Monday, November 27, 2017

Hush

By Kan Lume and Djenar Maesa Ayu 
Starring Cinta
SGIFF 2017

Collage of rape cases in Indonesia. How perpetrators only get 3 years or less even though law says fifteen years. The Yuhanis case where she was gang-raped. Footage of other rape cases around the world caught on CCTV. Women attacked in lifts, along the aisle, in stores. Women raped and murdered by rapists usually relatives. So sick.

We see Cinta, a musician, who goes to Gili to escape Jakarta. She's so beautiful and free. In Gili she is free to create. No hypocrisy. She attributes to the powers of the island. If a man takes something which is not his like a woman's virginity, he's seen as masculine. If a woman enjoys sex, she's a whore. The gender disparity due to social constructs. This story is scripted. Only the occupation and name is real. She has gone to jail for 1.5 years, hooks up with anyone, had two abortions and regrets them. Smoks like a chimney. Smokes weed. Heavy drinker. Got involved with a married man and really loved him because he truly loved her for who she is. No judgement of her tumultuous past.

Divorced because of a cheating ex-husband. Broke up with her first bf before finding out she was pregnant. He disown the child. She regrets her abortion when she was twenty smtg. She professes to good sex = deeper and stronger bond. Her standard is if she can have a great conversation with the other and will not cheat on him, she will date him. Not on looks because she's had ugly bf.

Lust became love? Is that even possible?

She wants to make as many mistakes as possible to learn from them herself.

Turns out she was raped by her relative when she was nine. Her single mom had to work. She was preyed upon by the relative who her love him. She calls this molest but it's rape because they had sex. She had orgasms then and it felt good but she didn't know it was sex until later. She has always felt like trash since then. Everytime she's sex she remembers the rapist's penis inside her.

Does she sleep around and have many bf to forget her past? Her mother grew up without her dad. Now her mother is also a single mom. Married twice but cheated upon. Her current husband loves her. Built this huge terrace near Ubud for them. Hardworking. Humble as a tattoo artist. Tattoos as a way to remember smtg significant. I identify with that symbolism. Her sister has totally green hair. Her brother doesn't want to be in camera. They eat pork even though by Muslim law they're not supposed to.

Is it her sin that she was molested? Or that she came from a broken family? Explains why she behaves so wildly now.

Show closes with footage of rape scenes caught on CCTV. How they are marches by mostly females to stop the rapist. The fault is not in the woman. There needs to be more awareness on this and I think the directors tried to portray this by challenging gender norms and social constructs. The best measure against this is if boys and men speak out against such acts. It is sick that such cases are caused by perpetrators within a family.

Hush... Like don't tell anyone? Don't speak now... Or Hush don't you cry Baby? I love how many readings the title offers into this issue of rape and molest.


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Disappearance

An Iranian film
SGIFF 2017

A young couple have intercourse before marriage and the young girl starts bleeding non-stop due to a cut in her vagina. The scene begins with her going to the hospital saying she's been raped by a taxi driver. Nurse calls her to call her family member and she claims only her brother is home. Turns out that's her bf. The doctor suspects she was not raped and she sneaks off. Another hospital and this time they go in as newly-weds. They demand to see their marriage certificate. The nurse advises them to go private hospital. 25,000 tommes for consultation! Seems like a bit. In the private hospital, the nurse gives her saline IV to boost her low blood pressure. Bf comes clean and say they have yet to marry and she threatens to call the police. She goes to a room presumably to do so. Poor couple. They flee. She's so weak. And he's stuck in the same rut.

Before that in the second hospital, she thought he disappeared. Left her alone to face this problem. Panic attack, sense of insecurity. I feel her. He claims to be at the toilet outside. There's a sense of mistrust. If he leaves his life goes back to normal. If she doesn't get help she'll bleed to death. The responsibility is on the woman even though the problem was supposed to be shared two ways.

They flee the private hospital and seek help from her gf, who is out partying at 4am in this really posh condo/apartment which looks like a hotel. She calls a private doc to no avail. This needs to be solved illegally. Private hospital previously but laws do not bend. They seek help from her friend, who is a third year medical student in their university. This med student bought jab from a drugstore which actually needed prescription. Luckily she got one after flashing her student card. A case of the law vs authority again.

