Rain and Innocence

Weather in Manila has been terrible these past two days. I hate it when the weather is terrible because people match it with an equally dysfunctional and unpredictable behavior, myself not excluded. Last night, I was not able to sleep well because of the strong winds howling outside my window and today, most of Manila had to put up with power outages that stretched for hours on end. I'm a little bit worried since I have a week full of deadlines and meetings but I know my worries do not amount to a hill of beans in contrast to the damage of typhoon Nesat all over Manila.

Since I couldn't get things done, I went in and out of R.E.M sleep the whole day. I also tried to get myself to like Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence but I gave up halfway through the book and picked up Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient instead. The prose is definitely better: it's vivid, fluid, passionate, and very rich but not so dated. I feel it's going to be a favorite.

I have not given up on The Age of Innocence though, because I still dream of being well-read in the classics (a lofty dream, if you ask me, but I have my whole life to accomplish this feat). Being the Philistine that I am, I looked up the book online and found out Martin Scorsese directed a 1993 film version starring a young and beautiful Winona Ryder and a dashing Daniel-Day Lewis as main protagonist Newland Archer (who is kind of like a New York City multi-hyphenate in the 1870's). I'm going to watch the film first just so I can get myself to visualize the plot better. Heh.

New York high society, I have to admit, is always a hit or miss on my end. I like New York but I like the bohemian, artsy, tough, won't-take-a-crap-from-anyone city that is New York. It's kind of hard for me to like a satirical novel penned under the guise of old world traditions and high society entitlement. My issues, of course. One day, in the not-too-near future, I know I'll pick up The Age of Innocence again. Hopefully, I will learn to like it then.

I want you to watch this film

Forever's Not So Long from garrettmurray on Vimeo.

In which George discovers that the end of the world is the perfect time to lose everything.

Love, meteors and New York. What do you do if you only have four hours to live? Forever's Not So Long is an apocalyptic short film that's set in (what I think is) the most magnificent city in the world (Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to be precise. Hipster cred!). It's science fiction but the story is very humane.

It's a great film that has already won a couple of awards, which I think it deserves because the story is L-O-V-E-L-Y and the shots are great. The script and the score are both very fitting for the movie, too. I especially like how George embodies the New York state of mind. Tough, brave on his toes and really, just going with a "Fuck it, the world's going to end anyway" attitude, George is tempered by the charming and sweet girl (Her name isn't even mentioned in the film. I guess why bother?) he meets on the street.

With only four hours to live, they make one last connection with each other and eventually, face the end together. I really like how the film shows the ability of people to connect even in the face of doom, and how we find happiness (however fleeting it may be) even in our darkest hours.

An excerpt from memory

If you haven't seen The Philadelphia Story, stop what you are doing and watch it. It's probably overstating, the point to say that until you watch it, you will have been living a partial and colorless life. However, it is definitely on the list of perfect things. You know what I mean, the list that includes the starry sky over the desert, grilled cheese sandwiches, The Great Gatsby, the Chrysler building, Ella Fitzgerald singing "It Don't Mean A Thing (If You Ain't Got That Swing)," white peonies, and those little sketches of hands by Leonardo Da Vinci.

In college, I took a film studies class in which the professor talked about the trick The Philadelphia Story pulls off. It should never have worked: creating a fantastic love scene between two characters whom you know are not in love with each other, getting you to somehow root for them wholeheartedly during the scene, but then to feel completely satisfied when they end up with other people. Before you get the wrong impression, you should know that I'm not and never one of those film people, the kind who argue into the wee hours about the auteur theory and whether Spielberg is the new Capra, or whether John Huston impacts, in unseen ways, every second of American life. I don't know from camera angles, and I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of pre-World War II German cinema, but I fell a little in love with the film professor when he looked upon us with shining eyes and proclaimed, "No, it should not work. But work it does!" because he was so passionate and right.

He was so passionate and right.

Flipped

“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss….” He turned to me. “But every once in a while, you find someone who’s iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare."

