This Norwegian vampire-drama film is an inconsistently outstanding film. Although most part of the film I find unnecessary there are also few remarkably fantastic scenes and elements, so good that it compensates the dragging feel of the whole story. Given the chance that it has been cut down to only 20-30% of the entire film, a short film in other words, then this film could have been perfect. Probably my main concern about this Alfredson movie is that the essence of the film is too scarcely found and evident that it gives such an exhausting demand from the viewers to make sense out of those arguably unimportant shots. On the brighter side, I can’t totally hate or dislike this film because it is not bad at all certainly. In fact, “Let the Right One In” happens to be in my Top 100 Movies at least because of those aforementioned fantastic scenes and elements.
One of the chief drawbacks about this film is in spite of having a close to stagnant plot; the story still relied on the plot to move the story. Thus, making a plot-driven movie out of a story that is almost plotless. That very action is nevertheless accountable for some amount of indulgence on something so mundane. Even at the end when we thought the vampire leaves the boy, and thought that the boy will start to fight back for the first time, he still did not and it has to be the vampire to reap the bodies of the boys bullying him. This is not my first time to see such unconventional approach on screenwriting and most of them are almost unforgivable for they are regarded as work of arts, or as original films, and yet you don’t feel it. This film however, is not bad, this is an exception indeed.
Another drawback is the lack of tension appropriate for a vampire film. Though this is not purely a vampire film, there still has to be not just considerable but overflowing volume of tension. Yes there are those frightening scenes when Eli attacks humans, and when his father kills and drains the victim’s blood for her, but what is lacking is the tension from the community. I understand that there is a cultural difference between Philippine and Norwegian setting because a vampire film in the Philippines will surely have a tremendous tension contributed by the affected neighborhood or community, and that is something I did not feel even a little. There should be no excuse about how a neighborhood or community would react over vampires; it should be more or less just the same, culture therefore should not create less fear of vampires in one country with another country. I don’t understand why I never saw a police in this film. When people from the same community dies strangely how can there be no police investigating it? Why was there only a single person who tried to look for the culprit? Why was there no clamor from a cry-worthy event? These are narrative issues and there should be reasons definitely, however I can’t think of any reason that will justify the hassle of watching and understanding. Does Alfredson want to encircle the film just between Oskar and Eli? I don’t think that works. Vampires are folk-mythology, they can’t be too enclosed and they can’t be too personal.
We have some common understanding about the vampires: they are afraid intensely of the sunlight and may even burn; they are pale because they are not lit by sunshine and when they are hungry for blood; they look strange and awkward; they vomit human food (in our case—candy); and they have supernatural abilities of climbing and jumping. In this film though we learnt of new things about them: they are not cold at all like they can go out in the winter snow without having anything on their feet and any other gears to keep them warm; and that they have skills in solving a Rubik’s cube. The most important catch about vampires in this film is the fact that they can teach us some valuable lessons even though it is something violent—to fight back.
The story is not really focused about vampires, instead about a boy bullied at school and his unlikely friendship with a vampire and yet the vampire shares that spotlight with our main protagonist. Chiefly because there is no much power the protagonist holds that is why the vampire becomes a strong element. This reflects back to the flaw its narrative is ailing.
Mentioning that it is not bad at all despite of all the faultfinding I made, there are still a number of good things about this vampire-drama movie and some are very good. The last scene, which is the golden tooth in a mouth of decay, where Oskar still does not fight back against his classmates bestows and revives the age-long buried concept that human instincts still can’t kill, and when they can, one would be enough. Violence are only reduced to quirks as what I can see in this film and the only ones who hurt and kill are the non-human, a vampire, and any savage being. The actors are likeable it is actually keeping me from continuing watching. Though you are dissatisfied with most of the parts, it is always going to be hard to despise the film. Kare Hedebrant playing Oskar and Lina Leandersson playing Eli helped me get by. I find the film a little above average one. It has an independent film feel. Definitely not the tailor-cut, easy-to-watch movie, also the easy-to-find-fault one, and interestingly still-likeable, this film is really got me baffled not in how I understand the movie but in the sense that I don’t know why I hate it and yet I like it.
The whole world has always wondered why great movies are directed by male directors, especially in Hollywood. In fact, Kathryn Bigelow has just been the first and only female director to win the Academy Award for Best Director after almost a century. However, I find Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” painful and inconsistently cooked, some parts are well-cooked, and others overcooked and mostly undercooked. This is not the first time that I’ve been disappointed with the hope of seeing a great movie from a female director though. Sofia Copolla’s “Lost in Translation” is completely unsatisfying at least for me. Not just that it is capriciously indulgent it is also uninspiring. I really did not see what other people and some of my colleagues saw with those two films. Traveling back 17 years from now, and a decade from those two failed attempts, Jane Campion has just shown the world and all women directors how to make a great, exuberant, rich film. With “The Piano” which won the prestigious Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Campion proved to be one of the most important contemporary directors, and arguably the best among women directors.
Campion’s “The Piano” which is cinematographed by Stuart Dryburgh is intoxicatingly gorgeous. The photography is really stunning. I tried to scan the film and look at some opportune scenes. Every frame contains unbelievable amount of sultry and exciting passion. What is even more interesting and commendable about it is that even the temporal photography of the film is gorgeous. I am not inclined technically about music but the tempo of the film is just so powerful that even a relatively unknown man about music would notice rhythmic evidences in the film’s photography. The audio-visual treatment to this Victorian period film has nevertheless been fantastic. The cold and palette of colors compliments excellently the sober and mystical atmosphere needed in the story. Campion with the help of Dryburgh have successfully made the film flamboyantly cold.
