reviving himself by showing a perspective in life that he never knew. She just saved this passer by without asking anything in return. She just did so as another life in the universe.
and I might go to White Castle, too
02.11.07 (4:00 pm) [edit]Well, what I am planning to submit one paragraph as below to win the White Castle Valentine date;
I taught local kids in D.C, surely African American, how to swim as a mentor and went to jail in NYC and spend a night with Black streetwalkers, some were teenegers, and offered a free, group and individual, consultation on how to manage their business and keep the profit to themselves as opposed to give it all up to their daddies.
Charlotte Sometimes
02.08.07 (12:47 am) [edit]The movie Charlotte Sometimes (2003 by Eric Byler) that I had happened to catch turned out to be an unusual triumph and I am pleased by the unexpected dicovery of a new talent. This movie that explores the identity politics of Asian Americans in US is deep enough to make you think more than merely the youths' alienation, adjustment and diappointment in the mating season you quite often sumble into and walk out of in a theater. This work's unique subtlety that is yet logically well founded absolutely gives the characters life in that we audience are convinced to the point we all feel the raw pang each and every caracter suffers from although that is stated very little.
Eugenia something that I remembered to have begun seeing here and there recently such as in Mail Order Wife or Memoirs of Geisha seems to be establishing herself here with her signiture posture of the highly sexualized, desperate and cunning eager Asian beaver to the point that I get concerned if she would be unretreivably typecast due to her choice of roles that always seem to fall into the category of 'thorough and complete Asian stereotyped female. Ironically, this woman's portrayal of 'that kind of Asian babe' never fails to hit our collective pshyche for how convincinv she appears to be, which incorporate what&nbs p;An Asian woman is and what it means to be and see/have one in the US context. Therefore have to give her credit for embodying it and made it visible and so real insteaed of belittling her for succumbing to the premature typecast and/or not challenging itreduced roles. And of course this seems to be another subject the director wants to raise in a comparison with the opposite type of Darcy, who makes the whole peaceful community---two couples of Asian Americans---doomed. This almost plain woman sets fire in the whole set once the camera captures her presence, heat and breath. This actor, Jacquline Kim, leaves one electric image of a woman in the movie, and in your mind, for a while I bet.
What really impressed me was the director's well thought out logical development of the psychodrama, though quite understated, in a good way, and his observation of hatred each one carries around here in the story is so profound that we after all end up looking deep down inside of our own psyche. The director shows his deep observation on one's mind and experiments with all the hate, possibly rooted self hate and how it was internalized and nurtured/nurturing one's own life. The chemical composure ultimately sparks as the movie's brilliance. This is the point where the movie transcendents from mere a minimalistic movie and one of those youths' whose lives are marginalized or another 'behind the scene of your token and model minority' life. It is interesting so how their hate manifests itself and how they get sucked up by the mirroring self hate and wrong each other. This non sentimental observation is probably something that I found most astonishing in this director's view. One like Michael hates oneself without knowing so, another like Lori shows the utmost aversion to her sisterly competitor/intruder and tries desperately to defend her vain relationship with someone she does not really love or rather hates. She hates her boyfriend for he never gives what she wants; herself, and still fends the relationship for the prospect of getting to get married for security. Another like Darcy compulsively makes sure what her competitor/Lori/sister wants so that she can violate and rob her of it; that is the only way she can feel reasured and validated. And the last one like Justin feels like belonging to nethier of those worlds; the bonding of the isolated or the reaching the mainstream when he almost reaches only if he streches a bit more. He was not aware how he hates all including his dependent girlfriend until Darcy showed up in thier life.
Some reviewers insist that this is not about race as if they know what it is about, then, as if they believe it could be a compliment to assert that they did not see and hear that there was the undercurrent of hate and scared bodies that were all caused by the marginalization and the unsettled feelings, that all were struggling to be recognized as individuals and knew that they would never get to. This is about people's lives with the accents on how the they are living the race, how inseperable the big word can be. If a damn veiwer believes that he is complimenting that this is not about race at all, that means that he missed one major theme the director carefully crafted to argue in the film along with other points that way transcendent the racial issue. But the triunmp of the movie is that it manages to capture the moment the race issue transcendents and how; people transcendents when they see what is mirroring in others. They are the marginalized people who are trying to make some adjustment and peace in their lives and want to be individual but cannot in the context where they are perceived nothing more than Asians. They chosed and happend to get together looking for undo the burden of the race, and just see self hate and scars in the other they face. They see it where they the least want to see it. The big word/race/politics sneaks into their bedroom even if they do not want to deal with, but it does keep coming back to surface when supressed.
This director Byler released another work of his "Americanese" last year, which also deals with the issue of race, being biracial and what it means in US context. I would absolutely like to check it out.