Jayclops' musings on his favorite pasttime and escape.
Courage under fire.
July 31, 2007Osama (Siddiq Barmak, 2003)
The young girl (Marina Golbahari) who remained unnamed except for the adopted pseudonym of the infamous Al-Qaeda leader christened to her is portrayed with such efficiency and painstaking resonance that every time we see her in misfortune’s way, we can’t help but want to pluck her out of the screen away from such hapless situations. We first see her amidst a women’s rally which moments after was violently dispersed, some women captured and beaten. Because the men in the family died during the war, her mother thought of a very dangerous ploy – for the girl to disguise as a boy to be able to work and bring food to the famished family. While the grandma tells her a mythical story of a young boy who looked like a girl, she just silently wept as her long hair was being cut off. This will start her harrowing journey into the cruel hands of men and society.
She is forcibly thrown into the rigors of work and the constant jeers from fellow kids who always kid her of her “girlish” appearance – referred in the movie as “nymph”, a boy who looks like a girl similar to the oft-repeated story of her grandma. One of the elder Taliban picks her to be among the ranks of younger generation who will be taught of Taliban fundamentals. Here, she finds herself in more uncompromising and dangerous situations – a public demonstration of how to properly wash the male genitalia in the observance of moral cleansing and being told to climb a dead tree at-the-spur-of-the-moment to prove her “masculinity”.
When punished of this doing, it is here that her disguise is discovered when she had her first menstrual period. The act of public humiliation is so severe and inescapable, not even her protector Esmandi could shield her from the throng of young boys and elders running after her. When she is eventually caught, she is brashly cloaked in the traditional veil which reveals nothing of a woman’s features. She is offered to a public hearing (previously an American journalist was summarily executed after found guilty), is pardoned but “earned” by an old mullah.
The concluding scenes in Osama need not be pronounced to be heartbreaking – after deflowering the girl, the old mullah submerges himself in hot water in the supposed cleansing ritual. Osama is filled with singular scenes that are full of wonder, and Mr. Barmak is a humble genius, culturally significant and poignant in its serenity and simplicity – the planting of the cut hair and the IV leftover from a rundown hospital supposedly watering it, the lyrical melding of the hair-cutting with the storytelling, and other equally brilliant scenes.
True, this is a story of one very unlucky girl but it is also a testament of courage, the immediacy to break the barriers of crooked beliefs and fanaticism, to rise up to the challenge of the times. And Barmak’s film is founded on courage too. After being in exile during the Taliban regime, he found means to be able to tell this meaningful story, not just to his countrymen (who were in indescribable fits of joy upon showing of the first films to come in a long time) but to remind as well the rest of the world of these unsung struggles.
Am not ready to shut up.
July 27, 2007Shut Up and Sing (Barbara Kopple, 2006)
When I saw the three ladies of Dixie Chicks in that infamous lady-of-liberties pose, I immediately pounced on the bootleg (yet again) copy of Shut Up and Sing directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple, who made Harlan County, USA, a documentary about some mining and labor dispute back in the 70s. She also helmed the sought-after Ella-Enchanted-does-the-striptease debut of Anne Hathaway into so-called mature roles called Havoc which was straight to video (for those who want to see more of Anne's plumpness other than that brief stint in Brokeback Mountain, feast your eyes in this). See, this is what happens after a gaping hiatus. I'm going wayward in my discussion.
Shut Up and Sing chronicles the Dixie Chicks' emotionally-charged, tumultuous political journey in Bush's America where artists are not even spared off. This is an account of what could happen when a seemingly-innocent, jestfully uttered one-liner can change monumentally the career path of one of the most-hailed country acts in America. To cut straight to the core, the political dilemma started in a London concert when lead singer Natalie Maines said: "Just to let you know, we're ashamed that the president of America comes from Texas." Such comment was inevitable in the midst of a massive anti-Bush protest at the height of atrocities in Iraq, but similar anti-war sentiments could not help abate the raging backfire from pro-administration and patriotic Americans who went from burning Dixie Chicks albums to calling the girls names like traitors, whores and other derogatory comments. But what compounded the girls' worse situation was the backlash of their country music roots as country radio stations refused to play their songs after threats from annoyed listeners.
