Intan Mohd's 'Reel'flections~

Margarita, with a Straw (Shonali Bose, 2014)

11:40 PM |

Synopsis(from filmibeat.com):

Laila (Kalki Koechelin) is a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy. She is a student at Delhi University and an aspiring writer who writes lyrics and creates electronic sounds for an indie band at the university. She gets admitted to New York University and moves with her mother (Revathy). Living in Manhattan, she falls in love with fiery young activist Khanum (Sayani Gupta). Thus she embarks on a journey of sexual discovery which hinders the relationships between her family and friends.

What is your opinion of the film? Do you think the film accurately portraits the dual theme of sexual identity and disability? Do you think it prefers one over the other? What is the conclusion of the film? (Explain what is the possible message of this conclusion)

Margarita, with a straw is a movie that talking about identity. At first, we were introduced to the main character, Laila, that suffers from cerebral palsy. Despite of having life with cerebral palsy, Laila is able to live a life like a normal person. She never treated her disability as a weakness. We can see how she is fully accepted her condition and her condition can never stopped her from doing something that she likes. The story then change its setting, it is no longer in India but in New York. She received an offer to NYU. Out of frustration for being rejected by her crush, she decided to accept the offer. New York has given her a new experience. She is now discover a new identity of her which is bisexual. In my opinion, the theme of sexual identity and disability are kind of balancing each other. This is because I feel that Laila and Khanum are able to develop a mutual feeling since both of them are disable, which makes them understand each other better. However, for Laila, she still wants to feel like a ‘normal’ person by having sex with Jared.

Both identities portray in the film are taboo in our society. It is interesting to put this two themes together as disability is something that we can see but sexual identity is not hidden until that person tell us. The director has done a great job by combining them. The movie ends with a very meaningful message to all of us. The most important thing for us is to accept our own self, only then we can have a better life. Our self-acceptance allows us to be confident in life and no matter what life brings to us, we are going to be alright even though people might not like us.

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Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)

7:45 PM |

Synopsis(from IMDb):

Not far from the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu, proud cattle herder Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed aka Pino) lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki), his daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed), and Issan (Mehdi Ag Mohamed), their twelve-year-old shepherd. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists determined to control their faith. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even soccer have been banned. The women have become shadows but resist with dignity. Every day, the new improvised courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu. But their destiny changes abruptly.

Explain why Abdelrakim(Abdelkerim) dances alone. (While the movie does not explain it directly there is some evidence to build different cases). Provide examples from the film to sustain your hypothesis.

In the movie, Abdelkerim dances alone in front of Zabou, refugee of Haitian earthquake. In my opinion, the reason why he’s dancing because the director wants to show us the other side of him. He might be one of the jihadist, but he might not willing to enforce the law. In the movie also show the part where he go against the law such as smoking and discussing about soccer.

Since, he is part of the jihadists, he has the freedom to do it even though others are not allow to do it. Abdelkerim is the character that introduced to us to tell that sometime even the jihadist cannot follow the law that they enforced. This is why people would not follow what they said because they themselves cannot do this. This is the importance of leading by example. They also forced them to follow the laws without explanation and demonstrating their utility which clearly not as prescribed by Allah and His prophet. The scene of him dancing alone is really dramatic scene since it shows us that people can be hypocrite by joining something for their own benefits and he chose to dance at Zabou’s place because he knows that place is safe for him to do that since Zabou also didn’t agree with the law enforced.

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Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)

10:06 PM |

Synopsis(from rottentomatoes):

Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is an actress at the peak of her international career who is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. Back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young woman who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant (Kristen Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria, a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.

The theme of the movie:

Clouds of Sils Maria is a must watch movie that tells us about the understanding of one own self. In this movie, Maria was asked to play for the role of Helena, the role that she thinks opposite role of Sigrid, the role that she used to play. At first (even throughout the movie), she was reluctant to take this role as she thinks that she can’t move on with the character of Sigrid. In fact, she still feels that she is Sigrid.

