Declarative desire dedicatedly persists after state sanctioned seclusion silences its volatile temerity.
Another, resigned yet combative, is enamoured.
The fate of a rebellious young adult becomes a decisive tangible consequent as the Stasi's invasive pressure deliberately dehumanizes.
A doctor, emphatically refuses, to be muzzled.
Carefully contextualizing different varieties of tension, while diagnosing risk with surgical precision, Christian Petzold's Barbara internally serenades freedom of expression, and externalizes a crisp courageous spiritualization.
An extensive reactive multilateral engagement furtively negotiates an honest state of affairs.
Its interconnected inextricable professional, personal, romantic, governmental and (inter)national relationships foment a forlorn fugitive firmament wherein influential forces collaborate and contend.
Interrogating what it means to pursue.
Attempting to have their voices heard.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
The Berlin File
Setting a new standard for fast-paced intricate multilayered action packed films covertly concerned with international relations, Seung-wan Ryoo's The Berlin File's depth frantically conceptualizes a practical competitive bellicose ideological maelstrom, wherein interpersonal integrity can trump engrained national antimonies, as the ambitious pretentions of a jealous privileged communist usurper stereoscopically attempt to remagnify its vortex.
Good communists and bad communists.
Respect for North Korea?
Deconstructive hypoallergenic hyper-reflexive expedition.
And a remarketable union.
The issue of trust gravitationally staggers through myriad ulterior transitional focal points until a specific set of exceptional checks and balances produces an ephemeral allegiance, an amicable diplomatic extract.
The film's tight chaotic suction implodes near the end as a protagonist and his principal enemy square off like traditional martial marionettes.
Still pretty cool.
Both of the main male communist characters can be thought of as members of North Korea's materialistic pantheon, but the bad one's father occupies a high ranking influential yet corrupt position in the country's militaristic elite.
The other is an extraordinary citizen whose unyielding belief and support have strengthened his iron constitution.
Whether or not he can continue to exercise his commitment to his country, even though an everlasting magical freedom guaranteeing surplus seems somewhat fantastical, not that one shouldn't attempt to realize aspects of it through parliamentary means, depends upon that country's commitment to him.
Hoping there's a sequel.
Sort of like the anti-Die Hard 5.
Good communists and bad communists.
Respect for North Korea?
Deconstructive hypoallergenic hyper-reflexive expedition.
And a remarketable union.
The issue of trust gravitationally staggers through myriad ulterior transitional focal points until a specific set of exceptional checks and balances produces an ephemeral allegiance, an amicable diplomatic extract.
The film's tight chaotic suction implodes near the end as a protagonist and his principal enemy square off like traditional martial marionettes.
Still pretty cool.
Both of the main male communist characters can be thought of as members of North Korea's materialistic pantheon, but the bad one's father occupies a high ranking influential yet corrupt position in the country's militaristic elite.
The other is an extraordinary citizen whose unyielding belief and support have strengthened his iron constitution.
Whether or not he can continue to exercise his commitment to his country, even though an everlasting magical freedom guaranteeing surplus seems somewhat fantastical, not that one shouldn't attempt to realize aspects of it through parliamentary means, depends upon that country's commitment to him.
Hoping there's a sequel.
Sort of like the anti-Die Hard 5.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Collage
A trail of bread crumbs
swiftly connects
global mirth's multilingual texts,
ludic mischief, craftspersonship,
inspired and seasoned
didactic clips;
as I listen I often find
strange parallels
evincing signs
to which that day's clear comments speak,
as voices add their playful cheek.
swiftly connects
global mirth's multilingual texts,
ludic mischief, craftspersonship,
inspired and seasoned
didactic clips;
as I listen I often find
strange parallels
evincing signs
to which that day's clear comments speak,
as voices add their playful cheek.
A Good Day to Die Hard
Ah, liked the other Die Hard films.
Even Die Hard 3.
Live Free or Die Hard was a big surprise, seeing how it was the franchise's 4th instalment and disseminated one of its best narratives.
Bearing this in mind, I was excited when I heard that A Good Day to Die Hard was being released, naively figuring that they would at least sustain Die Hard 4's momentum with another deep script packed with the expected explosive cast of supporting characters.
In other words, I completely forgot that this was Die Hard 5.
