ScribblePOP 2.0

Moon

So let’s quickly talk about Duncan Jones’ film, Moon.

I’ve long been a fan of films about existential crisis. The fact that the trailer to Moon resonated certain aesthetic qualities as Tarkovsky’s Solaris was pretty much the only draw I needed to see the film. The premise of the film, based on the trailer, appeared like a typical hallucination-driven character study that is metaphorical of (maybe) memories, love, desire, human needs. Perhaps I had walked into the theatre waiting for simply a fulfillment of all things predicted, perhaps this was why I didn’t enjoy the film at all.

The rest of this quick review will spoil the film, so please read on.

Before walking into the Landmark Sunshine during a rainy Saturday afternoon, I had wondered about Duncan’s choice of Sam Rockwell for the role of Sam Bell, the lone character in the film (more about Kevin Spacey’s “Gerty” in a bit). Over the years, Rockwell had established himself as not just a off-kilter comic actor, but an emotionally imbalanced, on-the-edge ironic hero. Still, a role in a film like Moon, had it fulfilled my prediction, would still be a departure for Rockwell. His physical language is often too transparent, and he’s too often a passive victim under apparent schemes, which would work for many films, but not a psychological thriller/drama that I had predicted Moon to be.

Thankfully (?), the film turned out to be rather transparent as well. To demonstrate this, I’ve broken its narrative down in a list of promises and answers, with a foreword of its supposed premise:

Premise
Sam Bell is an astronaut that works for an energy-gathering corporation. He is situated in a space station on the moon. He is kept company by an artificial intelligence named Gerty, whose voice quality insinuated a greater antagonistic intelligence. Two weeks before his contract on the moon is over, Sam finds a body double, badly injured in a moonwalk vehicle. After that, Sam develops some type of psychosis and encounters more facts that implies that he is trapped on the moon forever.

Promises
1. There is a Big Brother at work, most likely the corporation responsible for trapping Sam Bell on the Moon
2. The Sam Bell double that the protagonist meets is a hallucination that will catalyze his journey toward self-discovery
3. Despite physical isolation from human sociality, Sam’s psychosis will bring him closer to the face of humanity, and possibly help him rediscover his human relations left on earth.
4. Gerty is evil.
5. Something existential in value arises by the end of the film.

Answers
1. Big Brother? Yes. The corporation. We’ve known it since the start. But Sam does not realize this through his journey. It is told to him after the first act, by Gerty, the only physical threat that could possibly exist in the same space as the protagonist. Therefore, solving the puzzle of the big brother becomes inconsequential to the hero’s struggle.
2. By revealing the Big Brother’s plan, which is - Sam is simply one of many clones planted on the moon to harvest energy for earth for economy and convenience - we the audience also realize that Sam is in fact no hallucinating at all. There is no more psychological thriller in this film. Genre change occurs at this point, which can sometimes be good, depending on what genre it changes to.
3. We learn nothing of significance about Sam’s earth life. The film provides no profound emotional connection between Sam and his wife aside from the contrived relationship.
4. Gerty has no hidden motives. He is, more than anything else, a device that offers exposition in dialogue format.
5. Sam goes back to earth by the end of the film, therefore reducing the moon to just a setting, therefore squelching its implied significance as an escape-less prison in a Sartrean sense.

So, back to Sam Rockwell. Had he fulfilled his role as a passive ironic hero in this film, that promised so much but dug in so superficially? Absolutely. He is actually quite quite perfectly cast. I just hoped that both him and Moon would have brought about 70% more to the table.

By serena — June 29th 2009 — film — Share Your Thoughts

My Creative Cavity Requires Filling

There used to be a time, in the recent past, where I breathed the urge to make. I used to wake up with the ambition to create something that is, at its core, only conceived with the purpose of satisfying myself. The process that then took place would be my attempt to merge myself with the rest of the world. This was how shooting a film was to me, this was how making a wooden sculpture was to me, this was how banging madly on the piano to my own set of scale progressions was to me.

Over the course of the past year, the urge waned. It’s still there, somewhere, dormant in my head. The need is still present - but the two aren’t the same. The urge is a necessity that resulted in happiness. Without it, I feel malnourished and really isolated from the world around me.

I regret to end this long overdue blog on a melancholy note - but see it as a hopeful one as well, as it appears to promise remedial measures. I just have to find the spirit to realize these measures. Can I do it?

By serena — June 29th 2009 — personal interest + random — Share Your Thoughts

Waltz with Bashir

I finally watched “Waltz with Bashir” tonight at BAM, also known as my new favorite place in Brooklyn.

I honestly don’t know why I didn’t come here every day since I got my Movie Mogul membership, which allows me to see every film there at no cost.

This month, the theatre is show last films (or one of) by select directors of the past (and the present). Ari Folman’s “Waltz with Bashir” somehow made it into the list, despite its recentness. I missed this one when it came out last year, but since it was free, I gave it a shot

And boy, was I glad about going

In a nutshell, the film is a memoir by the director/writer. It is collage of scrambled memories of his time served in the Lebanon War. The animations are cinematic in aesthetics and movements, and the tone is a mixture of delirious 80’s and soothing sonatas.