I can compare the film to Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love”, both are sexy and dazzling beautiful. The main difference though would be the colors. Kar Wai used saturated red-orange-black palette which conveniently delivered the heat of the repressed love affair in the story while Campion used dark blue and dark green with the eternal black and some other dark-cold colors. Between the two “In the Mood for Love” is more sentimentally-driven and delicate while “The Piano” is more ablaze and harsh therefore making me believe that between the two red-orange-black is an easier combination to portray the latter film. I find red a harsher color than dark blue and I find dark green more delicate than orange. Probably it is the culture of the country that resulted to those color decisions, but what I am trying to explain is that the combination Campion and Dryburgh chose is very interesting, intelligent, and edgy. Over-all, “The Piano” just knocked out the other.
The film is significantly semiotic. A lot of metaphors campaign over the almost two-hour movie. The environment of Ada’s new home: the agitated ocean, the serene shore, the uncongenial trees, and the despicable mud are all physical and logical metaphors of Ada’s own world clashing into the real world. Saving Ada from the cold and apathetic sea is also a symbol of her rebirth—a chance where she can leave all her sexual incompleteness and liberal control over her life. Ada’s shoe tying on the Piano after they drop it in the ocean symbolizes a part of her that will always be with her old Piano. The ultimate metaphor of course—the piano, is the metaphor of her life. This musical instrument is her voice. The piano allows her to release her feelings, anxieties, hopes, and most of all her silenced passion. I have a high regard for the scenes where Ada is playing and Baines is watching him. The music coming from the piano is the only essential sound occurring and those moments are so enchanting, almost heavenly. There is like an orbital of passion coming from Ada transported to the piano, and the piano diffuses it in the air through music, and Baines collect all those warm orbital of passion which sprees and fills his shabby hut. The piano allows us to know a character who can not speak, a device I’ve never yet seen used so charmingly.
Feminism is definitely the most apparent film theory we can apply in this Jane Campion movie and it is always interesting to create a feminist review of a film created by a woman. When most feminist films grab the opportunity to expose the interminable ego or the overrated evil of men, this film engages on the two sides of men—a technique to utilize the avoidance of feminine bias sometimes feminist fell into. The first type of men here is the one of Stewart (Sam Neill), the Englishman, who is educated, business-minded, and inevitably conformist. Those men treat their wives as properties and punish them whatever they feel like. Campion apparently made an effort to belittle that unpleasant side of men quality. At the beginning of Ada and her child’s stay at the place, Stewart even tries to project some fatherly gestures to Flora (Anna Paquin). The fact that he accepted Ada and her daughter even gave us a clue that those seemingly bad men are not bad at all and that Campion has no absolute negativities about that first type of men. The second type though would be that of George (Harvey Keitel), the native muscular guy, appealing, lover, and he who can make a woman happy. For the second type of man, I’ve seen any type of resentment embodied by George, no flaw and no loophole. In the circumstances where he can be a hero, Campion either cuts the scene or use a child to stop him. In a scene where Stewart goes into George’s hut we are all surprised to see that George is alive and Stewart is out of the picture. This obviously implies that former have either accidentally or purposefully killed latter. That scene is cut because it will certainly mark George as the hero and Stewart the bad guy (after cutting Ada’s finger) who has to be punished. The role of men in “The Piano” is not pretentious, no strong opinion instead a closer opinion most people with fair understanding might agree with.
Acting-wise, Holly Hunter is phenomenal winning the Best Actress award at the 1993 Academy Awards. I love the awkwardness and all the other element of mystery and strangeness she contains. She is radiating with pale yet dynamic aura like she is a gritty and quirky Mona Lisa or something. Hunter doesn’t just use her face to compensate for her verbal restraints rather she used her face and body. The pauses she makes after moving and the way she directs her eyes to a co-actor and they way she redirects them are so divine, so fluid, done like a real Victorian-era woman. The young Anna Paquin though is the apple of my eye also winning in the 1993 Oscar Awards winning the Best Supporting Actress award. She has brought overwhelming innocent, playful, and youthful energy in the entire film. Her ostentatiously loud charisma compliments Hunter’s mystifying silent aura. Paquin definitely is one of the best child stars I’ve ever seen grown in Hollywood. She is on par with Haley Joel Osment when he impressed the world in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense”.
“The Piano” is a film that has an interesting story and staggeringly dexterous direction. Campion has chosen an impeccable period to tell a story of a mute female pianist, a breathtaking landscape to provide the artistic interpretation of her story, and a satisfying ensemble to give life to her lovely characters. This Cannes-winning film is not angry in the backdrop of identifiable tensions and violence; instead it continues to be vigilant inside. I admire Campion because she knows what to show and what to cut, she did not cut the scene where Ada lost her finger because that allows us to see Stewart’s power over Ada, her helplessness, her possible incapacity to play the piano anymore, and most importantly the mean side of Stewart, for us to have a catch of the bad guy. Jane Campion needs to do more films. I never thought she is as good as this.