Bruce Willis still excels at playing John McClane. There weren't any moments where it seemed as if he had lost touch with the hands-on hardboiled lawperson whose gifts for instantaneously outwitting ingenious villains in the heat of the moment flexibly manifests an endearing contextual psychocorporeality.
But no single performance could have saved this film, with its brutal lines, shoddy editing, improbable scenarios (usually you try and set up an elaborate situation whose intricate details, improbable though they may be, at least cleverly conceal the improbability), and rather one-dimensional depiction of Russia.
The idea behind the script is solid. Send Mr. McClane to another country where he must contend with the wicked with the help of his son (Jai Courtney as Jack McClane) thereby quasi-globalizing his law enforcement instinct while strengthening his commitment to family.
The film's best moments see John and Jack airing their grievances while preparing for another round of improvisational hyperactivity, and its best line is "Tough to kill a McClane."
But Die Hard 5 can still be categorized with Rocky V and Star Trek V, more concerned with its image than the traditional kinetic synthesis of action, dialogue, stitch, and kitsch that produced it.
Remember the cold war? The creative forces behind Die Hard 5 sure do.
Ugh.
Even Die Hard 3.
Live Free or Die Hard was a big surprise, seeing how it was the franchise's 4th instalment and disseminated one of its best narratives.
Bearing this in mind, I was excited when I heard that A Good Day to Die Hard was being released, naively figuring that they would at least sustain Die Hard 4's momentum with another deep script packed with the expected explosive cast of supporting characters.
In other words, I completely forgot that this was Die Hard 5.
Bruce Willis still excels at playing John McClane. There weren't any moments where it seemed as if he had lost touch with the hands-on hardboiled lawperson whose gifts for instantaneously outwitting ingenious villains in the heat of the moment flexibly manifests an endearing contextual psychocorporeality.
But no single performance could have saved this film, with its brutal lines, shoddy editing, improbable scenarios (usually you try and set up an elaborate situation whose intricate details, improbable though they may be, at least cleverly conceal the improbability), and rather one-dimensional depiction of Russia.
The idea behind the script is solid. Send Mr. McClane to another country where he must contend with the wicked with the help of his son (Jai Courtney as Jack McClane) thereby quasi-globalizing his law enforcement instinct while strengthening his commitment to family.
The film's best moments see John and Jack airing their grievances while preparing for another round of improvisational hyperactivity, and its best line is "Tough to kill a McClane."
But Die Hard 5 can still be categorized with Rocky V and Star Trek V, more concerned with its image than the traditional kinetic synthesis of action, dialogue, stitch, and kitsch that produced it.
Remember the cold war? The creative forces behind Die Hard 5 sure do.
Ugh.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Identity Thief
Loved Planes, Trains & Automobiles growing up.
Arguably both John Candy and Steve Martin's best movie, it brought together two of Hollywood's leading comedic actors, set them up as a mismatched pair, simultaneously catered to bourgeois and working class sympathies, and used Thanksgiving to tie everything together.
By the end of the film, Neal Page (Martin) has been transformed from a cold representative of the bad bourgeoisie who have no social conscience to someone who will at least invite a lonely friend to his home for dinner.
Del Griffith (Candy) smiles, everyone's happy, the end.
26 years later, Seth Gordon's Identity Thief works within the same paradigm, but the cultural codes of the game have changed.
If we're to take the information provided in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story as solid indisputable fact, unions had generated stable, prosperous bourgeois lives for many working Americans until their strength was weakened by the Reagan administration and many of their jobs shipped elsewhere, some, in the interests of capitalism, to at least one communist country.
Theoretically, a significant proportion of the American population were no longer able to maintain their suburban lifestyles (in the same location over a long period of time) and found themselves individually competing for new jobs in a pop cultural system that vilified anything besides the undeniably exceptional.
Does this theory resonate throughout little old unsuspecting Identity Thief?
I don't know, but here's my take.
Lead character Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is struggling to get by, working for a corporation who only values the contributions of upper management, living with his wife and two kids.
He's played his cards right but at the end of the month only has a little more than 14 dollars of potential savings to show for it.
And trouble's a brewin.'
Diana (Melissa McCarthy) makes her living stealing peoples identities and using them to finance her freewheelin' acquisitive lifestyle (Patterson seems like he's too smart to have fallen for her scam, but that's another matter).
