In Bloom

   In Bloom is a Georgian film co-directed by Nina Ekvtimishvili (from Tbilisi) and Simon Groß (from Berlin). It was a tale of a two fourteen years old schoolgirls Eka and Natia (played by two teenager Georgian actresses Lika Babluani & Mariam Bokeria respectively) from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The story was set in 1992, the year after Georgia gained independent from Soviet Union. At that time, Georgia faced a civil war, as the northwestern region of Abkhazia was declaring independence from Georgia.

   The two protagonists of the film, Eka and Natia were the best of friends. Not much of their past was mentioned in the film, but they went to the same school together and sat next to each other in school. They always walked together from school to home after school ended. Both had family issues and they always talked to each other about issues in their lives. Frequently, they dealt with school and street bullies together, and they stood for each other’s well being.

   Both Eka and Natia seemed to be very mature for their age. This might be due to the civil war in Georgia in 1992 and political tormoils that happened to the country between the late 80's and early 90's. Georgian children did not have a nurturing western-style childhood and were forced to grow up prematurely. Eka was a bit shy, had a calm, nurturing personality, and would rather solve problems by peaceful approaches. Her best friend Natia, however, was more outgoing, hot-headed, and confrontational. She was very protective toward the people she cared about, such as her little brother and Eka.

    Because of Natia was physically attractive, there were two boys (Kote and Lado) in the films that showed affection on her, though she only returned affection on one of them. According to the depiction of the film, Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, was far from a peaceful, orderly, and quiet city. People were short-temper, brash, and rude. They are not be reluctant to yell at eacher. Murders and homicides were not uncommon, as it was portrayed by the imprisonment of Eka's father. He was suspected to kill Kopla's father, and was put into a prison as a result.

   The audience was never told if Eka's father was guilty in killing Kopla's father, butKopla wanted to take his own revenge by harrassing and giving threats to Eka. In most parts of the world, children tend to learn from adults and treat their parents as role models. This is not the case for Eka and Natia, or their peers as well. Because of the ways most adults behaved in Georgia, kids did not seemed to have respect on the adults. For examples, no one in the class care about their hot-headed class teacher that screamed and yelled at her students all time. They seemed to be worn out by many different issues and they did not seemed to care about anyone else. After the teacher sent Natia home for throwing her bookpack, all of the class decided to run out of the classroom, and went to an amusement park instead.

    The Georgians had to face many difficulties in a newly independent society such as poverty and employment. I would recommend this film for anyone who is interested in the lives of post-1991 Georgia. It might be a depressing film, but it showed a realistic way of lives of how Georgians lived at that time. The film also gave audience some hope by showing the maturity and sensual ways of the main protagonists.

Taiwan trip 2010 (Day 1)

   So I went to Taiwan with two of my high school friends between June 12th to 19th, in a total of 8 days. It was part of the personal 'celebration' of getting my Bachelor of Science in chemistry, or rather, a long break between schools. I travelled with Ben and Calvin. None of us had ever been to Taiwan so we had to plan ahead and we would try hard not to kill each other in those eight days (we were rather peaceful so no damage was done). We tried to avoid the popular  tourist destinations such as Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Kenting in order to see the local impression of Taiwan. I have read a lot about Taiwan in books and news. It is culturally similar to Hong Kong, as we both use the traditional Chinese scripts. I always think of Taiwan as one of the last refugees of the classical Chinese culture so I would like to experience something unique about Taiwan, its history, scenery and cultures a little bit. I felt Taipei and Kaohsiung are big metropolis so it would be similar to Hong Kong, and Kenting would be full of tourists in the summer time. Our destinations included Taichung, Nantou County, and Tainan. I originally included Chaiyi as well, but realised that it would be a much better idea to spend more time and have a deeper experiemence. I want to give my gratitude to Ben and Calvin for their time, permission of using their photographs, and putting up with my shit in those eight days.

Day 1:

Hong Kong -> Taichung -> Fengyuen

Day 2:

Fengyuen -> Dongshih -> Taichung

Day 3:

Taichung

Day 4:

Taichung -> Chinjing Farm

Day 5:

Chinjing Farm -> Puli -> Tainan

Day 6:

Tainan

Day 7:

Tainan -> Taichung

Day 8:
Taichung -> Hong Kong

Taichung Ching Chuang Kang Airport - a former Republic of China Air Force base. Also one of the three airports in Taiwan that serves passenger to fly internationally. Small, compact, but practical.

A view of street in Shalu, right outside of the airport terminal. Gloomy, rainy day but we were optimistic.

We flew into Taichung Airport from Hong Kong International Airport and I was amazed how tiny the airport was, despite it serves as an international airport. The weather was not as good as we hoped, as it was raining for the first three days our trip, which means our trip in Taichung. Our first destination was Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. Before we headed to Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts, we had our lunch in a nicely decorated Mediterranean-themed restaurant called Santorini.