Just when I thought I will never see a film more passionate and more beautiful than my long time Italian classic favorite “The Bicycle Thief”, this 1993 Academy Award Best Picture winner struck me like a lightning of humanity at its purest, tore my heart relentlessly nearly close to the sorrow thousands and millions of aggravated, humiliated, and profaned Jews experienced, and most importantly moved me in a place where questions about life and its importance, ironies, ambiguities, and catastrophic evil are constantly breathing intemperately. There have been a lot of films that made me misty eyed, also a number of films that made me cry, but “Schindler’s List” just has been so far the only film I found myself bursting in tears I never thought I contain. The equation of material things like car, watch, and a pin of gold and of a thing as simple yet as complicated like life made me feel that it is extremely unacceptable. In fact, to even think of these money and material possessions as a replacement to or something more important than life is sick and evil. The world has been so intellectual yet decadent and educated yet so greedy. Power seekers in order to be what they want needs to blind and so they become blind, not of their historical goals but of the simpler things like the life of many ordinary people. The world honestly is gruesomely consumed by the doom of ravenousness and constant ignorance of harmony and humanity. Never in my life though I have believed that we will ever become the absolute peaceful world, the idea is so beautifully Utopian and it is never a characteristic of this planet and so the closest thing that we can do is to minimize chaos and maximize peace. The founding of United Nations is one my favorite historical point in our history.
Now, what made me abhor this never-ending asymmetrical relations of the powerful and the powerless and the conventionalized sacrifice of many else’s life for the power-seekers when from the start I know it is an incurable plague? I can’t be any more satisfied and inspired to that brilliance exceptionally delivered by Steven Spielberg—a director I first considered seriously good in the nostalgic “Artificial Intelligence” (with my favorite child actor ever—Haley Joel Osment), and then I admired in the groundbreaking “Saving Private Ryan” (with the Hollywood Apple of my eye—Tom Hanks), and now I adore in my favorite film of all time and all nation—“Schindler’s List”. The amount of wonder Spielberg added in the film is unthinkably great. After hearing a lot of stories from his grandparents, and some friends and acquaintances who have experienced the wrath of the Second World War, he conducted ardent research about the Jew survivors of the Holocaust that until now continues as he founded the Shoah--a visual library where all the conducted interviews of all living Jews retell the painful and harrowing experiences. The setting, the Jews of the 2nd World War or the Hitler War as I am fond of substituting, is the best backdrop any storyteller can choose or have if you want to feel the spirit of life in its most unadulterated anatomy. These aggravated people of Jews forced to surrender their businesses and lands, robbed of their properties, detested in front of fellowmen, and scorned by (at least) the Nazis, perhaps alongside with soldiers at war, have brought forth the most exceptional amount of empathy I can manage to produce. Even with their seeming passivity, their downright hope and desire to survive with their family and loved ones definitely deserves respect. Their eventual inhumane and unnecessary death makes reviewing what the world provided them really painful and poignant. The cause of their horrifying death doesn’t cease with the end of the war which makes things very disturbing and worrying because the cause is nothing more or less than discrimination and it still plagues our society, and it may happen again.
Spielberg makes Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) the absolutely perfect imperfect man to save 1,100 Jewish lives and to learn one of the greatest lessons ever covered in films. Schindler is a war profiteer, when the Nazis ruled Poland, they confiscated all Jew-operated and owned businesses. Being the wise man, he convinced the Jew owners of these businesses to transfer everything to his name thus making it a legal German-owned company. With the help of the accountant and a Jew Izthak Stern (Ben Kingsley) and Jewish working for the cheapest rates, Schindler makes more money than any man can ever live luxuriously for the rest of his life. If there is one thing that really made me emotionally and spiritually connected to this black and white film is its premise of money buying people and gold buying ideology. As of now I can’t think of any other as inappropriate yet dramatically striking irony in life than life and money, life and death is not even half of it. Schindler is able to send some Jews from other concentration camp to his factory and route trainload of Jews instead of transporting them to some other camps through bribing. It is not a rocket science; the more Schindler can bribe the captain of a camp, the more people he can get for his factory. At first, he wants Jews to work because their labor is too cheap that you don’t even feel you’re paying them but before the transfer to Auschwitz, he then wants more and more Jews in his factory not to earn anymore but to save lives. Schindler’s list is the list of life, it’s allegory to the book of life is wonderful. The transition between Schindler the businessman and Schindler the savior is ambiguous when I think it should be distinct. However, t is not a drawback at any serious ways instead it only interprets how discreet one German should be in sympathizing with the Jews.
One of my favorite scenes is when Schindler welcomes the male Jews off the train from the old camp to his new factory and said something like—“…inside are bread and hot soup waiting for everybody.” I will cry with those words if I am one of those Jews who wake up every morning to spend the rest of his day working harder than any animal while waiting for arrant Nazis to shoot him to his death. That bread and hot soup is not simply bread and a hot soup but words that will promise them that there is hope for them to live again like human beings. That factory is a sanctuary, the safest place for any Jew, and it is so overwhelming that those thousands of lives depends on one, only one person, and his money. While the train of the male Jews are safely routed to Auschwitz, the train where the female ones are ridden for some mistake have been transported to a different camp where sure they will die after some time. Stern tells Schindler about the error, and the lives of hundreds of Jew women and children, in a matter of hours or minutes, will either be saved or perished.