Actually, Maria is in the state of denial. She can’t accept the fact that she is Helena. The relationship between Maria and her assistant, Val, resembles the relationship between Helena and Sigrid. She scares that when she accepts Helena, she has to accept herself. She doesn’t want to feel as a defeated woman, the woman that has been defeated by age and insecurity.

In my opinion, Val is not only working as her personal assistant but also like her psychologist (Maria mentions earlier in the movie “from psychology you gave me”). Therefore, she knows Maria very well and knows that Maria doesn’t want to move on, she wants to remain young forever. This is where she tells Maria that Maria can’t be a well-rounded artist if she still expects to hold onto the privileges of youth. Throughout the movie, she keeps on convincing her to accept Helena. To see Helena from different perspective, not from the perspective that she has when she is Sigrid.

Later on in the movie we learnt that Val suddenly missing during hiking. I think she intentionally did this to make Maria realized that disappear not necessarily results in die but she could reinvent herself somewhere else and she wants Maria to stop depending on her. Maria seems to accept that loss and continue living her life.

Until, during the theater rehearsal she commented the way Jo-Ann Ellis acted and Jo-Ann Ellis didn’t agree with her point of view and she realized that she is no longer Sigrid.

This is the moment where she is accepting her own self, she shows her maturity, the moment she knows that she is powerful and can't be defeated by age or insecurity.

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Amer (Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, 2009)

8:30 PM |

Synopsis(from IMDb):

Three key moments, all of them sensual, define Ana's life. Her carnal search sways between reality and colored fantasies becoming more and more oppressive. A black laced hand prevents her from screaming. The wind lifts her dress and caresses her thighs. A razor blade brushes her skin, where will this chaotic and carnivorous journey leave her?

Amer shares connections with many of the identity topics that were formulated during the first week among these coming of age and family. How are these topics combined with the overall of theme of violence that is dominant throughout the film?

To me, Amer is kind of complicated movie to discuss.(To be honest, it took me 2 days to watch the whole movie and I might watch it half way if it is not for the assignment) Amer is a movie that need you to pay attention to the visual and the dialogue is barely used in this movie.

Amer shows the life of Ana through childhood, adolescent and adulthood. During the first part, we can see Ana is so curious about her life. She is curious of everything that happened around her. She wants to know them. This curiosity leads to her discovery of identity and her desired.

She is peeping through the keyhole to see things that happened outside her room. Not only that she also been watched by ‘the eye’ through the keyhole.

In her adolescent year, she has been subjected for male gaze. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, she is proud and love been gazed. Here we can see how her identity develop to become a woman that has a sexual desired, the desired of being wanted.

In her adulthood, Ana has grown up to be an attractive woman. In the cab, she fantasized herself and I think this scene shows her sexuality has matured, shows how she really appreciate her feeling.

The theme of violence shows at the first and last part of the movie. Watching the whole movie makes me feel that actually Ana is just paranoid with her life. She was exposed to an extreme experience of being haunted during her childhood. This experience has caused her to be someone who fantasized a lot and live in a fantasy world that she created. The hands with black gloves that kills the taxi driver are actually her hands. And because of that traumatic feeling, she committed suicide at the end of the movie.

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Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014)

7:27 PM |

Synopsis(from rottentomatoes):

A spellbinding mystery of identity, illusion, and deception unfolds against the turmoil of post-World War II Germany in the stunning new film from acclaimed director Christian Petzold (Barbara, Jerichow). Nelly (Nina Hoss), a German-Jewish nightclub singer, has survived a concentration camp, but with her face disfigured by a bullet wound. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, Nelly emerges with a new face, one similar but different enough that her former husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), doesn't recognize her. Rather than reveal herself, Nelly walks into a dangerous game of duplicity and disguise as she tries to figure out if the man she loves may have been the one who betrayed her to the Nazis. Evoking the shadows and haunted mood of post-war Berlin, Phoenix weaves a complex tale of a nation's tragedy and a woman's search for answers as it builds towards an unforgettable, heart-stopping climax.

