tsewei’s blog

Sin City has been showing here in the US for a week. It has got to be the coolest thing around and I have got to watch it!!! (I’ve only seen the trailer and heard my classmate’s review). I’m so excited about it!

Ok, so why do I think it’s so cool?

1. It’s in black and white, punctuated by burst of colors (like blood red, and yellow) at some parts, giving it a really dramatic look. (I just have this thing for black and white )

2. It does not strive to be realistic. It’s a comic book story, and it stays that way. It looks exactly like how comics look like - bold lights, dark shadows and dramatic scenes.

3. It’s got really cool actors in it!! Bruce Willis, Benicio del Toro (loved him ever since I watched Snatch), Clive Owen (loved his acting in Closer). And Gilmore Girl’s Alexis Bledel has a small role in it! And for the guys, there’s always Jessica Alba (she plays a stripper, and she pole dances — that’s great incentive for catching the movie even if you don’t like comic adaptations )

Ok, me trying to explain it here is useless. Go watch the trailer !! And you’ll know what I mean.

From what I see from the trailer, I’m guesing that some people might be criticizing the film for degrading women (yes, they are all rather provocatively-dressed and basically involved in roles that aren’t exactly ‘empowering’ in feminist view) or the overt violence, but frankly I don’t really care. The cinematography and visual artistry excites me enough already!

Can’t wait to catch it!
*highly excited*

Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.

updated at 1.21am:
Just found out that Sin City opens in Malaysia in June. Which means I’ll get to go watch it with my darling au yong when I’m back from the US!!! woohooo!

8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo) by Federico Fellini is one of the most charming movies I’ve ever seen.

Made in 1963, 8 1/2 is an Italian film about a director who’s lost his inspiration to make his next film after coming off his previous success. In it, he deals with his own personal issues, through vivid scenes of fantasies and childhood recollections.

Symbolism is everywhere in the film, which makes it all the more interesting and fun to watch, trying to catch the layers of meaning underneath the film’s surface. The fantasies, dreams and memories are really classic examples of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. It’s like watching a psychological internal struggle going on.

And it’s in black and white. All the more charming.

I was hoping to get the DVD copy of the film. Unfortunately, it’s only available in region 1 format — which means I can’t watch it with my DVD player back at home ‘coz Southeast Asia is region 3. Sigh. So disappointing. Was all pumped up about shopping for it on Amazon or something.

oh well. But I really love this. Anyone who can find this in Singapore or Malaysia, you MUST tell me about it ok??

Updated: decided to put up a picture of the film.
o0oh must not forget to mention its cinematography. Excellent I tell you. All the surrealistic images (almost-circus-like) really blends reality with his fantasies. A truly delightful film. And I’d recommend this to EVERYONE!!

Saw La Jetée during class last week for my Media Aesthetics and Analysis class. A French classic made in 1962, its poignancy and its impactful images stole my heart right from the very beginning.

La Jetée is unconventional in the sense that it uses photo-montages, a simple soundtrack and a sparse (yet powerful) narration to tell its story. Absent are the usual fancy camera moves or quick edits and special effects. In place is a series of photographs, in black and white, freezing a particular moment, a particular motion, a particular personality, weaving a melancholic story of a world of destruction and war, memory and destiny. It’s the best illustration of what “less is more” means. Stripped to the bare essentials of cinematography, it had more to show, and to tell, in its full 28 minutes, than the usual 2-hour blockbuster.

The movie portrays a post-apocalyptic world, where humans were driven underground because of the destruction we have brought upon ourselves. Scientist then designed experiments to send people backward and forward in time to search for a way out to save themselves. Sounds like a science fiction story, but it is really more than that. With the technology, our lead character had a chance to go back in time and romance a woman he remembered from his childhood in the pre-war years, a chance to share little moments here and there of the peaceful past with the woman whose image was clearly etched in his memory, a woman whom he knows will eventually die. But there’s a little twist to the movie at the end, of which its beauty I will not reveal here.

Found out that 12 Monkeys was actually inspired by La Jetée. No wonder the story is similar. But La Jetée is by far superior. But then again, it’s probably an unfair comparison, since they are essentially different in the way they tell the story.

I am entranced by this movie. Must get my DVD copy. But read online that a french copy is hard to find. And I don’t want a dodgy English dubbing. sigh. Maybe I’ll go steal the reel that the college has here mwahaha. (yup, and have no way of viewing it later. right.)

“Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. Later on they do claim remembrance when they show their scars. That face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had he invented that tender moment to prop up the madness to come?

The sudden roar, the woman’s gesture, the crumpling body, and the cries of the crowd on the jetty blurred by fear.

Later, he knew he had seen a man die.”

I am so inspired. Feel like making a film myself too. sigh.