The ultimate best scene in the film and perhaps of all scenes from films I’ve ever seen is the long sequence at the end of “Schindler’s List”. The war ended and Schindler being a German needs to escape in that absolved factory, before he would take his car Stern and several other Jews melted a gold tooth and mold it into a ring with inscriptions saying—one who saves one life saves the world entire. His workers also make a letter explaining Schindler’s unbelievable predicament to the Jews in case he get caught, and every single Jews in the factory signed it. Schindler starts to cry saying he did not do enough. Stern consoles the man he has always seen the goodness even from the start asking him to look at those over a thousand he has saved. It wasn’t enough for Schindler, he wasted so much money before for wines, women, and good and sinful times, when all those money could have doubled the numbers of Jews who could have survived the war. He starts to begrudge at his car, saying that it could have saved ten more people and even at his Swastika gold pin which could be used as a bribe for at least one more life. Schindler bursts into tears as his people around try to hug him and comfort him, as the simplest way to thank him for letting them live the greatest gift the Lord gave us—life. As I break into tears alongside this cinema’s and history’s significant moment many thoughts outpours in my head, most of them I mentioned in the first paragraph but what makes me weak is that people will still continue to kill people for reasons conscious or unconscious, the Turkish film “I Saw the Sun” made me realize that. But as the film suggests, anyone can still do something, a change, a change that may no be perfect, universal, and absolute. We are not God to completely change the world, but we do have our spaces in this world, and there are people in the proximities of our hearts, our aspirations, and soul. No matter how small that change was for as long as it benefited even a single person provided with the purest intentions then the Jewish proverb—“one who saves one life saves the world entire”, will be our friend.
Adolf Hitler is the main and the most obvious culprit in this one of the history’s most dreadful and atrocious period in our world. The 2004 German film “Downfall” allowed me to reserve certain respect for this man they call the 2nd Anti-Christ. For how monstrous he had done in our history, he was still a man, almost like a God the German nation trusted. Watching “Schindler’s List” doesn’t make me utterly hate Hitler after all. As a disclaimer, it is unsatisfying to learn that there is no accurate and absolute studies about the reasons why Hitler hated the Jews. Therefore while Hitler may have hated and wanted to eradicate the descendants of Jacob, I have to agree with some studies believing that the world have their own different share of this consummate hatred. Hitler is just one of those who hates even before he became Fuhrer of the German nation. Hitler was not the only one, all the people who are bigots, hypocrite, envious, narcissists, and ignorant are the real murderers. As I mentioned earlier, these different figures of evil have not been buried with the millions of body-casualties and this evil in the form of discrimination will still haunt millions of lives today and in the following generations to come.
I can’t thank the Lord well enough for destining me to witness this purifying film I now officially declare as my #1 in my Top 100 Films of all Time and Nation, Steven Spielberg and every single names in the credits of the film for producing a life-changing poignant work of art and history, the Video City near our house where I rented this DVD which even though I paid for a day of penalty is still worthy and even worthier than all of the movies I ever rented there combined, and all of the universe conspiring for this one in a million cinematic experience emblazoned in my heart and soul. More people should see this heart-rending, soul-breaking, moral-provoking black and white Holocaust masterpiece. “Schindler’s List” proves Hollywood’s undeniable power and influence and Spielberg demonstrates the universality of human experience. You don’t have to be a Jew yourself and you don’t have to have a family thrown at Kraskow ghettos, all you need to have is the heart for all the hundreds of thousand of Jews massacred in the Hitler War and some swamping deluge of cinematic talent of course. The frame by frame shots, composition, black and white contrast, simple camera movement, adept film editing, excellent sound design, and touching score still put this film in a heavenly pedestal. This movie simply made me so proud about my passion and enthusiasm for films.
Everytime I watch animated films my first question would always be—“Why animate this thing?” Many answers may be given: in “Finding Nemo”, it needs to be animated because no production company can ever really shoot a real clownfish doing what Nemo the character is supposed to be doing under any ocean; in “Waltz with Bashir”, the Golden Globe-winning film has to be animated to achieve the high amount of surrealism in its visual interpretation of the Palestine Massacre. This film called “Spirited Away” from the home of the animes and mangas—Japan, requires the medium of animation because of its extremely highfaluting spectacles, from the grandiose castles and to the breathtaking changes in the landscape, to the bizarre creatures legendary, original, and archetypal, and up to the gaga temperament and eventual exhibition of powers by these strange creatures, thus creating the impossible and fantastic more possible and still fantastic. A related issue may arise though—in the advent of staggering technical achievements in film, is animation still acceptable? The early 21st century marked the awesome and great effects of “The Lord of the Rings” and few more years later the eye-popping and completely unbelievable “Avatar”—an achievement the world has never accomplished yet. However this very attainment creates a little room for animation, at least for adult animation for venturing into the hundred of thousand still drawings and dubbing of human voices can reduce the animation as an excuse to technical limitations instead of artistic intentions. Just imagine watching an animated version of Avatar, isn’t it beyond dismay to resort to drawings instead of the live action people and their real movements? In this sense only the animations intended for the children will be exempted to this critique. “Spirited Away” is thoroughly entertaining and has an excellent, competitive and edgy production value with respect to its time. Yet, seeing the film in a live action version with all of Japan’s or of the world’s greatest cinematic inventions will nevertheless bring this fantasy/adventure movie into an important Japanese cinema milestone. Filmmakers planning to produce adult animations need to be prudent and should have significant reasons in doing so because we don’t want animation to be a surrogate of cinematic inadequacy or worse, financial restraints.