The interior of the Santorini. We ate on the ground floor, but there are three stories altogether with different themes.

This is what I ordered. I forgot the name but the right cheese covered dish was supposed to be pasta.

A seafood dish with shrimp and clams with some spaghetti noodles.

Another dish that I did not remember what it was.

Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts is a comprehensive art museum that shows different kinds of arts ranging from 16th century to modern arts. Each of their art work is divided into different category. No pictures were taken since photography is not allowed in the museum. One major difference I have noticed between the art in Hong Kong and Art in Taiwan was the amount of support of local artists between two places. Hong Kong Museum of Art does have many Chinese exhibits, but is lack of artworks from modern artists from Hong Kong. Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts, does however, had a balanced amount of exhibits from western, Chinese, and local Taiwanese artists, they do have promotions on local artists hanging outside of their museums.

The building of the art museum and its promotion for some of its limited time exhibits.

Some sculptures in front of the museum.

A nice walk from the museum to the Taichung station, where we hopped on the train to go to Fengyuen.

Since we were planning to go to Dungshih Forest Park in the early morning of the 2nd day and we had to get up earlier to get the bus, we decided to stay in spend the night in Fungyuen, which has direct bus route to Dungshih. Fengyuen is a medium-size city that is located northeast of Taichung city and was called Toyohara during its colonial period by Japan. It took only 25 minutes for the train to go to Fengyuen to Taichung. In case if you have not seen, a night market in Taiwan is refered as a section of a district that is offered to people to hang out and enjoy themselves at night. We went to Temple East Night Market. It is named so because it is near Tsz Chi Temple. We hung out and enjoyed the food in Temple East Night Market. The night market was quite crowded, despite that fact that there was rain earlier in the day. I ate so much that I was almost unable to walk on that night. Then we stayed in a hotel called "Good Hotel".

Fengyuen's Tsz Chi Temple that the night market is named after.

All kinds of cheap, delicious food stalls on both sides of the alley.

Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut will probably known as the last film of Stanley Kubrick than a good thriller-adventure-drama whatever you call it. It was a film so special not because of its former screen couple cast made of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but because of its content, style that Kubrick had left us with.

The film talked about the disintegrating relationship between the couple of an upper-middle class family. Bill was a self-confident, handsome doctor who had his own private practice. Alice was a beautiful, car housewife who lost the passion for her husband, after marrying him. She only wanted to stay with Bill because of the wealth and stability that Bill provided her. Those two were skeptical at each other's faithfulness during a party held by Bill's multimillionaire patient, who is an elite of the society. When the couple was separated and were both flirted by other party guests. After going home, the couple was arguing about their troubled relationship and Alice told Bill that she had an affair with a soldier a year ago. Bill was very troubled by the affair (though not shown in front of other people) and tried to chill himself out by hanging out in with his old friend Nick and a hooker on the street named Domino. Bill restrained himself from an affair with a hooker after Alice had called him. The story ended at the end, when they took their daughter to a Christmas shopping. Those two agreed to stay together as a couple and settle the difference. Alice suggested that by having sex can save their marriage and make them stay together.

What this film lacked was the emotional change of Alice's mind. Even toward the end of the film, Alice could not restore the passion that she once had with Bill. She still stayed with Bill for the same reason: for the child, for the wealth and stability that Bill had. Though it was never talked about, she might have another affair with a man that she would feel passion on.

The theme of the movie was "faith", after being confessed that Alice had an affair, Tom had the choice to "take his revenge" by having his own affair, and to lower his ego and forgive Alice. Alice had a choice to make: either having passionate love and face the consequences of living in poverty, or to stay with faithful man that she lost her passion in. Both of them were suffered from the affair and Tom showed that he was a great man, despite that fact that he had some moments of having his "revenge" by trying to have an affair with an HIV-positive hooker. The cult-party parted was pretty hilarious, it might be that those powerful people were really boring and had nothing else better to entertain themselves. Maybe Kubrick wanted to show his audience how dirty those so called "elites" really were. Some parts of the films were remained as mystery, such as Mandy's death and whereabouts of Nick, after he left the hotel. This film is needed to be watched more than once, in order to absorb want Kubrick's message is. Here we should give our final salute to the great Kubrick. 8.3/10

Visitor Q

What can I say about this film? This film will probably end up as the weirdest film I've seen in 2009. Visitor Q is directed by Miike Takashi, a renowned Japanese director known for his violent, highly controversial movies.

On the surface, this film will never be appreciated by the public because of its incest, murderous, druggy, sexual, violent content. Out of the six major characters in the film (Yamazaki family, The Visitor, and , four of them were in nudity for more than a brief period. Drug uses, mutilation of dead bodies were portrayed throughout the entire film and certainly Visitor Q is not something for kids.

