overcluttered mindspills

ning

Filed under: films

Just five

1. Sleepy: I look like a madwoman now having just untied my french braids. I was making myself some caramel tea and over-steeped the teabag. Now my caramel tea looks like diluted gula melaka. The heat is seriously sucking my soul. Even a sugar and caffeine dose does little to lift the broiling lethargy. And the living room has been attacked by whiffs of badly charred chinese herbal medicine - or at least that is what it smelt like. 

2. Infection: I am so glad I fully recovered from the dreadful herpes zoster ophthalmicus (Herpes, whether the genital one or not, is not HIV, my darling Nik & Chester -.- tccch! So hilarious when Nik excitedly announced to everyone who entered the ambs room that I had herpes!). Terribly painful and very unsightly at that. It has been 2 years since the last episode and I have been quite unfazed by its onset because it seemed it has been with me all my life, latently there ever since post-chickenpox. And today was the one day I could not afford my eyes to look like I got punched, so I'm real thankful it resolved in time!

3. Another read: Interesting figures: Why America Needs Immigrants, by Jonah Lehrer for WSJ, 14th May 2011.

4. Ayam Panggang Awesomeness: I used to dread eating in school. Most of the times I didn't have time to eat; I grab a sandwich, gobble it in less than 5 and get going. When I do have the time though, I never know what to eat. But alas... now that I've graduated, Munch just had to have the heavenly Ayam Panggang stall. The ayam panggang is so good, I cannot stop exclaiming it! It's so freaking good. It's the best food I've ever had in a campus (mind, I rarely express such superlatives!). For real! It's so good. Anyone who hasn't tried it should, immediately! 

5. Film to watch - Kokuhaku (2010): Got my hands on Kokuhaku (confessions in Japanese, 2010) and shall watch it on a later date when I'm not so sleepy. The reviews were excellent, and easily 90% of the reviewers speak of their impression after the film as awestruck - now that's something. Just reading them, I already love the brutal social commentary that the film presents, particularly when directors very powerfully leverage on apt cinematographic techniques and excellent acting. Looking forward to watching this - and I foresee a long post shall ensue!
6. If it were my home: If it were my home - comparing Singapore to US. Compare for all the rest of the countries as well. I can spend forever on the website. 

Dear Zachary

No film has ever shattered me or weighed me down quite the way this film did. Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father (2008) was so painful that I found myself grimacing in heartache every second of the film. After typing this post I am going to find myself some comedy to cure this heartache, for I suspect I may not be able to fall asleep otherwise. Yet as transient as this swell of emotions may be, the reality and pain of the persons involved do not fade. 

I am now welled with anger with the scathing injustice the law was. Thankfully, a bill in Zachary's name has become law in Canada since December 2010. Dear Zachary was such a heartbreaking and paralyzing documentary - so raw, so real, so riling. At the end of the film, I knew in that manner that it gripped me, that I had to share it, because its message is important. The judicial system around the world, not just Canada, should straighten their backs and question themselves before moving forward: Who is the system protecting? 


On Nov. 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby was murdered in a parking lot in western Pennsylvania; the prime suspect, his ex-girlfriend Dr. Shirley Turner, promptly fled the United States for St. John's, Canada, where she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew's child. She named the little boy Zachary. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Andrew's oldest friend, began making a film for little Zachary as a way for him to get to know the father he'd never meet. But, when Shirley Turner was released on bail in Canada and was given custody of Zachary while awaiting extradition to the United States, the film's focus shifted to Zachary's grandparents, David and Kathleen Bagby, and their desperate efforts to win custody of the boy from the woman they knew had murdered their son. What happened next, no one could have foreseen. - Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes

Appreciation

“One of my key principles as a critic is that I am never wrong about what I like, but I may be wrong about what I dislike. We very often confuse not being able to connect with art for it not being good. It’s hard to predict when something you didn’t care about at some point will suddenly speak to you.” - Matthew Perpetua

Indeed. I was watching the film Norwegian Wood (2011) last night, and perhaps because of my love for Haruki Murakami, my expectations for the film adaptation were high. To say it was disappointing is not quite fair, but indeed I could not connect with the film. Given the artistry of Murakami, it is truly a challenge to bring that similar surrealism to film. The film was lengthy, and very much silent, as one should expect a Murakami derivative to be, but was bland in flavor. 

Throughout the film, it never left me how the director Anh Hung Tran took some four years of pursuit before Murakami finally gave the nod for the film. Perhaps a Murakami should remain a Murakami. 

Rarely does one find a piece of art so hard to translate across mediums. We see so often novels becoming screenplays, poems becoming music, plays becoming films; they meet with limited success, but they are often still able to do their jobs. Norwegian Wood, by contrast, still seems too much a fish out of water. That is how aptly Murakami has crafted with novel in literature, so much so that it remains the only medium powerful enough to convey its message. 