“Spirited Away” is a highly amusing piece of film and I mean it seriously. It is outrageous and yet it remains adorable, more importantly it is oozing with audacity and charisma and most importantly it is flamboyantly edgy. The trancelike and surreal atmosphere of this other world where Chihiro and her parents are trapped is absolutely beguiling. It has an appeal of something that is present in every child’s most adventurous and wonderful dreams, a dream that even I used to have. The characters are also very interesting—the dragon-transforming green-haired ever-friendly but mysterious Haku , the hawk-like flying Yubaba with humongous head almost occupying half of any room, the ghastly yet friendly patron called “no-face”, the outside-world ignorant giant baby, the bouncing triple-head in Yubaba’s office, and a lot of others allow this adventure to leisurely continue and satisfactorily unfold. I honestly don’t believe that this film has the best storyline among all adventure movies in the world. What makes this film very appealing is the alienation of a supposedly normal girl into a world of strange and grotesque characters in a world decorated with generous resemblance into our own world with an extra fantastic touch. Even the tension created by the film is also amusing; it is not something that will keep you breathless but something that will give a smile on your face. Probably because this is arguably a family movie which is not suppose to generate anxiety and unnecessary trauma to the children that is why the excitement being produced is always cushioned with charm.
I always divide adventure films into three parts: the background of the adventure, the middle part or the adventure proper, and the backlash from the adventure. The film is very much conventional in terms of the structure and genre which reflects the economic fact that it is nothing much else but a commercial family film though I fancy it as something more than that and this animated Japanese film is the best of its league. The background of the adventure is interesting. Chihiro is not very excited about their new house for one thing is certain—she misses her friends. Reluctant about looking forward for a different chapter in her life, she finds herself in the most bizarre place which will be her home for the next several days or weeks. The adventure proper is all about saving her loved ones—her parents who decadently turn into the fattest pigs I’ve seen after eating the tempting food displayed on the food stalls, and Haku, the mysterious boy who helped her escape their world. This is definitely the most obvious value the film wants to teach its children viewers. To survive and to survive the hope of returning back to her world with her parents she needs to be employed in that weird hotel for the mythic gods and goddesses. Chihiro’s objectives though becomes easier and easier for as time passes we realize that Tycoon is not really that ruthless, evil, and cruel. In some points I think everything seems surmountable because Yubaba reveals her real good-hearted character. But an objective should never be surmountable that is why the conflicts presented in the film are multi-layered because one would not be enough (one can’t be so convoluted and austere for a family movie). There is the introduction of Yubaba’s twin and her infringement with Haku, the devastation of Haku and his anticipated possible death, and the eventual effacement of her memories. All of these conflicts are needed to consume our protagonists hope and trigger her determination. The backlash from the adventure is actually the part I am most looking forward to because this is the chance where many unexpected emotions may arise. This is also the part where you will feel torn apart—it is either you feel nostalgic about ending and leaving a lovable adventure or you feel hopeful about how your adventure is going to change your future. Backlashes are either tragic or triumphant, anything that has both is great (juts like what Terrence Mallick did in the last part of “The New World”), and anything that is neither is a waste of time. Family/children’s movies are all the time happily ended and I don’t think there any exceptions. “Spirited Away” definitely has a happy ended fate but what adds another pound of edge on this film is its sentimental spirit that is interestingly exclusive only with Chihiro, the breeze, the grass, and the trees, not including her parents. I felt the nostalgia of being forced to leave a world which at the first place you have always wanted to leave but you have eventually and subconsciously fell in love with.
This adventure film has a beautiful and carefree spirit. It is an adorable, pleasant, and scrumptious animation. Satisfying the inner child among us all, “Spirited Away” is like a collected dream from all the adventures we were all dreaming of when we were young. A dream that will make us feel a hero of our own, something that makes us excited and proud telling it to our friends and playmates, a dream you wish you will dream every bedtime. This movie reminded me so much of the distant picture of my childhood, the lazy afternoon at the yard, the milk before turning off the bedroom light, and the beautiful mornings I have woken up with those overwhelming happiness from adventurous dreams. That is what this film is about—to remind us of the forgotten joy of dreaming like a child.
Three years ago in the darkened Videotheque of the Film Institute where only the projected images in black and white lit the 70-seater room, there sat a first year student destined to be swept, captivated, and deeply moved in the next one and a half hour by the 1949 Italian film being shown—a classic film called “The Bicycle Thief” by the neorealist master—Vittorio de Sica. For the longest and most significant period in my life, that movie remains to be the ultimate and still unprecedented cinematic experience I ever treasure. Appreciating the Auteur Theory by Andre Bazin, there’s nothing like hoping to see another work of de Sica and there’s nothing like the three-year wait to finally see one for these Italian Film Classics are unfortunately too rare. Just like real precious gems, these films you really have to dig extensively to find.
