Thursday, November 06, 2003
City of God
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
What is disturbing about City of God is that it is based on real incidents, originally adapted from a Paulo Lins novel, who himself, grew up in the Rio de Janeiro slum. The film exposes youth problems - drugs, gang fights and robbery.
Narrated by Rocket, an inspiring photojournalist, the story opens in a comical fashion with ghetto kids chasing after a stripped chicken. Next thing we know, the narrator who is innocently walking down a street is caught in between a standoff between these kids who are part of the street gang and the police. The film is immediately given a flash back treatment to the sixties of what everything used to be while Rocket relates how it all started.
From the mild mischief of the tender trio to L'il Ze Leandro (Firmino da Hora) and Benny (Phelipe Haagensen), the slum underwent various transmutations while peace degenerates due to L'il’s insatiable lust to kill and occupy territories held by other gangs.
The direction is quick paced, inspired and non- linear. As an example, the killings at the motel which the tender trio held up is not explained immediately until we came to Lil’s story. In another instance, the story of the apartment where Blacky, Rocket’s friend, occupies is visually layered and recounted in such a swift manner that you will miss some details if you as much as blink an eye. This effect is akin to reading a page quickly. Unusual cuts, angles and point of views jolts audience out of passivity. When Ned (Deu Jorge) was assaulted by the gang, the director chooses to use black outs and Ned’s point of view to relate the horror of the attack.
City of God does not glorify or romanticize violence and portrays life on the streets unflinchingly. In one classic scene, two kids were rounded up by L'il and told to choose between being shot in the hand or the feet. The dreadfulness was further intensified when a new urchin to his gang was told to shoot one of the two.
Ironically, most relationships in the slums appear trivial except between L'il and Benny who have been good friends since they started out. Benny epitomises the young hippie who wishes for peace while L'il is adamant on living his old life. This desire to leave clashes with Neu who turns bad and joins the enemy gang of L'il, Carrott (Matheus Nachtergaele), because he wants to exact revenge. The animosity soon turns the slum into a playground for more pointless bloodbath descending into chaos and anarchy. In City of God, it appears that it is so easy to suck bystanders into violence that in turn begets more violence. What is disturbing is that individuals seem to hardly have a choice in what happens; and that, their fate just depends on luck.
City of God reminds me of Singapore film, 15, depicting youth delinquency. In City of God, everything is shot as it is. There is a lack of intimate closeness to the characters as opposed to 15, where, the director, Royston carves out the psychological hurt these kids had to deal with daily. It is unfair to compare both films side by side but the message is still the same – that kids are most vulnerable in urban societies.
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
What is disturbing about City of God is that it is based on real incidents, originally adapted from a Paulo Lins novel, who himself, grew up in the Rio de Janeiro slum. The film exposes youth problems - drugs, gang fights and robbery.
Narrated by Rocket, an inspiring photojournalist, the story opens in a comical fashion with ghetto kids chasing after a stripped chicken. Next thing we know, the narrator who is innocently walking down a street is caught in between a standoff between these kids who are part of the street gang and the police. The film is immediately given a flash back treatment to the sixties of what everything used to be while Rocket relates how it all started.
From the mild mischief of the tender trio to L'il Ze Leandro (Firmino da Hora) and Benny (Phelipe Haagensen), the slum underwent various transmutations while peace degenerates due to L'il’s insatiable lust to kill and occupy territories held by other gangs.
The direction is quick paced, inspired and non- linear. As an example, the killings at the motel which the tender trio held up is not explained immediately until we came to Lil’s story. In another instance, the story of the apartment where Blacky, Rocket’s friend, occupies is visually layered and recounted in such a swift manner that you will miss some details if you as much as blink an eye. This effect is akin to reading a page quickly. Unusual cuts, angles and point of views jolts audience out of passivity. When Ned (Deu Jorge) was assaulted by the gang, the director chooses to use black outs and Ned’s point of view to relate the horror of the attack.
City of God does not glorify or romanticize violence and portrays life on the streets unflinchingly. In one classic scene, two kids were rounded up by L'il and told to choose between being shot in the hand or the feet. The dreadfulness was further intensified when a new urchin to his gang was told to shoot one of the two.
Ironically, most relationships in the slums appear trivial except between L'il and Benny who have been good friends since they started out. Benny epitomises the young hippie who wishes for peace while L'il is adamant on living his old life. This desire to leave clashes with Neu who turns bad and joins the enemy gang of L'il, Carrott (Matheus Nachtergaele), because he wants to exact revenge. The animosity soon turns the slum into a playground for more pointless bloodbath descending into chaos and anarchy. In City of God, it appears that it is so easy to suck bystanders into violence that in turn begets more violence. What is disturbing is that individuals seem to hardly have a choice in what happens; and that, their fate just depends on luck.
City of God reminds me of Singapore film, 15, depicting youth delinquency. In City of God, everything is shot as it is. There is a lack of intimate closeness to the characters as opposed to 15, where, the director, Royston carves out the psychological hurt these kids had to deal with daily. It is unfair to compare both films side by side but the message is still the same – that kids are most vulnerable in urban societies.