I absolutely love this book-turned-movie. In my humble opinion, the movie was way better than the book (no offense to the author who did a really wonderful job in writing such a simple but truly touching story, it's just a from good to better thing). I love that the movie was set in 1960's. I adored the soundtrack (although most of the songs were from the 1950's-early 60's). It reminded me of long drives with my father. I just loved, loved, loved singing along to Big Bopper's Chantilly Lace, Pretty Little Angel Eyes by Curtis Lee, Da Doo Ron Ron by The Drifters, The Chiffons' One Day and He's So Fine, Crying in the Rain by Nancy Sinatra and one of my favorite love songs, You've Really Got a Hold on Me by The Miracles. Of course, I have the musical sensibility of a grandmother. Does it bother me? Nope. Not one bit.

If you loved Little Manhattan as much as I did (still do, actually), you will love this film. Go watch it. Go read the book as well! :) Happy weekend!

“You have to look at the whole landscape”

“What does that mean?”

“A painting is more than the sum of its parts. A cow by itself is just a cow. A meadow just by itself is just grass, flowers. And the sun, peaking through the trees is just a beam of light. But you put them all together…and it can be magic.”

PS: How gorgeous is Bryce Loski?

I know, right? :D

Persepolis

Today's movie.

In 3...2..1...

Casablanca, a review

I look at Rick and Victor as I look at the states they represent. Rick is isolationist. He sticks his neck out for nobody. Just like America, which found pride in their neutrality until President Harry Truman decided to kick things up a notch. Victor is Czech. I would like to classify him as an ideal liberal. At the time of Casablanca, people were either for or against fascism. They only had two sides to cross: into the Vichy turf or into the concentration camp. The rest of the time, people tried very hard to tread into the thin, fine thread that divides both--much like Captain Renault.

 Most Americans believed that the United States should stay out of the war in Europe. This is a heartfelt belief cautiously passed around (for fear of earning the ire and capturing the interest of--God forbid--the Nazis) and not thrown, just like the way Herr Hitler told every leader during his time that the Nazis will take over more land and more countries. America went into war during the Pearl Harbor bombing. However, it did not create much terror for the fifty states--except maybe for the Japanese citizens in America put in concentration camps. Many Americans continued to support an isolationist foreign policy, and were uneasy about wars overseas. Through the history of film and literature, we would know that despite the United States' adamant neutrality, much propaganda material against the war was also released. This shows that even if America is not involved in the great big fight, it still sticks to its principles--freedom, liberty, the home of the brave. Many war stories about America running guns to the Allied forces, printing news against the Nazi, extending secret aid to the war became famous when the fight was all over.

 I believe that Rick is somewhat a poster boy for what America stood for during the war. Of course, at this time and age, a more aggressive, powerful America plays the war game. However, I know many people will agree with the old America. Rick was everything America was back then. He was principled and full of morale. He lived the ideal American way: respected by the people, a top earner, tough but compassionate, a sheep in wolf's clothing and most of all: a believer of freedom and liberty. Even if his belief in the cause was not as evident as Laszlo's, one knows that his passion is fervent and burning. It is still there, somewhere. Only waiting for a catalyst that will trigger him to go back to his old ways. Old habits die hard, they say. People who watch Casablanca can definitely relate to Rick. I know that we all feel complacent at times, but when there is a chance to do more than we ought to, we find ways to help out. Rick is the perfect example of courage under fire, grace under pressure. Most of us, whether we admit it or not, long for the composure Rick has. I, for one, would like his bravery and mystique. He is the perfect example of American. At a glance, passive but in a nutshell, a master of all trades. He has a lot going on for him but despite this, he found ways to help those in need. He still had nationalism, even in a place as hopeless as Casablanca. This is so appealing to the people watching the movie. I think it's also the reason why Rick is more lovable than Victor Laszlo despite the latter's noble cause. In a way, the way the characters were written softened the movie's stance on war. It also helped the audience to think and keep interested enough to sit through the movie.