The documentary was called by some critics as a "vanity-project-image-rehabilitation" and self-serving promotional stint but one has to probe of what is really at stake rather than looking at the trying-to-get-back-in-the-scene aspect. The film made it clear that the Chicks stood for what they believe is right and were willing to pay the price, even that of popularity (but what a redemption and vindication it was when they grabbed five Grammys early this year). Kopple along with director Cecilia Peck chronicles the lives of the Chicks as mothers and provide us a glimpse of the backstage life when there is no limelight, when reality sinks in. Somehow, it mirrors a sense of introspection not just with the average American citizen but for every citizen in a nation beset by political forces and the arbitrariness of the laws that protect us.
The First Amendment is such a revered law and I think that most of the constitutional provisions on freedom of speech is patterned like it. Shut Up and Sing may just be the vehicle to check on this supposed freedom -it is thought-provoking and timely. The message should transcend nations where the much-abused word called democracy is still upheld. When the Dixie Chicks returned to the scene, a London theatre, Natalie reiterates the lines; the fervor has never waned. They were greeted by the cheers, this time it seemed much louder and it makes you want to stand up and sing as well that indeed "we're not ready to make nice."
It’s gonna be a bright, sunshiny day.
July 21, 2007Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007)
Early on during the first three months of the year, I was giddy up with the news that Danny Boyle will be directing a space movie about the sun dying and all the catastrophic orchestrations of a sci-fi thriller it promises to be (confession: only saw Trainspotting and Millions). Plus the thought of seeing it months before centric America sees it, like people in Europe (which I say is way cooler), should be on the to-do list came April. And then I miss it. Very anticlimactic. I saw it just over the weekend on bootleg with Russian subtitles and just as I thought, I sure would have a blast a hundred times over had I viewed it on wide screen. 
Now it must be said, that running a show like Sunshine is a tough act, because you always have great space epics like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Solaris in hindsight. It’s pretty much understandable, where critics are goaded at how weak the final act is considering the promise and amount of tension the filmmakers have built. Not to mention philosophical and spiritual ruminations on the nature of space travel that will have Solaris and 2001 fans nostalgic and brimming with expectations. But this is not to say that Boyle’s handiwork is a complete fiasco; which I think it’s not. In fact, it’s one of the most satisfying early 2007 offerings so far.
Eight people are launched into space called Icarus II (with the obvious reference to the Greek myth), a second manned mission to sun after the first Icarus shuttle mysteriously broke down on its path – the captain, the navigator, a biologist (Michelle Yeoh), an engineer (Chris Evans), a space pilot (Rose Byrne), a comms officer, a psychologist and a physicist (Cillian Murphy). Forget defying laws of physics here, but the ship protected by gold shields will deliver a nuclear payload supposed to ignite the dying sun thus saving mankind from extinction. Daunting as their mission is, the crew is just about to discover the real terror other than the fact that they may not be able come back after all.
It’s pretty geeky science but nothing that will prompt you to dive into encyclopedia and physics textbooks. Garland, who wrote the screenplay manages to fuse tension, character dynamics and the inevitable metaphysical aspects of a space thriller but there is a lot more to be wanted in terms character justification. It makes up though in isolated scenes of visual spectacle most notably in scenes where a character or the crew gaze at the sun thru protected sunglasses (I imagine how multi-coated it can be). Boyle’s frenetic camerawork does wonders for instance when it is inside the space suits giving us the claustrophobic feel and mounting fear though it can be annoying during the ending montage.
The space walk, where the captain (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Capa, the physicist (Murphy) repairs the damaged shields, is breathtaking scene and the voice of the rebelling super-computer is an obvious homage to 2001's HAL 9000; the existence of unwanted visitos to Solaris but pales in comparison as to the depth and importance. Psychologist Searle (Cliff Curtis) seems to provide the moral core of the characters, we find him retreating into the ocular room more than once to be engulfed in the marvel of the sun.
The characters would start to dwindle and die terrifying deaths up to the last act where the shift can get messy and somehow anticlimactic. The doom seems to be apparent and I get it that the biggest gripe would really come from the major shift. Man, in the end, gets to see the promise of a new day, and as the doomed crew set the controls of the sun, this should move the core of man's heart.
Family matters.
July 19, 2007The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
Then I would later learn that Citizen Kane would end up as the THE greatest film of all time in numerous film circle surveys both highly-acknowledged and those that are spread www. The Magnificent Ambersons, on the other hand, is less popular and considered by some as a ‘great lost film’. It was probably due to fact that there were controversies surrounding the release of the film – reportedly it was cut down to a considerable length by the film distributor. Of course, every sane director would go nuts if commercialistic meddlers hack their way into a film’s production.