Monday, November 03, 2003
15 (2003)
Royston Tan’s 15 is widely proclaimed by the local press as a masterful debut. It is a socially controversial quasi fictional documentary exploring the underbelly of drop out youths who could not forsee for themselves any future. Henceforth, they indulge in playing truant, going to discos and bars, and getting as many piercing and tattoos as they desire.
MTV stylistically framed, paced and computer animated, 15 will appeal to youths (but that is if they have a chance to watch the movie) because it is the language that youths nowadays speak. It is hence an irony in my opinion, that in Singapore, our censors decide that it should be given a R(A) rating (similar to an adult classification), basically shutting out whom it actually wants to target at.
As a director, Royston never judge. He allows his actors to be what they want on screen. For example, the scene between two boys who are rehearsing for a school song is show time spoof whereas the fighting scenes between gangs is depicted like a computer game.
In another instance, one of the boys was looking for a building to commit suicide. With his friend’s help, they finally found the Esplanade an ideal location. The sequence was shot with “characteristic” sarcasm on the buildings which are constantly rated. Afterwards, we see our protagonist weeping on the bus shot in DV black and white. Royston employs “rewinding” in which we see his tears rolling back into his eyes, signifying a pessimism that even tears needs to be contained. In another sequence, the profiles of the boys were superimposed with sound snippets of what is likely to be telephone conversations running through. The faces look drugged out and the accompanying moody soundtrack creates a foreboding sense of glumness.
15 exposes the traumas of youths misfits. It shares the same level of hollowness which urban- siders are facing with modern lives; but that find it tougher to cope only because they are younger and had to deal with a less compassionate society who views delinquency as self-degradation.
This comes back to the point which I made earlier about its censorship rating; in which technically speaking, youths of Singapore will not be able to watch it. When would our society stop playing daddy and trust that our young people would be able to watch 15 or be exposed to similar literature considered socially unacceptable and be enlightened of the issues that they or other youths are facing? When would we give them enough credit?
Talk to Her
Directed by Pedro Almodovar
Talk to her is an emotional movie of twisted love stories. Certainly, the men, Benigno (Javier Camara) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti) who devote their entire lives to “feeling” so much for the women in their lives are almost exactly too much to bear and believe.
Benigno is a recluse who hardly goes out and learns to become a caretaker because of his bedridden mother. He is fascinated with ballerina, Alicia (Leonor Watling) who become his comatose patient after an accident. Marco is acquainted with Benigno after Lydia (Rosario Flores), her bull-fighting girlfriend was gored and went into a similar vegetative state. The two men learns to “communicate” with their women and in turn become brothers in consolation.
Many implications of inter-personal relationships can be drawn from Talk to her. The homoerotic love between Benigno and Marco, as an example, cuts through conventional norms. Even though Lydia and Alicia never talked to each other, they were bonded by a strange twist of fate by having men who loved them and whom they were not been able to love back in return.
Lydia’s love for bullfighting portrays her garishly extravagance and machismo complementing her dark and strongly defined features. She represents the male in a woman. On the other spectrum, Almodovar’s Alice is a fair and feminine ballerina, of whom we are constantly allowed to appreciate her full nudity in which her supple breasts and pink nipples are composed in a slender, almost fragile looking body. Most of the time, when we see her, she was in comatose, further contradicting the male in the woman of Lydia.
In contrast, the men who took care of them are direct opposites of each other and of their women. Marco is a travel journalist who weeps easily because he could not forget the girlfriend he left 10 years ago; and whom Lydia, could not stand being compared against. His outward “maleness” associated with aloofness and inability communicate with Lydia; contradicts his inner feminine side. On the other hand, Benigno, who holds a caretaker position, knows everything about female grooming, is steadfastedly optimistic. His inner “male” strength of believing in miracles and that Alicia could hear him despite her conditions reveals the indomitable spirit of love.
Talk to her most emotional moments are times when we witness the unfolding of the love tragedies; and not the times when the men learn to cope with their women’s vegetable state.
Almodovar included a sequence of a “silent” film, “The Shrinking Lover”. The joke of “silence” is not lost as this is what is happening between men and women in love. In the footage, the man who drinks his scientist female lover’s potion begins to shrink. To prevent himself from being lost, he decided to enter her vagina and stay inside her forever. The short film within a film not only symbolises the consumption of one by another; but also contradicts with its delivery. One is a black and white whereas Talk to her is brightly coloured. One is a silent movie whereas the other is a talkie. The Shrinking Lover contradicts Talk to her thematically. The former is foremost a love story of how the man lose himself to his women whereas Talk to her progresses the other way – of how due to circumstances, our characters lose themselves and ends up losing their relationship with their quiet women. The tragedy is of course a shared experience.
The closing scene goes back to where it all started – a ballet performance. This time round, our characters are separated by an empty seat in between. We can only hazard what Almodovar means in his final shot. Is this the gap that is supposed to represent the gulf of the sexes? the loss of a lover? that despite thinking we have seen two love stories in one film with some form of linkages; that this perception is merely illusory because there is nothing that binds them together after all?