Female protagonist gets a jab in the car to stop the bleeding for at most two hours. Makeshift tourniquet using rubber band. She looks better. After the friends have exhausted their contacts they disband. He waits for the phone call from his doctor contact. No reply. At their wits end, he calls her to call her parents. They quarrel. Her gf calls. The private doctor is available. He charges 3 million for the procedure which was super quick. He gave 700,000 - all that he had in the bank. She gave her tuition fees - 1.5 million. She pawns her HP as guarantee.

After the procedure he asks how's she. Expresses concern. But she's too jaded. Dug a hole for herself with no way to earn her tuition fees. Having to explain this to her parents. She's gone off somewhere else, having lost all hope in life. She doesn't reply and stays quiet in the car. The car breaks down in the middle of the overhead and he stops to get gas. When he came back she had disappeared. He tries to find her to no avail. He walks down the road nearing the bend and with the city waking up I keep thinking he might get banged down by a car.

Disappeared. Who first?

This show has not gotten the permit for screening in Iran. I wonder how they shot the hospital scenes.  It was based on the female scriptwriter's experience. There's solidarity among friends of the younger generation. There's partying and drinking which is frowned upon by the older generation. And consensual sex. In the end they break up just like the Scriptwriter story. Was it because there's no love? Due to societal restrictions which spoiled things?

Due to many restrictions in Iran most things are shot in a vehicle. The car. Where drinking, smoking and intimacy happens. This has become the liberated private space.
Private

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Monday, November 20, 2017

The Princess Bride

From http://fandom.wikia.com/?_ga=2.35179298.282303557.1511184047-209618207.1504785344



Buttercup is a farm girl who lives in the country of Florin and is the true love of Westley. When he works on her family's farm, Buttercup refers to him only as "farm boy" and loves to order him around. Westley would not argue with her but would only obey her commands and reply "As you wish." Over time, she realizes that when Westley says "As you wish" he is really saying "I love you." In time, she realizes that she loves him just as strongly, too. 
When Westley goes away to find his fortune, his ship is attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the story gets back to Buttercup that her love has been killed by the pirate who never takes prisoners. Devastated to learn this, Buttercup shuts herself away in her room, forgoing sleep and food. In the end, she decides that, while she may live on, she will never love again. 
Five years later, Buttercup is forced to become betrothed to Prince Humperdinck. Although she does not love him and tells the prince so, Humperdinck pushes forward with the wedding, assuring her that, with time, she will come to love him.   
While she does not like the idea of marrying her prince, she does still enjoy riding her horse. While out one day, she comes across three men claiming to be lost circus performers and, before she can do anything, is knocked unconscious. When she awakes, she realizes she's now on a boat in the middle of the sea, kidnapped by the men, who she learns are names Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik. Vizzini, the band's leader, announces his plans to start a war with the neighboring country of Guilder by killing the princess and leaving her body on Guilder soil. The other two men don't seem keen on following this plan and an argument breaks out. Later, they are sailing through the night when they see a ship in the distance following them. Buttercup uses this opportunity to jump out of the boat and into the water with creatures known as the shrieking eels(which look like leviathans rather than modern day eels).   
Before she could be eaten, she gets pulled back on board by the men, and is taken to a cliff to escape from the boat chasing them. The three men carry her up with Fezzik climbing a rope. The person driving the boat (a man in a black attire and a mask) rushes up to follow. Vizzini cuts the rope, but the stranger clings to the side of the cliff.
He tells Inigo to kill the man while they escape. The stranger defeats the swordsman and continues to follow them. Unhappy with this, Vizzini tells Fezzik to kill him. The giant fails to do so as well, so Vizzini takes Buttercup to the top of the cliff. He blindfolds her at a rock slab, sets out some wine, points a daggar at her throat, and patiently waits for the man in black to make his appearance. He does do so, and tells Vizzini that they will have a battle of the wits, with the winner getting the princess, and the loser facing death. He then takes some iocane powder, turns his back, and after a bit faces Vizzini once more. He states that one of the drinks is poisoned with the powder, and that Vizzini gets to choose the cup he will drink from.
Clearly thinking he is too smart, Vizzini distracts the man in black, switches the glasses, and they take a drink. The stranger calmly tells the cackling Vizzini he is wrong. Vizzini laughs a bit more, before dying. Buttercup questions the man about why he poisoned his own drink, and the man tells her he has immunity to iocane powder, therefore bother glasses are poisoned. He leads her away.
After a while, they stop to rest, and Buttercup asks who he is. The man won't say, so she concludes that he is the Dread Pirate Roberts. The man admits this with pride, before teasing and tormenting her about him killing Westley. The prince, who has come to rescue Buttercup, appears over the distance with many men. Angry, she pushes Dread Pirate Roberts down a hill, yelling at him to die. On his way down, he yells out the words Buttercup has been aching for for 5 years. "AAASSS YOOUU WWWIIISSHHHH!" Realizing her lover is alive and that she just pushed him off a hill, she throws herself down, too. At the bottom of the hill, they share a heartfelt kiss.
They run into an infamous swamp where noone has left alive, and after some drama involving a giant rat, they emerge from the swamp. The prince threatens to kill Westley, but Buttercup tells him to return her lover to his ship, and in return she will go with him. After she left, Westley notices that the Count had six fingers on his right hand. Before their dual, Inigo told him that a six fingered man killed his father, so as soon as Westley points this out, he is knocked unconscious.
Buttercup has a horrible dream involving her betraying Westley. She wakes up and tells the prince that she won't marry him. Being His Royal Douchebagginess, the prince refuses to let her go(he wants to kill her to start a war. Don't ask.) And Buttercup is force to marry him.
After the wedding, Buttercup goes to her chamber, dagger aimed at her heart, planning to die. Before she can do so, Westley remarks from behind that she should not damage her perfect body. She turns to find him lying on the bed, too weak to move(Long story. Summary: He became mostly dead, Inigo and Fezzik brought him back since they liked him, and now he's only a bit dead, unlike before). Buttercup, overcome by joy, throws herself at her lover, kissing him.
Their happy reunion is sadly cut short when the prince comes in, sword in hand, and threatening to kill them. To stall, Westley rambles on about how everyone is going to hate the prince when he gets his body cut up. Then, with just enough energy, he stands up and points his sword at the prince, pretending he has his strength back. Knowing he's no match for Westley, the evil ruler drops his weapon and backs off into a chair. Buttercup ties him up. 
Inigo comes in, bleeding from his dual with the Count, and asks Westley where Fezzik is. Westley states that their comrade is not with him. He starts to walk forwards, but falls due to his incapability to support himself. Buttercup overcome with worry, goes to help. 
Anyways, after some chaos, Westley, Buttercup, Inigo and Fezzik all ride out from the castle on white horses, leaving Humperdinck to wallow in his guilt and self pity for the rest of his life. 
____________________________________ 
Click here for information on filming locations. 