Magnificence is not only seen in the grace of the camera but how much Welles achieve in tackling a subject matter which in that period of America may not be the popular cup of tea that would normally end up in a jovial tête-à-tête. It is both a testament to time and change but more importantly it is a great examination of the complexities of family life, the inexplicable connection and its effects on our external relationships. Most likely we are tempted to refer to the Greek myth of Oedipus or to my memory a rather similar filmic version of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers.
This is manifest in the mother-and-son tandem of George and Isabel –George (Tim Holt) being the spoiled grown-up that he is and Isabel (Dolores Costello), somewhat frustrated wife who pours out her love and affection to her son. A close relative, Aunt Fanny is also a spoiler. The tension mounts when George learns the impending marriage of her mother to Eugene (Joseph Cotton), an automobile dealer who has a daughter (the lovely Ann Baxter) whom George will have the time to flirt about. But as the dynamics of their relationship, George and Isabel would end up with either of daughter and father: Isabel, mired in her own insecurities and George, well, as spoilt as he is stagnates in his self-importance.
The magnificence of the Ambersons would soon diminish. After their trip around the world, which is supposed to cover up the truth of their long absence, they found that much of the place has changed (seeming to suggest the era of industrial revolution). Here we see a very significant contrast –their self-absorbed world as opposed to the prevailing progress, which they have not bear witness. There’s a certain quality of nostalgia in everything even in Welles’ voice filled with longing and passion who turns out to be the narrator who opens and ends the film. 
Vignettes, in coffee and cigarettes.
July 11, 2007Coffee and Cigarettes (Jim Jarmusch, 2003)
I am not familiar to Jarmusch’s films but only with the fact the he is an important figure in contemporary American independent cinema. As with my usual foray into serious film viewing, there is always the need to supply myself with helpful references and it has always been paramount to consider earlier films rather than the most recent ones as an appropriate approach in understanding the entire gamut of the filmmaker or the genre. Thus, putting in Coffee and Cigarettes, one of Jarmusch’s recent efforts, is both challenging and exciting. Critics and followers, who obviously have more authority, were quick to put it as a slight, rather regrettable effort. The film actually dates back to 1986 and the vignettes were gradually developed as Jarmusch went to do more films like the more popular Dead Man which starred Johnny Depp. So admittedly, I have to make do with WYSIWYG. Diss character and plot development, there is nothing much that goes on given the short running time of each of the stories. But that doesn’t mean it’s pure gibberish because it isn’t. In fact, I enjoyed it more than what I actually expected. Yes, it is a major talkie but I didn’t find myself painstakingly un-shutting my eyelids as I did when I watched Fellini’s 8 ½ or Godard’s Alphaville. Of course, it helped that it is in vignettes which after feeling weirded out on the first one, would make you anticipate for the next. Therein lies also the strength of this film, because while some subject matter laid down on the coffee table, some makeshift, may appear mundane, the humor is so strikingly addictive like coffee and cigarettes, thanks also to famous icons ranging from film to music, supposedly playing themselves in fictional situations. There is the frantic Roberto Benigni with Steven Wright, Cate Blanchett playing two cousins, Bill Murray chilling out with the Wu Tang Clan’s RZA and GZA, Tom Waits and Iggy Pop, White Stripes’ Jack and Meg White, Alfred Molina meeting up with British comedian Steve Coogan, Steve Buscemi and others that are probably more popular but thanks to my limited and juvenile pop-culture knowledge, I couldn’t recognize. The characters have the ability to be memorable themselves despite the arbitrariness or outright lack of justification, perhaps also because of their mere presence or iconic stature, say Cate Blanchett, or Pop and Waits who are Jarmusch’s musical deities. Some situations are so blatantly pointless that sometimes border on annoyance yet there is always some x-factor injected in it that you cannot entirely dismiss it. Say the seemingly urgent rendezvous of two friends that ends up with actually nothing major except that the other one leaves restless because he couldn’t quite accept the fact that the other would actually tell him there’s nothing wrong despite the feeling of urgency, or the blonde bombshell reading a gun/ammunition magazine who’s pissed at the smitten waiter who keeps on wanting to refill her coffee cup. Perhaps it’s probably the humor, which is infectious in the scene where Alfred Molina, who may possibly be gay, meets up with Steve Coogan, who may possibly be a distant relative thanks to the well-researched genealogy (which may possibly be an obvious ploy). Jarmusch is consistent with the minimalist style which prevails in every episode – the overhead lingering shots of coffee cups and cigarettes and the black and white contrast of the picture which is similarly matched by the melding of both black and white actors, the juxtaposition of both cultures. There are repeated references to ill-effects of both drugs and Nikola Tesla’s theory of acoustic resonance made more obvious in the Jack and Meg White episode where Jack displays to the uninterested Meg his ‘Tesla coil’. With the jarring ambiguity to the first-timer, this is clearly an artist’s self-indulgence. But like the smitten waiter, I’ll bear the brunt of the bombshell’s rejection not so much as to get close to her but to be engulfed in the intrigue of her obsessive connection to her coffee cup.