Royston Tan’s 15 is widely proclaimed by the local press as a masterful debut. It is a socially controversial quasi fictional documentary exploring the underbelly of drop out youths who could not forsee for themselves any future. Henceforth, they indulge in playing truant, going to discos and bars, and getting as many piercing and tattoos as they desire.
MTV stylistically framed, paced and computer animated, 15 will appeal to youths (but that is if they have a chance to watch the movie) because it is the language that youths nowadays speak. It is hence an irony in my opinion, that in Singapore, our censors decide that it should be given a R(A) rating (similar to an adult classification), basically shutting out whom it actually wants to target at.
As a director, Royston never judge. He allows his actors to be what they want on screen. For example, the scene between two boys who are rehearsing for a school song is show time spoof whereas the fighting scenes between gangs is depicted like a computer game.
In another instance, one of the boys was looking for a building to commit suicide. With his friend’s help, they finally found the Esplanade an ideal location. The sequence was shot with “characteristic” sarcasm on the buildings which are constantly rated. Afterwards, we see our protagonist weeping on the bus shot in DV black and white. Royston employs “rewinding” in which we see his tears rolling back into his eyes, signifying a pessimism that even tears needs to be contained. In another sequence, the profiles of the boys were superimposed with sound snippets of what is likely to be telephone conversations running through. The faces look drugged out and the accompanying moody soundtrack creates a foreboding sense of glumness.
15 exposes the traumas of youths misfits. It shares the same level of hollowness which urban- siders are facing with modern lives; but that find it tougher to cope only because they are younger and had to deal with a less compassionate society who views delinquency as self-degradation.
This comes back to the point which I made earlier about its censorship rating; in which technically speaking, youths of Singapore will not be able to watch it. When would our society stop playing daddy and trust that our young people would be able to watch 15 or be exposed to similar literature considered socially unacceptable and be enlightened of the issues that they or other youths are facing? When would we give them enough credit?
Talk to Her
Directed by Pedro Almodovar
Talk to her is an emotional movie of twisted love stories. Certainly, the men, Benigno (Javier Camara) and Marco (Dario Grandinetti) who devote their entire lives to “feeling” so much for the women in their lives are almost exactly too much to bear and believe.
Benigno is a recluse who hardly goes out and learns to become a caretaker because of his bedridden mother. He is fascinated with ballerina, Alicia (Leonor Watling) who become his comatose patient after an accident. Marco is acquainted with Benigno after Lydia (Rosario Flores), her bull-fighting girlfriend was gored and went into a similar vegetative state. The two men learns to “communicate” with their women and in turn become brothers in consolation.
Many implications of inter-personal relationships can be drawn from Talk to her. The homoerotic love between Benigno and Marco, as an example, cuts through conventional norms. Even though Lydia and Alicia never talked to each other, they were bonded by a strange twist of fate by having men who loved them and whom they were not been able to love back in return.
Lydia’s love for bullfighting portrays her garishly extravagance and machismo complementing her dark and strongly defined features. She represents the male in a woman. On the other spectrum, Almodovar’s Alice is a fair and feminine ballerina, of whom we are constantly allowed to appreciate her full nudity in which her supple breasts and pink nipples are composed in a slender, almost fragile looking body. Most of the time, when we see her, she was in comatose, further contradicting the male in the woman of Lydia.
In contrast, the men who took care of them are direct opposites of each other and of their women. Marco is a travel journalist who weeps easily because he could not forget the girlfriend he left 10 years ago; and whom Lydia, could not stand being compared against. His outward “maleness” associated with aloofness and inability communicate with Lydia; contradicts his inner feminine side. On the other hand, Benigno, who holds a caretaker position, knows everything about female grooming, is steadfastedly optimistic. His inner “male” strength of believing in miracles and that Alicia could hear him despite her conditions reveals the indomitable spirit of love.
Talk to her most emotional moments are times when we witness the unfolding of the love tragedies; and not the times when the men learn to cope with their women’s vegetable state.
Almodovar included a sequence of a “silent” film, “The Shrinking Lover”. The joke of “silence” is not lost as this is what is happening between men and women in love. In the footage, the man who drinks his scientist female lover’s potion begins to shrink. To prevent himself from being lost, he decided to enter her vagina and stay inside her forever. The short film within a film not only symbolises the consumption of one by another; but also contradicts with its delivery. One is a black and white whereas Talk to her is brightly coloured. One is a silent movie whereas the other is a talkie. The Shrinking Lover contradicts Talk to her thematically. The former is foremost a love story of how the man lose himself to his women whereas Talk to her progresses the other way – of how due to circumstances, our characters lose themselves and ends up losing their relationship with their quiet women. The tragedy is of course a shared experience.
The closing scene goes back to where it all started – a ballet performance. This time round, our characters are separated by an empty seat in between. We can only hazard what Almodovar means in his final shot. Is this the gap that is supposed to represent the gulf of the sexes? the loss of a lover? that despite thinking we have seen two love stories in one film with some form of linkages; that this perception is merely illusory because there is nothing that binds them together after all?