She steals that of Mr. Patterson just as he launches a career as the vice-president of a new company.
Naturally he's pissed, and sets out for Florida to confront and bring her back to Denver, due to infrastructural peculiarities that prevent the Denver PD from working with their Floridian counterparts.
But he's not the only one in hot pursuit, for she's run afoul of others seeking vengeance who track and attempt to overcome Sandy and Diana after Sandy captures her.
By the end of the film, Sandy's developed a social conscience at least to the degree where he cares about one of the proletarian characters who ends up in jail.
Most of the proletarian characters (likely) end up in jail.
Thus, as good jobs become harder to find than they were in the 1980s, working American people find themselves resorting to a higher degree of criminal activity, much more violent than John Candy's family friendly shenanigans, corporate upper management remains influential and unaffected unless those whom they disregard can out-compete them in the marketplace (hopefully without becoming like them during the struggle), wherein which these competitors might lose everything, as some seem to have even though they had stable unionized jobs, which possibly faltered due to their lack of a coordinated multidisciplinary international network.
Among thousands of other rather complicated factors of which I'm unaware.
Identity Thief's script contains a broader array of consistent characters than Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Melissa McCarthy's performance is strong enough to indicate that she may be able to function as a 21st century John Candy, there are some funny scenes which utilize sleaze as everyone chases, tricks, slanders, and/or shoots at one another, which seems to be the comic style of our time, but it's not attached to a holiday, and is missing a substitute for Steve Martin.
Jason Bateman's good. I love his work. Bold to compete with Steve Martin. I wouldn't even be able to order coffee for an extra's stunt double.
Genesis Rodriguez (Marisol) is my favourite real world name ever.
No mention of the Broncos.
Arguably both John Candy and Steve Martin's best movie, it brought together two of Hollywood's leading comedic actors, set them up as a mismatched pair, simultaneously catered to bourgeois and working class sympathies, and used Thanksgiving to tie everything together.
By the end of the film, Neal Page (Martin) has been transformed from a cold representative of the bad bourgeoisie who have no social conscience to someone who will at least invite a lonely friend to his home for dinner.
Del Griffith (Candy) smiles, everyone's happy, the end.
26 years later, Seth Gordon's Identity Thief works within the same paradigm, but the cultural codes of the game have changed.
If we're to take the information provided in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story as solid indisputable fact, unions had generated stable, prosperous bourgeois lives for many working Americans until their strength was weakened by the Reagan administration and many of their jobs shipped elsewhere, some, in the interests of capitalism, to at least one communist country.
Theoretically, a significant proportion of the American population were no longer able to maintain their suburban lifestyles (in the same location over a long period of time) and found themselves individually competing for new jobs in a pop cultural system that vilified anything besides the undeniably exceptional.
Does this theory resonate throughout little old unsuspecting Identity Thief?
I don't know, but here's my take.
Lead character Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) is struggling to get by, working for a corporation who only values the contributions of upper management, living with his wife and two kids.
He's played his cards right but at the end of the month only has a little more than 14 dollars of potential savings to show for it.
And trouble's a brewin.'
Diana (Melissa McCarthy) makes her living stealing peoples identities and using them to finance her freewheelin' acquisitive lifestyle (Patterson seems like he's too smart to have fallen for her scam, but that's another matter).
She steals that of Mr. Patterson just as he launches a career as the vice-president of a new company.
Naturally he's pissed, and sets out for Florida to confront and bring her back to Denver, due to infrastructural peculiarities that prevent the Denver PD from working with their Floridian counterparts.
But he's not the only one in hot pursuit, for she's run afoul of others seeking vengeance who track and attempt to overcome Sandy and Diana after Sandy captures her.
By the end of the film, Sandy's developed a social conscience at least to the degree where he cares about one of the proletarian characters who ends up in jail.
Most of the proletarian characters (likely) end up in jail.
Thus, as good jobs become harder to find than they were in the 1980s, working American people find themselves resorting to a higher degree of criminal activity, much more violent than John Candy's family friendly shenanigans, corporate upper management remains influential and unaffected unless those whom they disregard can out-compete them in the marketplace (hopefully without becoming like them during the struggle), wherein which these competitors might lose everything, as some seem to have even though they had stable unionized jobs, which possibly faltered due to their lack of a coordinated multidisciplinary international network.