Significance of the final scene:

The final scene always acts as an answer for the questions asked throughout the movie. The same thing goes for this movie. It is an awaiting scene for me because I really want to know what will happen to Nelly and Johnny at the end of the movie. The movie ends when Nelly finished her song and walked towards the door.

The visual blurred at the end which indicates the unclear future. Maybe we can say, this is what Johnny see, a blur unknown future that he will encounter after this.

I really love his facial expression when he realized that the woman who's singing in front of him is his real wife, the wife that he thought has died during the war. It is the moment of realization that Nelly is alive and he won’t get her money. There’s nothing he can do anymore. His life won’t change and he will remain as a waiter in a club.

And for Nelly, this is the end for all the act and pretense. Her facial expression shows how she regrets for loving him and her eyes tell us that “I shouldn’t trust this guy anymore”. She knows that she needs to move on and just forget about Johnny and start her new life as the title of the movie: Phoenix; Phoenix that symbolize the reborn of new person.

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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night(Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

8:53 PM |

Synopsis(from IMDb) :

The film opens with a scene of a vast wasteland, Bad City, populated with oil drilling machines and a palpable sense of being a quasi ghost town. Here, Arash a lonely teenager with a drug addicted father who consistently owes money to a dealer, tries his best to make a living working as a gardener for a rich family. Unknown to him, the city is inhabited by a lonely young vampire whose name we never learn. She acts as a sort of vigilante, choosing to feed from those who she considers "bad", killing them without mercy. When one night she runs into Arash, she will finally know the possibilities that love offers, and that even in Bad City, shines a small glimmer of hope.

Is "The Girl" a final girl?

At first I think The Girl suits the character for the killer. However, when I think deeply, I change my mind. I believe that "The Girl" is a final girl. This is because, The Girl is introduced at the beginning. The director also develop her character in psychological detail for example what she does, where she lives, and what she loves.

Beside that, another characteristic for the girl is she is the first character to sense something amiss and only one to deduce from accumulating evidence the patterns. The Girl shows this characteristic when she knows all bad guys in the Bad City. She looks for the bad guy and even tracking them on the street. She also addresses them by sucking their blood.

For this film, we can say that the killer is represented by the bad guy that she kills. The examples of the bad guy are Saeed "the Pimp" and Hossein "the Junkie".

She also shows her masculinity when she use skateboard which is more dominantly used by male. Last but not least, the final girl actually destroys the antagonist and saves herself which is exactly what The Girl did in this film. The Girl is the hero for this film.

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The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

7:52 PM |

Synopsis (from rottentomatoes):

Six years after the violent death of her husband, Amelia (Essie Davis) is at a loss. She struggles to discipline her 'out of control' 6 year-old, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a son she finds impossible to love. Samuel's dreams are plagued by a monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called 'The Babadook' turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he's been dreaming about. His hallucinations spiral out of control, he becomes more unpredictable and violent. Amelia, genuinely frightened by her son's behaviour, is forced to medicate him. But when Amelia begins to see glimpses of a sinister presence all around her, it slowly dawns on her that the thing Samuel has been warning her about may be real.

Motherhood in The Babadook:

During the earlier part of the movie, we can see that the mother is not really fond to have Sam. This is due to her loss of husband that died in the car accident on the day Sam was born. She even doesn’t like the affectionate hug by him.

She is so stressed out by the behavior of her kid. Sam is too obsessed with the idea of monster and he creates the weapons to protect her mum. She is too tired of being his mum to that extent she asks the doctor to prescribe her something that can make him sleep.

The situation becomes worse. She is possessed by Babadook and she says to Sam that she wishes him that died instead of her husband. But I would say that the power of love can overcome everything. Even though she can’t really accept Sam, but deep inside her heart, she still loves him. This is proven when she tries to strangle him but Sam touches of love manage to recover her from possession.

We can see after that she starts to show her love and try to protect Sam from Babadook. This love manage to defeat Babadook.

At the end, we can see how Amelia shows her motherly love towards her son when she can accept the death of her husband. This movie demonstrates that a mother will always love her children no matter what and this love can overcome every circumstances in life.

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