My initial objection toward the film - and I am always too quick to judge a work to a fault - was the seemingly unnecessary animation treatment for what could’ve already been a moving story. It was the same question I had for “A Scanner Darkly,” whose rotoscope felt consistently gimmicky (even though I gave it the chance by seeing it in the theatres). This one justifies it fully. If fact, it makes the argument for it right from the start during a scene between the director character and one of the ex-soldier with whom he served in the army. The director visits his friend’s place in the Netherlands and asks to draw his friend playing with his son. The friend responds, “you can draw us, you just can’t film us.”

Why? Quite obviously, the camera is a weapon of exploitation. It doesn’t imply truth, it enforces it. The cameraman has tyrannical power over the free will of its subject matters, since the subjectivity that so unavoidably comes with photography is suspended when the film is played back. In other words, if the film had been live-action, then there is no question that fantasy is either completely separate from or synonymous with the truth. When the director/writer himself has no authority over the truthfulness of his memories, how can he be didactic over the veracity of his imageries? There is a default implication of subjectivity in animation that allows the narrative to remain in a gray area that appropriately place the audience in the correct mindset. In other words, it’s the honest approach.

While I am not the biggest fan of the particular style of the animation, I am of its color palette. It is consistently earthy and warm, saturated and soft. It contrasts with the un-glorified images of killing and death, just as the soothing soft rock music, its ironic lyrics, and the classical music, run through pulsating sounds of bullets and explosions. The entire film is a synthesis of opposites, one sweet but potent pill. Its sounds and visuals are so pleasing to look at at times, that I forget what is actually going on. In doing so, I become doubly alarmed when confronted with the real reality.

It has become formulaic for live-action war films, during their bloodiest battles (usually about 110 minutes in, end of second act - since they tend to run long) to incorporate a slow-motion, high film grain sequence backed by Enya-like humming. Soldiers usually yell inaudibly in pain and explosions occur in close-ups. And then, one bullet hisses across the screen and snaps everything back into normal speed and real sound. Well, this formula exists to make the audience child-like and vulnerable…so that once this montage is over, the audience is hit hard with the realization that war has robbed them of that comfort. “Waltz with Bashir” has none of that forced tear-jerking. It is, from the beginning to end, a ode to a confusing nightmare and beautiful dream. It doesn’t need the abrasive snap back to the reality of war, because, as it so poignant posits, there is no reality to this memory of war, there is only trauma and innocence lost.

This brings me to my only now substantiated object toward the film - the last sequence of live-action footage, which is a entirely excessive effort at addressing the reality of the situation. This is when I felt a tad of manipulation.

And the ending shot of the dead girl described by one of the ex-soldier characters? The girl in red would’ve been proud.

By serena — May 04th 2009 — film + music — Share Your Thoughts

Hunger

By serena — March 29th 2009 — film — Share Your Thoughts

Fever Ray - “Fever Ray”

I received my pre-order of “Fever Ray” yesterday in the mail. From the land of wasa bread.

Album artwork

The album artwork reminded me of a film I saw early November of 2008, “Fears of the Dark,” especially the segment by Charles Burns. The artwork was actually by Martin Ander. I don’t really know anything about him.

Whoa. A poster?

The proliferation of digital music download has rendered buying CDs almost obsolete for me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen lyric sheets on the insert (on the backside of this heavily folded, hence un-hangable poster.)

I’m on my third listen of the album today…wait, backing up. A little bit about Fever Ray: Fever Ray is a solo project by Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of the brother-sister band (a.k.a. the best band in the world, in history), The Knife. This self-titled album is the first release.

Most people who have heard “If I had a Heart” and “When I Grow Up” - and are familiar with The Knife - should have expected that Fever Ray is not a giant departure from The Knife. From the little we got from the first two single releases, and their somber music videos, Fever Ray seemed to be gentler, more delicate, and introspective. Upon my initial listen to the whole album, I did find that a more amorphous and mysterious overtone replaced the more energetic percussion found in The Knife. This is definitely to say that the percussion in Fever Ray is anywhere weak. In fact, it is in many ways more refined, forceful at times, and subtly complex. It interweaves beautifully with the melody (and do I hear more Eastern influences?) Songs that particularly stands out are “Seven,” “Triangle Walks,” and “Coconut.”

With all this said, I am not as immediately impressed by the vocals. The album is less theatrical than Karin’s previous works (and I feel more fair to compare this aspect, since her voice is not the subject of reinvention in this new project), and along with that is a more toned down, stripped down rendition of the lyrics. Her sound floats lightly about the surface of each song, lacking the emotional and dramatic scope so exquisite in the past.

Overall, I am very happy with Fever Ray. I am also crossing my finger that the Knife is not bygone news.

By serena — March 22nd 2009 — music — Share Your Thoughts

Alright, So A Reintroduction

I had all these elaborate plans to redesign Scribblepop.com into something flashy and splashy. I even started a few iterations. Things were well on their way when I came to realize that perhaps all the aesthetics makeup was bogging me down. So here it is, the revamped Scribblepop.com, with a simple, clean, well-functioning premade theme that I found in a hour. There are a few things that I will tweak in the next few days, to make sure that typography displays the way I want, but that’s all.

I cannot wait to start vlogging. Man, people are so going to care.

By serena — March 20th 2009 — news — Share Your Thoughts