Among thousands of other rather complicated factors of which I'm unaware.
Identity Thief's script contains a broader array of consistent characters than Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Melissa McCarthy's performance is strong enough to indicate that she may be able to function as a 21st century John Candy, there are some funny scenes which utilize sleaze as everyone chases, tricks, slanders, and/or shoots at one another, which seems to be the comic style of our time, but it's not attached to a holiday, and is missing a substitute for Steve Martin.
Jason Bateman's good. I love his work. Bold to compete with Steve Martin. I wouldn't even be able to order coffee for an extra's stunt double.
Genesis Rodriguez (Marisol) is my favourite real world name ever.
No mention of the Broncos.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Social Capital
The scythe unsheathed
surges having detected
camaraderie which
decisively dodges
its blade having
sharply seduced
its incision.
surges having detected
camaraderie which
decisively dodges
its blade having
sharply seduced
its incision.
Le prix des mots
Engaging in speculation can be a risky business.
Julien Fréchette's Le prix des mots explores how engaging in what can be thought of as scholarly research can be risky as well, if you draw conclusions from your research that directly critique those who seem like enormously wealthy capitalistic players.
In Canada anyways.
Mining is big business in Canada.
When I look around my apartment and count the gadgets and appliances I frequently use that wouldn't exist without mining, and consider the social programs that can be supported through the extraction of minerals, as well as the jobs that can be consequently created, I don't see much of a problem with it, as I've stated before.
But said mining operations must proceed ethically in an environmentally and socially responsible manner so that tax payers aren't left cleaning up potentially irremediable pollution for generations to come, and the workers can enjoy a fruitful share of their profits.
According to this article, containing information from Canadian Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Scott Vaughan's final report after five years on the job, if there was currently an oil spill or nuclear accident within Canada, Canadian taxpayers would be exposed to huge financial risks.
According to this look at closure alternatives for Yukon's faro mine, moving the tailings could take between 10 to 20 years, and this article states that "with devolution, managing the cleanup of the mine became the responsibility of the Yukon government, while Ottawa is still obligated to pay the bills," although it doesn't mention whether or not Ottawa is exclusively paying for the cleanup with tax payers money (I think it's safe to speculate that this could partially be the case).
To speculate further, applying environmental regulations can also be a tricky business. Constant vigilance is possibly required. This requires chill lefties to adopt psychological dispositions that can be stereotypically associated with their right wing counterparts, although there are probably plenty of chill right wingers as well as a plethora of tenacious left wing professionals. The adoption of such dispositions will possibly lead to a conservative comedic backlash, and it's possibly easier for people to appear chill when they're sitting on boatloads of cash (that can possibly be used to conservatively prop up pop culture [people with money often don't do this and many are deserving of a sincere degree of respect due to how hard they work, their intelligence, the jobs they create, and their commitment to democratically ensuring that those jobs are available for years to come]).
Le prix des mots is about what I consider to be a courageous book, based upon what I've seen in the film, Alain Deneault's Noir Canada, and the problems Mr. Deneault and his publisher Écosociété encountered after its publication.
It was only published in French in Québec but ended up being prosecuted for libel in an Ontarian court afterwards.
Parts of Mr. Deneault's defence are presented in the film and it seemed to me like he was on trial for drawing logical conclusions from the articles he cited in his book.
Perhaps the language he used was too direct, but if everyone who draws logical conclusions from cited articles ended up being sued for libel, you would have to place written and verbal communication themselves on trial, as, according to my understanding of the phenomenons, that's what they do.
One could potentially interview/interrogate/subpoena everyone who ever wrote about/interpreted/criticized/discussed a specific printed entity, if they had the financial resources, until so much ambiguity was attached to every nuance that it would be impossible to make a clear point, the clear points people are often taught to make using the active voice in school, as if the active voice itself is reserved for the forces of capital.
If that clear point happens to be true and it's made in the defence of people who don't have vast financial resources by someone who also doesn't have vast financial resources, this could be (is?) a serious problem.
Écosociété confidently stood by Mr. Deneault throughout the proceedings.
His book is about the activities of some Canadian mining companies in Africa and how they (possibly) affected local populations.