The melancholy of adventures.
July 10, 2007L' Avventura (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Straightforwardly translated, Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura means the adventure, or as the film narrates, a series of adventures. Interestingly, in Italian, the term also refers loosely to brief sexual encounters, one-night stands, “the terra incognito of strangers feigning intimacy as they try to find love without moral compasses”, Sohlman (2004) in his Senses of Cinema review writes. The Criterion Collection edition of the film starts with the recognition Cannes Special Jury Prize, evidently, the “for the new language of film and the beauty of its images” sort of cements the inevitable praise the film has heaped despite its negative reception at its world premiere.
This is my first viewing of the film, or any Antonioni material for that matter, but admittedly it would be a chore to intentionally re-view the two-and-a-half length of it even for the purpose of probing through its rich content and dense melding of symbolisms and its subtexts. For a very intriguing opening premise, it also kind of drags its way into intolerable length and unforeseeable end. But that is what’s great about European cinema, more notably the nouvelle vague and the rise of Italian luminaries such as Fellini and Antonioni, and most importantly during this cinematic era, because films like L’Avventura leave so much a venue for boundless discussions and exploration into the art form.
The first part concerns the mysterious disappearance (and search) of Anna (Lea Massari) in an equally mysterious island off Sicily in the Aeolian Sea. She is flanked with a bunch of supposedly rich class friends along with her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and her best friend Claudia (Monica Vitti). The search trails off into a trivial matter and is altogether brushed off as the narrative shifts into Sandro’s pursuit for Claudia and her submission to the playboy architect. From then on, the ‘sexual adventurism’ attachment is depicted in an isolated encounter with the sexpot Gloria Perkins who caused a commotion of the male populace, the sexual fling between a young painter and disgruntled younger wife of an old but rich man, and Sandro and Claudia’s love affair. The film ends yet with another astounding photographic composition, but one that leaves with so much profundity.
When finished, I initially thought that Antonioni wanted to show a humanistic side to isolation, emotional alienation to put it more extensively. I would like to think that as individuals, at some point, we remain emotionally distant to one another despite the intimacy of our relationships or the lack of it. This is depicted in the dynamics between Claudia and Anna and Claudia and Sandro, and putting it in the milieu of the ominous barren islands, the lingering melancholy of the Italian landscape and the forgotten but emphatic array of old Catholic churches serves its metaphorical dialectics. True enough, L’Avventura is first of Antonioni’s foray into the subject of ‘existential alienation’ which would continue with La Notte and L’eclisse.
Sohlman (2004) in Senses of Cinema expounds more on the interior realism aspect of Antonioni’s exposition. The director seemed to be more concerned of depicting a side to humanism that is apt to the current social and spiritual milieu of Italy that period. A kind of spiritual barrenness that is marked by the “absence of traditional moral restraints” where one is leaning more to the “temporal and hedonistic” thus a kind of sexual liberation we see in the submission of the characters to unbridled desires, but just like its loose Italian reference to one-night stand, brief yet leaving us in a state of utter sadness and listlessness.
Having read that, I was almost tempted to categorise it to the more popular term cinema of the intent, where audiences rarely delve as it treads on touchy territory from the profound, suggestive to even speculative. (Dan Schneider in Unspoken Cinema, in the DVD review of the film points out that “intent is meaningless”.) Recently, we are reminded of the very recent Babel who made buzz at 2006 Cannes and won Best Director for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, not to mention heaped Oscar nominations. While Babel is entirely different from L’Avventura, it fares comparatively with the stunning visuals and the beauty of its isolated scenes. Inarittu, receiving the Golden Globe for Best Picture, explains that really, the film is about compassion and the collective miasma of yearning to communicate, or something to that extent, though it received a varied response from critics and non-critics alike. Interestingly, it was at the Cannes premiere when the L’Avventura was reportedly booed that Antonioni explained that “this new man is burdened with the heavy baggage of emotional traits which cannot exactly be called old and outmoded but unsuited and inadequate.”