Socially and morally provoking, “Shoe Shine” is a story of two unfortunate shoe shine boys who are jailed for being involved innocently in some trade of stolen goods. A deconstruction of the crimes, misdemeanor, and mistakes of the adulthood with some apparent references to the government and judiciary system which are both obviously operated by the adults, the film is a harrowing tale of children’s impending tragedy the grown-ups perpetuated. Definitely admiring that there is no blatant appointing of the culprits, instead de Sica focused on the two boys and their fellow juvenile prisoners and never, not even a single second that he visually blamed someone in the film. The question—“Whose fault really it is?” is story-wise of the particular adults which are Guiseppe’s brother and his friend, but the subtlety I am talking about makes recognition of the exact culprits irrelative instead it initiated an overwhelming arrest of all the culpable in a much panoptic scope.
Born in Italy after the dreadful and devastating 2nd World War, Italian Neo-Realism is a cinematic movement tackling the life of those in the margins, or of the working classes from the most mundane to the most sensible minutes of their life. Attempting to center the attention to this preface, neo-realists interpret their films in a simple narrative structure such as in “The Bicycle Thief” the story is simply about the search for the stolen bicycle. No multi-layer POV or time-frame needed like in an Alejandro Gonzales-Inarittu films for creating a more convoluted storyline would rob the audience of the empowering potential of a prosaic experience. However, “Shoeshine” doesn’t really fall much to such criteria. A certain level of complexity is thus present in this 1946 classic. Two shoeshine boys are imprisoned separately on two different cells. Interrogated by the police, Pasquale thought that the policemen are beating Guiseppe and made him confess that it is his friend’s brother who asked them to sell the fabric without knowing they are stolen. Guiseppe on the other hand misinterpreted the situation and blamed Pasquale for thinking that he betrayed him and his brother. This complexity mirrors the world of the adulthood making such part in the film so heart-rending and saddening. All of the elements in this part work interestingly—the jail as the piece of space they are spending youthful days of their lives, the fellow minors as the alike fragile souls, the policemen as the apathetic authorities dictating their deportment, and the legal system as the intangible God shaping their becoming elusive future.
One of the best things I really admire about De Sica is that he delivers a beautiful earthy atmosphere to his works. There is a consistent patch of gloom scattered from start to finish and relieving splash of humor from time to time. “The Bicycle Thief” and “Shoeshine” are films telling stories from a different time and country but it incessantly look and feel so earthbound and exquisitely unglamorous. An impalpable emotion perhaps is this feeling that I feel so alive in these two films (though I felt more significantly alive with The Bicycle Thief).
The most “neorealist” part in “Shoeshine” arguably is the provoking uncertainty at the end. In “The Bicycle Thief” the camera closes up to the face of the protagonist after stealing someone else’s bicycle and being chased by the town people. The restless and hopeless look in his face leaves a question to us what is in future for him? Extremely parallel to the worry of what future the Italians are going to experience after the war? In “Shoeshine” Pasquale furiously whipped Guiseppe thinking that he is trying to runaway with the horse the two of them bought when in fact he is only trying to escape from the policemen. Guiseppe accidentally fell on the bridge and hit his head to a stone from avoiding the wrath of his friend. Guiseppe seemingly dead already, Pasquale crying and shouting his friend’s name, and the horse running and fading away into the darkness.
Any film lover from the Philippines in the 21st century would lie if they say they never ever felt the power and influence of Hollywood in the country’s cinema or even in their general idea of movies. One of the things that made watching De Sica films a lot easy and entertaining is the fact that it is already almost similar to the Narrative system of Hollywood—a storytelling Filipinos and most people in the world are very familiar, so familiar that it makes non-Hollywood Narrative films nothing but an artistic crap. This is also another reason why I enjoyed “Shoeshine” better than Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring”. Bergman’s work I believe has more virginal and more timeless content in a simpler form than De Sica’s however, the theatricality Bergman embellished “The Virgin Spring” is verging on obsolete today. There are over-exceeding frames in some scenes and unfortunately lacking in some others like the scene where the maiden protagonist has been raped by the two herdsmen. Some camera angles are unhelpful to what is taking place on the story failing to capture the total intensity of the scene. I am sure there is an explanation to that Bergman film but pegging the contexts today then it is an odd film. “Shoeshine” on the other hand even being released 13 or 14 years earlier than “The Virgin Spring” is more timeless in terms of the many elements in filmmaking. The “corrupt-looking” editing is almost zeroed.
“Shoeshine” is a pleasant and provoking film. Though aboveboard, I wish to humbly express a feeling of a slight disappointment not inside the film but of that inevitable expectation I unintentionally collected all throughout the years. “The Bicycle Thief” remains to be the most important masterpiece at least from out of all films I have seen and “Shoeshine” is a little bit not even half of the former but again, I can’t emphasize it that much—this film is certainly very good on its own.
"Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity."
— Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba
All roads lead to the heart—a premise Walter Salles used for his 1997 film “Central Station” and has been doing continuously to most of his films. Depicting the time when famous revolutionist Ernesto “Che” Guevarra traveled South America which according to him he only knew in books with his friend Roberto de la Serna, the director ultimately expanded the distance his characters are voyaging. In “Central Station” the journey takes place within Brazil whereas in “Motorcycle Diaries”, we are taken into a humbling immersion from Argentina to Chile, to Peru, and Venezuela. Thus creating a tremendous force that will shake the world’s political philosophy yet at the time latent in the soul of Che Guevarra, the film still position the immensity of the character’s potent into a more personally connecting height.