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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

I Get Overwhelmed by Dark Rooms

[Verse 1]
Are you runnin late?
Did you sleep too much?
All the awful dreams
Felt real enough
Is your lover there?
Is she wakin up?
Did she die in the night?
And leave you alone?
Alone

[Verse 2]
Mirror, mirror
There's your crooked nose
Boring hair
A thousand wrinkles
No children
Just emptiness
No place like home
Just a fucking mess
Mess

[Verse 3]
20 messages
Did you hurt your thumbs?
What a stupid game
Getting nothing done
With your longest track
Your highest score
While you crush your back
And lament the war
War

[Verse 4]
All the women
That you wanna fuck
On the internet
Wouldn't give you a second look
Did you fool yourself?
That's privilege
That's power without power
That's a business
Business

[Verse 5]
But we know "you" is "I"
And I get overwhelmed
Can't sleep at night
Can't convince myself
To turn it off
To let go
Gotta make sense
Of the fucking war
War

[Verse 6]
Am I runnin late?
I get overwhelmed
All the awful dreams
All the bright screens
Is my lover there?
Are we breakin up?
Did she find someone else?
And leave me alone?
Alone...
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Saturday, November 11, 2017

Thor: Ragnarok

A Marvel production

Thor trapped in a hopeless situation, tied up in chains. He banters with Fire god and tricks Fire into revealing his weak point, which is his crown of two horns. Thor succeeds in subduing Fire and brings home his prize. His friend the gate keeper has been exiled and the reserve, Skurge, is busy flirting with girls. He does not heed Thor's call to be sent back. 

Finally gatekeeper hears Thor through the girls. Upon Thor's return, he sees a re-enactment of Loki dying in "Thor's" arms in a play while "Odin" enjoys this with wine and finery. Turns out that is Loki in disguise and their dad is exiled to Earth. Brothers go to Earth and meets Dr Strange who told them their dad is in Norway. At Norway their dad tells the brothers they have a sister, a first born and a god of death. She was too powerful and dad kept her locked away. Odin's death would unleash her and he dies. Dissipates into air as gold dust.