Looking forward to picking up a copy.
Julien Fréchette's Le prix des mots explores how engaging in what can be thought of as scholarly research can be risky as well, if you draw conclusions from your research that directly critique those who seem like enormously wealthy capitalistic players.
In Canada anyways.
Mining is big business in Canada.
When I look around my apartment and count the gadgets and appliances I frequently use that wouldn't exist without mining, and consider the social programs that can be supported through the extraction of minerals, as well as the jobs that can be consequently created, I don't see much of a problem with it, as I've stated before.
But said mining operations must proceed ethically in an environmentally and socially responsible manner so that tax payers aren't left cleaning up potentially irremediable pollution for generations to come, and the workers can enjoy a fruitful share of their profits.
According to this article, containing information from Canadian Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Scott Vaughan's final report after five years on the job, if there was currently an oil spill or nuclear accident within Canada, Canadian taxpayers would be exposed to huge financial risks.
According to this look at closure alternatives for Yukon's faro mine, moving the tailings could take between 10 to 20 years, and this article states that "with devolution, managing the cleanup of the mine became the responsibility of the Yukon government, while Ottawa is still obligated to pay the bills," although it doesn't mention whether or not Ottawa is exclusively paying for the cleanup with tax payers money (I think it's safe to speculate that this could partially be the case).
To speculate further, applying environmental regulations can also be a tricky business. Constant vigilance is possibly required. This requires chill lefties to adopt psychological dispositions that can be stereotypically associated with their right wing counterparts, although there are probably plenty of chill right wingers as well as a plethora of tenacious left wing professionals. The adoption of such dispositions will possibly lead to a conservative comedic backlash, and it's possibly easier for people to appear chill when they're sitting on boatloads of cash (that can possibly be used to conservatively prop up pop culture [people with money often don't do this and many are deserving of a sincere degree of respect due to how hard they work, their intelligence, the jobs they create, and their commitment to democratically ensuring that those jobs are available for years to come]).
Le prix des mots is about what I consider to be a courageous book, based upon what I've seen in the film, Alain Deneault's Noir Canada, and the problems Mr. Deneault and his publisher Écosociété encountered after its publication.
It was only published in French in Québec but ended up being prosecuted for libel in an Ontarian court afterwards.
Parts of Mr. Deneault's defence are presented in the film and it seemed to me like he was on trial for drawing logical conclusions from the articles he cited in his book.
Perhaps the language he used was too direct, but if everyone who draws logical conclusions from cited articles ended up being sued for libel, you would have to place written and verbal communication themselves on trial, as, according to my understanding of the phenomenons, that's what they do.
One could potentially interview/interrogate/subpoena everyone who ever wrote about/interpreted/criticized/discussed a specific printed entity, if they had the financial resources, until so much ambiguity was attached to every nuance that it would be impossible to make a clear point, the clear points people are often taught to make using the active voice in school, as if the active voice itself is reserved for the forces of capital.
If that clear point happens to be true and it's made in the defence of people who don't have vast financial resources by someone who also doesn't have vast financial resources, this could be (is?) a serious problem.
Écosociété confidently stood by Mr. Deneault throughout the proceedings.
His book is about the activities of some Canadian mining companies in Africa and how they (possibly) affected local populations.
Looking forward to picking up a copy.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Oscar Picks, 2013
Actor in a leading role: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Actress in a leading role: Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Actor in a supporting role: Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Actress in a supporting role: Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey (Anna Karenina)
Director: Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Film editing: Michael Kahn (Lincoln)
Music, original score: John Williams (Lincoln)
Music, original song: Music by Walter Murphy, Lyric by Seth MacFarlane ("Everybody Needs a Best Friend," Ted)
Short film, animated: Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly (Head Over Heels)
Short film, live action: Yan England (Henry)
Visual effects: Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, and Donald R. Elliot (Life of Pi)
Writing, adapted screenplay: Tony Kushner (Lincoln)
Writing, original screenplay: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom)
Best Picture: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers (Lincoln)
Actress in a leading role: Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Actor in a supporting role: Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Actress in a supporting role: Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey (Anna Karenina)
Director: Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Film editing: Michael Kahn (Lincoln)
Music, original score: John Williams (Lincoln)
Music, original song: Music by Walter Murphy, Lyric by Seth MacFarlane ("Everybody Needs a Best Friend," Ted)
Short film, animated: Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly (Head Over Heels)
Short film, live action: Yan England (Henry)
Visual effects: Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, and Donald R. Elliot (Life of Pi)
Writing, adapted screenplay: Tony Kushner (Lincoln)
Writing, original screenplay: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom)
Best Picture: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers (Lincoln)
Stand Up Guys
Went in blind to this one, lured by the cast, became worried after viewing a preview for Red 2, but then the laid-back unpretentious low-key credits and accompanying music brought upon feelings of relief, illuminated by Doc's (Christopher Walken) artwork, reminding me of those from Barfly and Pulp Fiction, for some unknown reason.