I really don’t know much about Che Guevarra though I sometimes see his printed face on some shirts my schoolmates in college are wearing. And once or twice I’ve heard his name from few friends telling that he is a communist leader. That for no any excuse penciled in some sketches of an old man in some shabby clothes and untidy beard—in other words, an unlikable man. Probably one of the biggest surprises in my life is to see the youthful Che Guevarra and get swept away by a charismatic portrayal in the film by Gael Garcia Bernal. That must be the first and most apparent good thing about the film. Bernal is arguably the most famous Mexican actor internationally. I have watched a couple of his major movies—“Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Babel”, “Amores Perros” and excluding “The Crime of Father Amaro” which I have long wanted to see, this is by far and by a hundred mile the best Gael Garcia Bernal I have ever witnessed. It is definitely one of those few moments where you can say that an actor is born to play such role. The recipe is simple; an internationally acclaimed Brazilian director making a film about a historical and internationally influential figure will cast no less than a big name such as Gael. Bernal’s charisma is significantly bountiful to depict such a character like Che Guevarra. I love the fact that while most of his movies are coming-of-age ones which are characterized by gambling, sex, and the happy-go-lucky personality, this is where his character has developed the most while still engaging in the free-spiritedness of his usual roles.
To see Che in the historical Cuban Revolution is synonymous to watching Frost/Nixon and JFK—in some other words, uninterestingly austere and obnoxiously old. I have not seen those two films yet and I know it’s not fair to say what I said about them but those are what keeping me from making any efforts to watch the two. “Motorcycle Diaries” is not about the sober revolutionist Che instead the young Che in his motorcycle, loving a woman, having fun with some other woman, drinking wine, dancing Tango and Mambo, writing notes on his diaries as his groundbreaking material unfolds. For many times Che claims that the travel they embarked on is aimless however, I don’t find it absolutely true—they have always wanted to help in the advancement of medicine and treatment of the needy. This vaguely distinguished element causes an elementary perplexity in the narrative. The soliloquy of Che mostly at the end part and the over-all treatment of the film support the feeling that Che has found a new passion—something he wants to pursue. And because the film sculptured the narrative with declarations about the aimlessness of the travel and the implicitness of the medical objective, the perceptible transformation Che undergoes seems to be attributed to the goal he has always had from the start. The change the protagonist experiences is his unexpected empathy to the poor and not to the sick because again, his empathy to the sick has always been there. The film could have been more effective and have shown more form through working on the contrast and similarities had the film emphasized that difference between Che’s stance to the sick and Che’s stance to the poor.
The second best thing about Salles’s work is that it is enormously engaging and charming. Accounting all the allure to Gael is of course an exaggeration for the director cunningly represented the character and the adventure in a mutual and fair balance—never the character did overrun the adventure nor the adventure did overrun the character—a friendly combination of a character-driven and a plot-driven story I can say. The events and the places Ernesto and Roberto have been are equally treated plot-wise and narrative-wise. Even the travel by the boat from one place to another has provided a lot of fleshing out of the characters. We see and know them better from every point in their journey. The guileless and profound relationship between the two is adorable, most of the time funny and more importantly—secured. The relationship though between Ernesto and the patients and the rest of the community in the hospital can not be underestimated but perhaps because of its less plot time relative to his adventures with Roberto I feel that the main source of heart in the film is the adventure of the two more than the doctor-rich-privileged and patient-poor-unprivileged affiliation. The later can be the main source however of inspiration for Che himself.
The film is highly patriarchal. I am not sure if it is appropriate to talk about feminism here but it feels so masculine from start to finish. The motorcycle alone is an exceedingly masculine symbol. Their demonstrated flair about women whether Argentine or Chilean adds to it, plus the gun given to Ernesto from his father. Che and Roberto are also highly educated being a graduating medical student and a biochemist respectively. All of their qualities are so asymmetrical to the women in the story. Women are being left, being fantasized, to some extent being sweetly taken advantage; some are reduced to being dance partners, and the worse—being sick, and the worst—being treated by a no less than male doctor. Somewhat and somehow it contributes to the notion that men are the foundation of new ideologies and courageous resistance.
Che conceives a unity for all Latin and South Americans, all people from Mexico all the way down to Magellan strait. Visually this is reflected in the film. The travel took place in at least four different countries and yet the treatment from one place to another is consistent. While it is a common practice in filmmaking to consciously delineate a place to another, “Motorcycle Diaries” consciously unifies those Latin countries, at least visually. The most breathtaking scenery in the film would be the remnants of Inca civilization and even more breathtaking is Che’s realization of how can an empire capable of doing such marvel be swept out to extinction. The most allegorical scene on the hand would be the one where Che after giving a speech on his birthday celebration decides to cross the river which caused a lot of panic to the people shouting at him to swim back for no one has ever crossed that river yet especially on a cold midnight. The nurses and the other superior people on the other side of the river and the more ordinary people on the further cheering for Che to make it symbolizes his foreseen struggle to alleviate inequality.
“Motorcycle Diaries” is a worthwhile movie. Truly a threshold of understanding the famous Che Guevarra in his infamous time, the film gets so thrilling with the most human adventures and so endearing with unsaturated nostalgia. If the purpose of this film is to demonstrate a likeable person against someone who is solely an enemy of capitalists, then I commend the film. Now I can comfortably say that in any case I will take any further reading about Che the only prejudice I will have are the encouraging ones.