But alas, perhaps it is really because I found no connection with what may otherwise be viewed an art in its own right.

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Never_let_me_go

  I've been indulging in films since holidays came by. Since my previous post on Cracks, I have watched No Strings Attached (2011), The King's Speech (2010) and The Other Woman (2009). Apart from The King's Speech, the other two weren't particularly stunning although The Other Woman did bring me to tears at some points. 

Never Let Me Go (2010) though is very much worthy of more than just a cursory mention. 

Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's original novel Never Let Me Go, the film starts in Hailsham, a boarding school where they learn that they are brought up to be organ donors - their destinies are sealed. Put bluntly, their very fatalistic purpose in life was to serve as healthy clones that will eventually die upon donating as many vital organs as their bodies may cope without. The film follows Kathy, Ruth and Tommy through this dystopian sci-fi (for the lack of a better term, for I've never been fond of the term 'sci-fi' especially for this film where it hardly fits) setting. They later have to grapple with their love for each other all in the midst of the certainty of the fate that awaits them. 

Plot: Given such a strategic dystopian setting, one would think that leveraging on it to delve into the existentialist questions would make the film more poignant and powerful. Yet the director had steered the film to in the direction of a "love story where the science fiction is this subtle patina on the story" according to an interview. I fight a tinge of injustice to the marvel that is Ishiguro's original. Alas, it appears Ishiguro is pleased with the outcome of the movie. 

 

I cannot help but feel a deep sense of pity, because this confusing fusion of a love story and a film with philosophical underpinnings had made for a diluted, dulled version of what may otherwise be much more moving. If I had it my way of course, the subtleties would not be in the fatalistic setting but rather in the love story - for it is in the premise of the former that paints the film with the tragic tone that may urge the audience to question the time spent in one's life. Sadly, given the intended direction of a romantic film, Never Let Me Go had failed to live up to its potential -  there is not the intensity of passions and conflicts that underlie romance. I am tempted to believe that the direction towards a love story had been a big mistake that left the film in a poor awkward limbo that excels in neither genres. 

 

Given the vague direction, the film's saving grace would be the acting and the musical score by Rachel Portman, that successfully gave the film its distinct flavor of humanity. 

 

Acting: Kathy's character is not particularly complex; yet when put in the film where she has few lines, Carey Mulligan did a stunning job bringing out the quiet resilience that Kathy harbored that took her through heartbreaks of love, of being a carer, of being the last standing. Of course, I've loved Carey Mulligan since An Education (2009), but I can say with certainty that her performance here was richer (although in An Education, the development of her character with the progression of the film was stronger). Keira Knightley was said to be too beautiful for the role, giving the producers a unique problem of trying to make her plain. Haha, interesting. Indeed she had achieved that "plainness" demanded by her role, but that was all - there was little more than that and I won't say the role would be of much significance nor in any way outstanding.  

All in all a beautiful film, though barely reaching its potential. Recommended? Well, sure. For now though, I am once again tempted to read the original novel so now that's a lot more on my reading list. 

I also found I am not alone with my sentiments, as echoed in this cleverly written review at The Guardian.

Cracks

Cracks

The thing about the holidays is this influx of journal entries that really tilts the balance. 

Regardless.

It is approaching half past five in the morning and I have just finished watching Cracks (2009). Frankly, I found the film tough to swallow with its complexities, but it is precisely these complexities that made for a such a delicate film. Beautiful cinematography and cleverly crafted piece of art by female director Jordan Scott. Eva Green was exquisite - the role was demanding, yet it seemed effortless for her to deliver the many layers of Miss G's character and let us see her facade very artfully crack as the film progressed. To see a character collapse to reveal someone as intricate and conflicted as Miss G was rewarding (and to think I could process all that at four in the morning). I can't say much about Juno Temple, who played Di, perhaps because her character had little development during the course of the film (until, of course, towards the end). Still, it remains undeniable that Di's character was well-brought-out; never weakening at any point of the story - and one will see how important the strength of her character is in developing the plot. That applies not just to Di. Each character was indispensible to the power of the story, and such thoughtful work of art is tempting me to pick up the original novel by Sheila Kohler, which inspired the film. I hear that the book is quite different from the film itself, being set in South Africa and even with physical characterizations differing from what we see in the film. I suppose then that the differences further piqued my curiosity and reinforced that the film is an art in its own right. 

I loved the film and if I were a better critic, I'd certainly contribute perhaps more insightful critique but of course, I... am just a contented spectator who appreciates films. The lack of sleep is also really getting to me so I should really crash. Until another time!
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
​