Was still worried that the film may be too status quo having been let down by similarly cast movies in the past, but wow, my worries faded quickly as I discovered that in the twilights of their careers, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino (Val), and Alan Arkin (Hirsch) were taking on grizzled rambunctious radioactive roles with hardly any inkling of sanitary preconditioning, they just thought it up and did it, ironically reincarnating the precocious spirit that likely lead to them becoming Hollywood mainstays in the first place.
Challenge. Acceptance. Realization.
That description applies more directly to Al Pacino who plays the most dynamic part but Walken and Arkin also get the job done.
The film explores a pyrotechnic variability while slowly excavating poignant distinct clarifications.
Hirsch's introduction escalates a seismic shift after which malfeasancient minerals are mercantilized.
It's funny.
Director Fisher Stevens knows how to make you laugh by encouraging specific nondescript awkward facial expressions or juxtaposing a hardened con with his choice of tasty treats.
Economic matters are classified while its joie de vivre is liquidated.
And family and friendship find frenzied filial refinements in the final moments.
Plus, these guys have a potent response for the coercive rapacious scum found in Kim Nguyen's Rebelle.
Volatile, chill, and collaborative.
On the record.
Was still worried that the film may be too status quo having been let down by similarly cast movies in the past, but wow, my worries faded quickly as I discovered that in the twilights of their careers, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino (Val), and Alan Arkin (Hirsch) were taking on grizzled rambunctious radioactive roles with hardly any inkling of sanitary preconditioning, they just thought it up and did it, ironically reincarnating the precocious spirit that likely lead to them becoming Hollywood mainstays in the first place.
Challenge. Acceptance. Realization.
That description applies more directly to Al Pacino who plays the most dynamic part but Walken and Arkin also get the job done.
The film explores a pyrotechnic variability while slowly excavating poignant distinct clarifications.
Hirsch's introduction escalates a seismic shift after which malfeasancient minerals are mercantilized.
It's funny.
Director Fisher Stevens knows how to make you laugh by encouraging specific nondescript awkward facial expressions or juxtaposing a hardened con with his choice of tasty treats.
Economic matters are classified while its joie de vivre is liquidated.
And family and friendship find frenzied filial refinements in the final moments.
Plus, these guys have a potent response for the coercive rapacious scum found in Kim Nguyen's Rebelle.
Volatile, chill, and collaborative.
On the record.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Rebelle (War Witch)
Calmly passing through a series of tumultuous events, Kim Nguyen's Rebelle (War Witch) follows Komona's (Rachel Mwanza) path as she's forced to serve as a child soldier.
Viciously separated from her family, she despondently acquiesces to her chaotic surroundings, inductively developing psychological survival strategies which enable her to tactically trudge through her wartorn environment.
The film placidly displays the bitter helpless wanton affects her predicament necessitates before accentuating their terror by transferring them to a supportive realm wherein their sublimation proves perplexing.
It's not emotive or sentimental, just a raw exemplification of debilitating dissonance which presents a reality the victims of organized violent insurgencies must endure.
Under the guise of their best interests.
How one suddenly returns to a constructive life after suffering under such hardships without occasionally expressing themselves with fits of irrepressible anger is beyond me.
Complete with contextual symbolic sabotage.
Viciously separated from her family, she despondently acquiesces to her chaotic surroundings, inductively developing psychological survival strategies which enable her to tactically trudge through her wartorn environment.
The film placidly displays the bitter helpless wanton affects her predicament necessitates before accentuating their terror by transferring them to a supportive realm wherein their sublimation proves perplexing.