Their sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) walks through this death portal and crushes Thor's hammer like it was made of glass. Loki shouts to be sent back which all three promptly got thrown into. Sister thrashes the brothers out of the way to return to Asgard.

Brothers lands in the land of trash, Sakaar, where the first unwanted person is ruler and sets up fighting competition. It's a land that is a pit of wits, strength and lies for survival. It's very sad. So anyway Thor was captured by a former Valkyrie and sent as a candidate for fights. Her battles the scariest which no one had ever survived. That is Thor his friend.

Thor won but before he could outbeat the Hulk, he was zapped by the Taser, because the Grandmaster cannot bear to have his "prize", Thor, defeated. Who knows? Maybe he might lose the bet. Anyway this world reminds me of hunger games where almost everything is dystopian and everyone is out pitting for survival.

They are trapped in a room where Thor plans an escape to the storm machine, the plane which the Hulk came from. He reminded Hulk of his former self as Bruce Banner by showing him a last recording from Black Widow his lover, after they managed to escape with the help of the former Valkyrie, 142.

142 and Loki are tasked to bring back Thor and the Hulk. Loki rehashes 142's memories of the last fight with Hela, which looks like a scene from Revelations. 142 is pissed and decides to help Thor by enslaving Loki. Loki buys his way out by saying he knows all the codes to the planes by winning Grandmaster's trust. He can help them escape which Thor agreed to. They liberate Korg and Miek, stoneman and purple squid respectively, to start a revolution.

Loki wanted to betray Thor by splitting himself up before going to the plane. Thor anticipated that and placed Taser on Loki, zaps him forever. Thor, Banner and 142 go back through the wormhole's ass, the rainbow tunnel, to Asgard. Korg and Miek and gang want to escape and sees Loki being zapped. They stops the tape and escape on a ship.

The people are hiding thanks to gatekeep Heimdall. But they are found by Hela because Heimdall safeguarded the sword so Hela cannot leave Asgard. She pursues the people. Thor and gang arrives in their spaceship. Banner changes back to Hulk to defeat Hela's wolf, Fenris along the bridge. Hulk now blinded in one eye by Hela, sees through his father's eyes and realises he must defeat Hela with the same prophesy of Asgard on fire.

Loki, Korg and Miek arrive on this gigantic balloon ship. Asgardians board the ship but the death soldiers climb onto it. Skurge seeks redemption by fighting them off and sacrificing himself. It is the moment he has been waiting for - only in death can he see victory and achievement.

Loki locates the Fire god crown and revives him from the Eternal Flame. Fire god sets Asgard on fire, and kills Hela, goddess of death.

Thor is crowned King on board the ship. They head for Earth.

First post-show scene: they are confronted by a large spacecraft which is 1000x theirs. In final post-show credits, Grandmaster emerges from a spaceship to pretend he is one of them, when confronted by trash cannibals.


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Thursday, November 9, 2017

A Ghost Story

Projector
Directed by David Bowery
Starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara

With one scene starring the director himself

I love the square format and the curved edges of this film, with a softness around the edges and some scenes have a romantic vignette.

C and M, Affleck and Mara, act as husband and wife respectively in the film. They live in this big house in the middle of forests. Childless, we see how they are C composes music. Next we see M dragging out a large trunk to dump along the road. I think they might be moving. M shared how whenever she moves, she would place a note in that house. So that a part of her remained in that house. Just like how when we cross paths, a bit of ourselves get left behind.

One night, presumably after making love, they hear a loud thump outside in the living room. They check out but nothing is there. C died in a car crash the next day, at the curb just before turning into their garage.

M stares at the cloth in the mortuary. C wakes up as a ghost, where he walks around in a white cloth. He was supposed to go to the light, represented by a lit portal, but misses the chance. Everything else after is shot through the eyes of the ghost, but no one else in real life can see him. I'm glad C died because he mumbles most of the way when he was alive. At least now he is limited to acting behind a white sheet. He goes home, to see his wife. His wife just received this pie but a kind neighbour/friend who let herself in. For five minutes we see her dumping pie into her body. Painstaking. She pukes.

This grief goes on for many scenes. We rehash what happened earlier - she wants to move out but he doesn't want to. On rainy days she looks out of the window, lost in time.