 In Casablanca, the gravity of the war is felt but it is not blatantly thrown around. It is ultimately felt, yes. However, the existence of the war appealed not through machine guns or the amount of ammunition lost and acquired but in the families affected, lovers ripped apart and the noble people reduced to work for very low wages. Rather than appealing to the people's intellect, Casablanca chose the complete opposite: it tried to touch the hearts of the audience, of human emotion. In 1942, people were either out of work because of the Great Depression and some of them might have been new settlers in America. Casablanca did the right thing. The movie came out not as heavy as most war films, but is still full of sentiment. It is interesting to note that melancholy on the screen is almost always welcome in American films. As welcome as feel good romances or heavy action movies, Casablanca's plot was well suited for the period. It was enough to touch hearts and tickle the people's fancy but not enough to rouse immense scrutiny and suspicion from the government. The elements of the movie soften the war by utilizing the idea as somewhat just a lingering thought. It is there but then again, not really. The proverbial "Elephant in the Room" made the issue of war constant but not to the point that it made people sick and depressed.

The language in Casablanca softened the movie because it leaned on the poetic side. I found some of the lines cheesy yet acceptable. I wouldn't appreciate such lines from Ilsa Lund had the movie been set in a modern setting or in a light-hearted type of romance. However, the situation in Casablanca is dire and the language softened it by beautiful, well-constructed phrases and so many quotable quotes. In a way, it gave heart to what is such a merciless, possibly even hopeless situation that faced the people in Casablanca. The wit of Rick Blaine, the deeply passionate words of Victor Laszlo, even the twisted, so-wrong-but-so-right phrases from Captain Renault was the right mix of sense and humor. The message was clearly passed on through the language. Freedom is not one man's fight, but everyone's cause. War is evil. The philosophies and perspective of every character (which strangely so, seemed to represent a distinct race trait: Blaine as America, Laszlo as the typical European left-wing liberal, Renault as the "neutral" French, even Ugarte as the Moroccan man who profits from the surplus of rich people in Casablanca) were clearly felt and known through the banter. The wit and the perfect mix of serious and silly (the Professor in Rick's Café American had very little speaking roles, however I have known him to be a man of principle and a very entertaining waiter) The language was enough to inspire patriotism to the audience but not to an extent that it will cause aggression. It encourages the audience to think rather than make them feel much anger.

 The actions in Casablanca, like the language, were also subdued but very effective. I think most of the characters were polar opposites, even Rick and Laszlo. It also helped that one cannot be not distracted from the beauty of Ingrid Bergman. I found myself, at times, entranced by just how gorgeous she is. I think the great fact about Casablanca is that though action was kept to a minimal (because the only "action" it had were shoot out and arrest scenes), there is an underlying thought regarding the gravity of the situation. The audience is forced to connect the dots. However, the actions of the character pan it out for the viewer. Desperation in the people, a silent brewing hatred for the Vichy-Nazi, even a love that was once lost and ultimately, found—these are a few of the actions not explicitly stated in the movie but is felt. In a way, no matter how adoring audiences are, I know not a handful of them would want to be caught in the turmoil that is Casablanca. The scenarios in the movie give the audience that "Never again!" vibe, which is probably why pop culture and the media have such strong influences on political views.

The musical scoring had two very remarkable scenes, Sam's As Time Goes By and the battle between Le Marseilles and The Watch on Rhine. However, these are the only scenes where I felt the music (I counted out It Had To Be You because it is a sentimental song for me, however I have no idea if it appealed to others as much as it did to me) playing a major role in the scene. Oddly enough, it works! Both of the scenes were such pivotal points in the movie. The first can make audiences feel the pain of the love lost between Rick and Ilsa and the latter was so moving, even I felt a little bit of that burning fervor and passion inside me while I was watching it. Again, with music, time is of the essence. Casablanca was shown in a time where people are still rebuilding their lives after the war, and consequently, the sentiments about these musical scenes in Casablanca would be so high. I also felt that those scenes were necessary to make Casablanca easy to digest. So much is said in just those two scenes! I think that's the power of music in encouraging passion and patriotism from the audience. It speaks of the things words cannot. The music in the movie is passionate, but definitely not revolting. They are safe pieces. The producers and the writers could've chosen subversive songs such as the ode to Herr Hitler or the propaganda songs against the Nazi but they didn't. It was, again, up to the audience to feel for themselves and listen closely.