Towards the end Claudia lays her hand, after much uncertainty, to the weeping Sandro’s shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the bastard’s two-timing stint, the cinematic translation of forgiveness. And time and again, despite the jarring circumstance we have indulged ourselves with, just like the contemplative bores that we are, we find ourselves lured and ready to take in more.
Intergalactic megatronic hangover.
July 4, 2007Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007)
I couldn't actually believe myself but there I was, gripping the adjustable resters, gritting my teeth and feeling my toes curl up as the monstrous machines roared, rolled out and smashed its way downtown New York. I cheered and clumsily clapped at the antics to the discreet dismay of the lady beside me. Almost an hour before, I actually stood at a queue for fear that it might elongate to unmanageable proportions and to think I hate being in a theatre in the midst of noisy people. This is actually the first time I stood that long waiting for the next show (Tuesday LFS at that) and I dunno if it was coincidental that we had the meeting on the same mall I was suppose to watch the flick plus the torrential downpour outside that made me endure, but it sure as hell more than paid off.
I doubt that even half of the people who've watched Transformers here religiously followed the iconic intergalactic machines in the animated series, I myself can confess I can't remember a single episode of the ones I happened to watch. But the mania can't be stopped and the eager populace trooped and lined up. Probably a few only knew that we are actually one week ahead of its U.S. release date (July 4 or 6), but for piracy-centric third-world countries like the Philippines, this has proven to be a good marketing strategy that will somehow abate the proliferation of bootlegged copies of summer blockbusters which features the special participation of actual moviegoers in silhouettes.
So back inside the theatre. When the NBEs started mayhem down metro, a kid was videotaping himself running while saying something like "This is way cooler than Armageddon!". For a moment, I thought that was Bay himself admitting to usual crap but finally having come to terms with this one thanks to Spielberg. Many non-film buffs and ignoramuses actually thought Spielberg directed this one. Yes, this is definitely way beyond Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, not because Bay and his team are operating on a simplistic boy-and-his-car narrative but the visual splendor of the near-perfect CGI brought about uncontrollable action and energy that stirred everybody in their seats. There's Bay's usual military adventurism stuff and sometimes annoying camera movements but whatever irrationality there, was extinguished pronto by the super-agile, kung-fu-ass-kicking robots. Despite the whole Autobots team appearing during the near last third of the two-and-half-hour ride, they still proved to be the real kings of playground-Earth.
Perhaps that is one of the things that I could've wanted done - for Bay to actually spend time jazzing up each of the Bots. One that would create a bit of an impression and a stamp of individuality for Jazz and the rest of the gang other than their leader Optimus Prime and the favorite Bumblebee and the equal scene-stealer Megatron, who's locked up in cryostasis since the 1930s. Which brings me to the search for the main protagonist Sam Witwicky's grandfather's glasses which was dropped in the Arctic Circle during one his grandpa's expeditions. The glasses which Sam auctioned on eBay actually hold some map coordinates to the location of The Cube, the ultimate source of the Universe and the eventual destruction of Earth once Megatron has gotten his hands on it. The frozen Megatron found in the Arctic proves to be one of those top secret shit that explained the presence of Sector 7, an unknown agency even to US DND Secretary John Keller played by Jon Voight.
Another gem of this movie is casting Shia LaBeouf as Sam. He's quirky and his antics are done in perfect timing. The inevitable cheesiness of his quips are negligible thanks to his cunnning delivery. I couldn't have imagined anyone for the role which is no wonder why Spielberg believed in this boy errr guy so much. And that's probably why his character is loved and easily liked because he can be wacky, nerdy, goddamn serious and sometimes sexy in a geeky kind of way. I always thought Shia would be one of the next big things when I saw A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (For those who want to see Shia's dramatic thespic abilities, I suggest you go see this one.) The ultra-hot chicks Maegan Fox and Rachael Taylor not just appear to tantalize us with their curves but their characters packs some weight into the story as well. Josh Duhamel (is he and Fergie still a hot item?) plays the soldier and eager father whose first exploits with the Decepticons in the Qatar military base we saw during the opening salvo.
There is some good sound editing here despite the overbearing score which perhaps serves the purpose of upping the ante in needed scenes, say Shia on the verge of falling of a building while Megatron catches up. And the mechanical and electronic nature of the bots' voice prevents lines like, "I owe my life to you," or "we are in your debt", or the repetitive "more than meets the eye" from being too cheesy. Transformers really packs some neat shit and explodes in your face that you can't help but cheer like an eight-year old kid and not feel guilty about it. "I gotcha boy!," ensures Optimus, with me hanging on to Allspark and dear life. Sweet.