It's not emotive or sentimental, just a raw exemplification of debilitating dissonance which presents a reality the victims of organized violent insurgencies must endure.
Under the guise of their best interests.
How one suddenly returns to a constructive life after suffering under such hardships without occasionally expressing themselves with fits of irrepressible anger is beyond me.
Complete with contextual symbolic sabotage.
Monday, February 4, 2013
En kongelig affære (A Royal Affair)
A gifted enlightened town doctor (Mads Mikkelsen as Johann Friedrich Struensee) fortuitously finds himself suddenly reshaping his country's (Denmark) feudal character in Nikolaj Arcel's En kongelig affære (A Royal Affair), relying heavily upon his lucid acumen to enact social democratic reforms.
But a misguided sense of permanency and an affectionate indiscretion result in his ignominious downfall.
King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard) wants little to do with ruling and prefers to revel in unconditioned debauchery.
Doctor Struensee does little to disuade his ambition and the two strike up an amiable friendship, prominently acting for the good of the people.
As opportunity strikes, freedom materializes, yet its nascent state fails to consider history's quotidien counterbalance.
As dinner is served, a competitive course of cultural compositions is collusively seared, and the foundations of a revolving polemic picturesquely present themselves.
Too picturesquely perhaps.
One of En kongelig affære's principal problems is that there aren't any proactive plebeian representatives. A film boldly illustrating a crucial moment in Danish social democratic development should have likely included characters to whom said developments directly apply.
Instead they're stereotypically depicted as a mob.
It may have been too maudlin to include proactive plebeian reps but it also lacks a healthy contingent of subtle continuous economically disadvantaged background personnages which could have diversified its filmscape.
Obviously doing this continuously throughout a film is expensive and time consuming, and since En kongelig affære highlights the dangers of proceeding too quickly with social democratic reforms, perhaps this is an example of form working hand-in-hand with content.
The economic dangers are obviously real but so are the dangers of a right wing government that constantly pleads poverty (or creates an inexhaustible debt) when there is in fact of abundance of wealth, and the film examines a period which inaugurated social democratic reforms, not one where they already hold partial institutional prominence in some countries.
The King is at least cognizant of his faults and logically prefers friendship to fidelity considering his own predilections.
The film also concerns a love affair.
Don't know if I've ever seen a better example of the ridiculousness of the absolute application of ideology than when the Queen (Alicia Vikander [Denmark's Keira Knightley or Natalie Portman?]) is told to be more ladylike while giving birth.
Outstanding.
But a misguided sense of permanency and an affectionate indiscretion result in his ignominious downfall.
King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard) wants little to do with ruling and prefers to revel in unconditioned debauchery.
Doctor Struensee does little to disuade his ambition and the two strike up an amiable friendship, prominently acting for the good of the people.
As opportunity strikes, freedom materializes, yet its nascent state fails to consider history's quotidien counterbalance.
As dinner is served, a competitive course of cultural compositions is collusively seared, and the foundations of a revolving polemic picturesquely present themselves.
Too picturesquely perhaps.
One of En kongelig affære's principal problems is that there aren't any proactive plebeian representatives. A film boldly illustrating a crucial moment in Danish social democratic development should have likely included characters to whom said developments directly apply.
Instead they're stereotypically depicted as a mob.
It may have been too maudlin to include proactive plebeian reps but it also lacks a healthy contingent of subtle continuous economically disadvantaged background personnages which could have diversified its filmscape.
Obviously doing this continuously throughout a film is expensive and time consuming, and since En kongelig affære highlights the dangers of proceeding too quickly with social democratic reforms, perhaps this is an example of form working hand-in-hand with content.
The economic dangers are obviously real but so are the dangers of a right wing government that constantly pleads poverty (or creates an inexhaustible debt) when there is in fact of abundance of wealth, and the film examines a period which inaugurated social democratic reforms, not one where they already hold partial institutional prominence in some countries.
The King is at least cognizant of his faults and logically prefers friendship to fidelity considering his own predilections.
The film also concerns a love affair.
Don't know if I've ever seen a better example of the ridiculousness of the absolute application of ideology than when the Queen (Alicia Vikander [Denmark's Keira Knightley or Natalie Portman?]) is told to be more ladylike while giving birth.
Outstanding.
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