 I also felt the setting softened the movie to a great deal. In reality, Casablanca is hellish in circumstance, but the beauty of the Moorish architecture and the people that flock it have made Casablanca seem so beautiful. It was as if the place is an ideal destination, a vacation setting that although hell awaits its people, the mere beauty of the place has elevated it into a somewhat acceptable version of a purgatory. Again, the people can feel the turmoil of the place while the audience was left half as entranced with the place itself just as they were with the movie's story. 

The whole movie is not about launching, pushing forward, loading and re-loading guns. It's about looking back to the past. It's about upholding the values people once had and totally lost, the liberty, the sweet luxury once known as peace, the personalities people once were before the war, the ideals they had before power hungry motives disillusioned them—the movie is about all of these things, and more. I view it as a passive-aggressive movie. Maybe it's the censorship. Maybe it was made that way. However, the very thing that tried to curtail it was the one that made it shine the brightest. The film reminds me of a silent dog. It rarely barks or growls but it left a vicious, most ferocious bite. It left a poison so rabid that the movie gave the audience of 2009 the same passion those who viewed it in 1942 felt. One with a passion and a morale so intense that people will probably never forget about it, here in this life or the next.

Silence of the Lambs, a review

The physical violence in the film "Silence of the Lambs" is viscious. Polaroids of dead girls skinned post mortem tacked in a cork board, the headlines that scream Buffalo Bill's latest victim and the swift, ruthless, almost a craving kind of killing Hannibal Lecter does leaves the viewer with a visceral feeling while watching the movie. By visceral, I mean the splanchnic kind. The kind where you almost feel that you're the cadaver about to be skinned. Oh, god..is that a scalpel? Oh, no, it's my seatmate's ballpoint pen.

However, it is not the obvious and on most times brutal physicality involved in the film that makes it "violent". The cadavers, the craving for human organs, skinning of murder victims, Buffalo Bill--these, for me, are just mere by products of the real violence in the film. A violence I feel is strongly embedded in the psyche. It is a confection of sheer, unadulterated mental torture. The violence is psychological as much as it is physical and that is what eats the viewer the most. The story in Silence of the Lambs is not some petty crime such as thief or homicide. It is not out of a dystopic society or of a need to survive. The crimes run much deeper than the cuts made in the girls' flesh and blood. They are outputs of genius, years of alienation, of coveting & not getting what you want, of dreams one badly aspires to have, of society's non-acceptance, of homophobia and of both failures and triumphs, in general. I'd go as far as saying that the violence in the film is of an internal nature because that is precisely what I felt while watching the movie. Sure, I was quite disgusted during the scene where Lecter was killing the two police officers but that disgust paled nothing in comparison to the heaviness I felt in both my heart and mind during Buffalo Bill's "It puts the lotion in its skin" scene. I was more entranced with Lecter's genius and his ability to in an instant, talk someone out of existence than with the cadavers so adequately all over the crime movie. I think more than physical evidences or examples of brutality, it is what we cannot see or know that scares us the most. The movie made me realize that Lecter is not an ordinary killer but with Anthony Hopkins' superb acting, I also had a hard time discerning what he's thinking or what he's going to do next. It made me both hopeful and anxious about Clarice's safety. More than the fact that he's a cannibal, it was the "craving" in his eyes that made me feel so uneasy.