We see this on repeat, where she goes to work everyday and gets better. In ghost world, their time is fast but in actual world, it is days and weeks. One day when she was out, C spots a ghost in the opposite house. They wave. She is waiting for someone but forgot who she is waiting for. Sometimes memories elude me just like that.

One day M returns with a new man. C is jealous and turns poltergeist by making the lights flicker and books fall. We rehash how he composed this beautiful song for her, and she didn't give any comments at all because it was about them. He was so disappointed.

She listened to this soundtrack, plugged in on the floor, inches away from C, the ghost. She moves out because she wants to start afresh. Before she goes, she repaints the house and tucks a note in between the creaks and paints over.

C frantically tries to remove the paint. Before he could finish, a Hispanic single-mom with a boy and girl of elementary/preschool age move in. C sees them in their daily routine - play piano, feast, decorate the Christmas tree. C one day decides to enter the children's room. The boy can see him and screams. The next day C wrecks the kitchen by dumping plates etc. The mom does not seem to see C but can sense him, just like the younger daughter. They move.

C tries to remove the paint once again. Before he can succeed, a hipster college crowd moved in with house party. One bald hipster reminiscences about existential questions - about humanity and how it is hopeful if there could be chords of e.g. Beethoven and music/art/culture which moves the soul. He goes on to say how humanity tries so hard to leave a print but it is all for nothing. C gets pissed and caused the light to flicker because it reminds him of his past as a struggling artist to get recognition, fame and compose great music.

The house is abandoned again. Just as C was about to get the note, a bulldozer demolished the house. C and neighbour ghost stand on top of the debris. Female ghost says looks like they are not coming back and promptly disappears, leaving her cloth with light pink prints. A futuristic, high rise building is built. C goes to the roof and commits suicide by jumping.

He wakes into medieval time with horse carriage. This nomadic family stay under the carriage and next morning, they are outside getting ready to move. Little girl writes something and placed it below a large rock. Next second, they are murdered by Red Indians, presumably from the bows and arrows. I thought he would go look for the note under the rock. No time. We see the family decomposing to skeletons and in this place his current house gets built.

C sees how he and his wife move in. One night in bed, C tells M he is ready to move out. C the ghost hears this and sat down by the piano, because he is pissed and doesn't want to go. This was how they heard the loud thump previously.

C died and M is moving out. There are two ghosts in this space now, composed very well with M in the middle. In this time loop, C the first ghost is now able to pull out the note. He reads in and before the camera pans to the message, he disappears. Cloth sinks down empty. In my mind I saw "Goodbye" written. But this cliffhanger was just bugging me. What did M write such that C got reprieve and was able to find peace?

I guess most of what I hold on to may be meaningless to most others.



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To Be A Teacher

German Film Festival
8/11/17 at NMS (free screening)

Looks at three passionate, idealistic teachers (Anna, Katja and Ralf) to be undergoing training in Berlin. The change they experienced over the course of one year as they get sent to grade school or lower high school to teach. The two female trainees are idealistic and I see how they get disillusioned with the system over time. Ralf is passionate but not so taken up by the fact that he is in this factory line producing cogs for society. Good workers for the benefit of society.

Director Jacob Schmidt was present for post screening and he mentioned that actually 20 applicants were willing to be in this film even though there's high pressure to perform and usually people may not want such additional pressure. Out of 20 he followed 5 teachers trainees around (3 years) and during editing (1 year) cut down to portray only 3 teachers. His selection of trainees include contrasting characters- Anna is a bit on the soft side whereas Ralf is very strong character. Moderated by Mayo Martin who used to be an educator, he had so many questions for Jacob. One audience member also had questions for Mayo regarding the education system here in Singapore, which took him by surprise.

A documentary but with the teacher trainees so natural, I could identify with Katja, who had idealistic beliefs in helping students, but towards the end of her two-year teacher-training, she felt short-tempered, easily depressed, had mood swings and basically just did not feel like coming to school. She thought she would fail but actually passed and transferred from high school to elementary school.

Anna transferred to another preschool during her internship period and felt much better. She passed and became a full-fledged teacher.

Ralf continued on in the same school and received A- for his practicum.

Teaching in Germany is considered a golden cage, comparable to how teaching is seen as a iron rice bowl in SG.

They filmed everything except the examination part where it was entirely closed door. The director mentioned that actually most challenges were faced with the officials and not really with the teacher-trainees or students.
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