In general, I am not a fan of movies based on fiction or novel, or short stories. Literature and film are different media that create dissimilar experiences of art. Almost all of the people I know always say that the book version is better than the film and at extreme and more usual cases that the movie murdered the book. My response would be diplomatic, considering the fact that books and movies are two different practices and along the production of a film comes more than a hundred of cinematic to economic oriented decisions accounting to diversions from the book with of course varying extents. It is undeniable though that there have been a number of great films with adapted screenplays—“Slumdog Millionaire”, “BrokebackMountain”, “Memoirs of a Geisha” and also undeniable is the fact that there are also disappointing ones. A wonderful book acclimatized to a film will become one that is geared toward the character’s highfaluting and staggering philosophy or campy whimsicalities and the challenge that will confront the director will be the kind of form he will structure the novel. In “Doubt”, the director decided to be minimalist which really many directors would opt to as in a way a kind of preserving the highly-character oriented substance of a book. The most practical and sensible use of this art’s quest for a different medium would be that of a sci-fi or fantasy novel. At least in the popular culture, this is hugely evident like that of “Lord of the Rings”, “Harry Potter”, and “Twilight”. One of the few moments I am seriously gratified by this shifting of media aside from LOTR trilogy and Harry Potter series is David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. This type of story is one of those who don’t just need to be visual (for all stories ask for its reader’s imagination) instead needs an extreme and arduous visual treatment and interpretation.
The many contrast between Bingham and Keener-age, gender, body built, and beliefs still provide a charming chemistry between the two.
The director of Academy Award nominated “Juno”, Jason Reitman comes back with a film adaptation of “Up in the Air”. I wish I have read the foundation novel before I write this but I find the film too overwhelming to contract time. My professors say that a brilliant screenplay even handled by a mediocre director would still result to a brilliant film but a bad screenplay even handled by a Francis Ford Copolla or an Akira Kurosawa would result to no more than the worst works in their entire filmography. The film is script-wise astounding; in fact, I believe almost entire of the film’s compelling force is due to it. Conversely I can not deny the fact that Reitman did not try to make it look so much of a novel-based movie. The director manage to engage playful cuts, independent cutaways, and purposeful and at the same time resourceful montage which is not a normative standard of movies. The rest is not unnecessarily radical nor in any case tries to be a powder keg of a new novel to book filmmaking guidelines. Instead, what he does is a prudent and innovative delivery of making a novel into a cinematic template that is efficiently persuasive of itself as a film and not anymore of any medium. He achieves it by a spanking youth in technical (at least in editing) manipulation and in general transformation of an already fulfilling fiction into a film fit screenplay.
I believe that in any extent Reitman did influence the qualitative amount of interweaving elements from the novel to the film. It is also not too far from believing that he wanted to create more sense of contrasts and variation which is truly commendable because that is the most faithful to the form of cinema that you can do to translate a content from other media.
An amalgam of character-reflective metaphors, character and philosophy clash, dynamic swing of wane and recreation of them, far-fetched twists, and tons of intelligence covered with collected wit describes this stirring tale of life with relationship, dream, and passion at the core. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) works as an employment sheriff. He travels all year long from different cities in the country—Omaha, St. Louis, Wichita, Tulsa, San Francisco, and a lot more. With his new co-worker who is trying to revolutionize their traveling work into a more cost-efficient virtual termination of employment, Ryan is tremendously displeased with her scheme so gearing to the business while directing away the serious psychological effect of the terminated workers which Ryan believes will only be reduced with a person to person communication. There are a lot of differences between Ryan and Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) however it is a joy not see them take it personally. The occurrences where the two are together talking about life and how they argue with their definitions and standards are very exciting. Appealing also is the fact that neither one of them has been favored by life ahead of them. Even Ryan, the main protagonist doesn’t hold the claim of truth or his philosophy as the superior or his beliefs as the closer to life itself, nor does Natalie. Both of them are proven wrong and right at some points by the other. I also find the double twists so enhancing of the watching experience. Ryan decides to follow Alexis and have a chance to have the wife and family he never wanted and then learn that Alexis already has a husband and kids. Few scenes before that, we see Ryan and Alexis having so much of times that conceive a future wedding of their own.Natalie also at the late part of the film seems to have won with her virtual termination scheme and then later on decides to quit the job after learning that a previous terminated employee committed suicide. These twists and twists again crisscross from the two or three main characters in the film structuring an interesting and intricate body of complimenting rudiments.
Ryan's sister asked him to take a picture out of cardboard of her and her husband in the places Ryan visits.
This is a metaphor of Ryan's incredulity about marriage.
The worst thing the director could ever do in this film would be appointing actors who will fail to bring these characters with the most ostentatious and rigid words out of their mouth to come to life. It is legal for “Doubt” to brag about the acting component of the film as Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Davis just did not do anything wrong about their assignments. Following such tradition, George Clooney together with supporting role players Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick does a performance so provoking, so pounding like a hammer and most importantly so grasping of empathy. At this point in time of Clooney’s career I never expected anything this appropriate a role for him as much as I don’t anticipate any role that will re-launch the 12-year starvation of Tom Hanks’ career.
“Up in the Air” is one of the most, if not the most engaging Hollywood film last year. Though it is easy to have such riveting nature adapting a screenplay from a novel of Walter Kirn, the film is a satisfying success for its deeply nurturing temperament becomes an experience of lyrical consciousness. It made me feel so alive.