The violence in the movie was built-up up until the last scene. I do not know if I'm just too much of a thinker but it really stuck in my mind through all the scenes that showed not the physicality but the internal turmoil each character faces. The first scene, if I remember correctly, was Clarice running up a hill in the FBI training camp--the colors were of a dreary gray and the introduction for Clarice character was clear to the viewer. She's the protagonist, she's hardworking and just like the obstacle course she's going through, she will be in for a ride later on. Fast forward to a few frames later and there she is, in Jack Crawford's office looking at the many headlines, maps and pictures in the corkboard. It scared me for what's going to happen and I do believe there were a few tense moments during that time when I told myself I don't think I'd like the film (but that's out of an irrational fear of the unknown). I also liked how the movie ended, it left the audiences hanging and wanting more. I know that Lecter's going to kill again but as chilling as his psyche is, I also didn't want to let him go. I wanted to rally for him and rally against him at the same time. The angles of the movie made him both a mentor and a criminal in my mind. I think I can also attribute this as a reason why I felt the movie was more violent in psychological ways than physical matters. The proximity of the camera to the actors was so close that you can actually see them flinch, the fear in their eyes, the dominance over the other characters they were sharing the scene with. The framing of the movie was the perfect balance of tight and loose. The scene where Clarice and Lecter were talking through a glass showed how there is an impediment between Lecter and the protagonist but then Clarice is also very vulnerable. Hannibal Lecter was ultimately helpless during the scene inside the cell with his so-called nemesis, but I do believe that though he was tied and muzzled, he was scarier than the cocky, arrogant doctor. Anyone who will argue otherwise is an idiot. Lecter is a product of fiction and even I, a living and breathing human organism, was compelled to say a little prayer of safety for the people he shared the scene with. I also think that the close proximity of the shots was brilliant for it emphasized each characters' journey very well. The focus on the eyes gave us viewers a more knowing and probing edge. It also helped that the camera movement was slow--painfully slow on some crucial, very scary times--, it made the journey longer and harder. It made the violence a little too brutal and savage at times too.

The sound hierarchy also resonated the violence of the film. I know that by describing the soft, classical music I'd be discussing the sound effects of the movie but I just have to because it is in these soft, melodic notes that the scenes became the most chilling and intense. I can picture Lecter's smile while he was in Brooklyn whenever I hear a few notes of the music from the movie. I also loved the way the movie used silence as a method of intensity. It made the "Quid pro quo" scene more powerful that it already is, and the search for Lecter in the elevator scarier and more chilling that it already was. For some reason, the play on the soft but strange (as it truly made me uncomfortable at times--how can you play such soft, relaxing music at a time like this? On a story like Silence of the Lambs?) and the silence made the movie's violence deeper and well-resonated. I also liked how the movie is well-peppered with huffs and puffs and screams of reality. It made me able to associate with what the characters are going through more. Buffalo Bill's scariest moment, in my opinion, was the time when he was dressing in drag. Catherine was an annoying spoiled brat but I understood where her screams of helplessness were coming from. Clarice' sighs and introspective moments of silence made me feel such emphathy towards here and whatever she's going through. Even the scene where Lecter was killing the officers had a soft but effective music in the background. I'd call it beautiful irony if I wasn't so troubled and disgusted while watching.

The movie made violence almost tangible. It is a term thrown around all the time but the perception of violence is materialized in the movie. Hannibal Lecter was a psycopath, indeed but what made him scarier was the way he was presented throughout the film. With his probing eyes and a craving for human organs (sometimes, I felt like he was craving for Clarice too), Buffalo Bill paled in comparison. However, they both share a common sociology. They were troubled children and had issues with the past. They are both dissociated with society, or disappointed by it. These are troubles that run deep, the outcome of both personalities showed that and the movie made the violence that came with years of personal trouble more vivid, visceral and completely felt. If the movie was made for people to probe, look into the psyche of killers and get tormented by the ambiguity of crimes & the law then Silence of the Lamb more than delivered. The technical aspects of the movie and the violence embedded in the story went well together, complimenting one another like liver, chianti and some fava beans.