Under the surface, the film talks about the very commonly seen issue of Japanese society: the lack of bondings between family members. The Yamazaki family was a family that had their issues: the father was a hard working reporter that was sexually abused by street bullys, when he was trying to report a news story; the mother was a drug (possibly heroin) addict that was bullied all the time by her son; the daughter was a high school student that sells her body for money, and she did not mind who the customers are, as long as she gets paid; the son was probably as junior high students who is heavily bullied in school and took his frustration on him mother.

The film began when the father and his daughter were in a love hotel. The father wanted to film a documentary about the prostitution problem of high school girls. He recorded the whole period of the sexual engage. Even though he was trying to resist his sexual temptation, but could not resist the seduction of his teenage daughter and the two had sex. After he paid for sex and ready to go home, he was hit on the back of his head by a mysterious person, known as the Visitor. Then the setting switched to Yamazaki's home, where the mother was whipped by the son, because she bought him an "ugly" toothbrush. The father brought the Visitor home as a guest and the Visitor changed the fate of the whole family...

Takashi probably wanted to talk about the "reunion" of the family by the Visitor. The Visitor was seen holding a camcorder all the time and filmed most of the events from the family members. Visitor's departure at the end of the film symbolized that the Visitor had fixed the family's issue and he was no longer needed to be with the Yamazaki family. For example, the father and mother were happy as a newly wed couple when they helped each other to dispose of the dead body of the father's female co-worker. The mother was much more happier after she was able to lactate from her nipples. This probably meant that the mother had returned to her role, from a heroin addict to the matriarch of the family. The father was able to returned to the role of a father after he decided to kill the bullies that haunted her son. He changed his role from an observer to a father whose main responsiblity is to protect the members of his family. By killing the bulies, the son was freed from bullies and he could concentrate to play his role as a member of his family: to study hard for a good, reputable high school. The visitor was probably an "invinsible fellow" who guided the family back to how it was supposed to be.

I have to warn, this film is only for mature audience only, due to its gore, disgusting content. However, those contents were treated with light msuic, and the effect was that it became more like a black comedy by suggesting the audience not to take those content literally. The film is not for those people does not like to think when they watch films and will take every single content literally. Remember, this is just a movie, so do not take its contents too literally and start to condemn in its moral issues. Finally, even though this is a heck of a strange film, it is deserved to be watched. 7.5/10

Night and Fog

Night and Fog, is a Hong Kong film that is set in a planned town called Tin Shui Wai, located in the northwest of Hong Kong. It is loosely based on several homicides that happened in Tin Shui Wai in the last few years. Ling, played by Fujian actress Zhang Jingchu, is a new immigrant that moved to Hong Kong from a rural village in Szechen, China. Ever since 1997, jobs (especially unskilled labors such as construction workers, factory workers) had decreased by a tremandous amount. Many people had lost their job, including Lee (played by Simon Yam, who was originally a blue collar construction worker. In the film, Lee did not have a job and relied on social welfare and Ling worked as a waitress in a small restaurant, in order to provide an extra income for the family. Several cases of financial problems were shown in the film, for example, neither Lee nor Ling was able to pay the kindergarten the "birthday fees" for the twins' birthday party. Lee was a man with high ego that did not want other people to know that his wife supports him.

The movie talked about how the family dispute ended up in a tregedy. Director Ann Hui wanted the show people all the factors that helped contribute a homicide or a domestic abuse. The depressed, middle-aged man's insecure feeling, the new immigrant's heavy Chinese accent, the busy district representative, the police, and the inexperienced social worker all contributed to the tregedy. Ann Hui wanted to point out that the tregedies were not cause by a single madman, but caused by the environment, the condition, and the society.

Ann Hui wanted Hong Kong people to raise a public awareness, because many Hong Kong people are almost being enslaved by the long working hours. Many people simply did not have the energy to deal with other people. The society became cold, people became more distant to another.

This film also attacked the weakness of a man: unwilling to lose face. The first impression of Lee from Mrs. Au was that Lee was loving, caring father; Lee was protrayed as a nice guy when he travelled to Schezhen with Ling and met her family. However, when things did not go well, Lee beat Ling and insulted her, saying that she was ignorant and stupid. This actually happens in many families in Hong Kong.

Both Ling and Lee showed the stereotypical characters in the Chinese society. Ling represented millions of poor Chinese rural women the travelled thousands of miles to seek a job, in order to support the family back home. Many of them work in sweat shop factory in order to support the greedy big brands and the rich people there live across the globe. Lee, on the other hand, is an example of many lower class Hong Kong man that marries a young Chinese girl. Many Chinese considers Hong Kong is a rich place full of gold, as as a result, a Hong Kong man would have a higher social status than a Chinese man.

The police officer's attitude also shown how bad the civil servants' morale and in Hong Kong nowadays. Many Hong Kong people were not happy with the job. They kept their jobs simply for the income. Civil servants (such as police, social workers) are very well paid compared with people working for private industry. Many people did not have passion in their job. The police officer shown in the film was not interested in Ling's issue. After the tregedy, the police lied to the public that Ling did not report the violence to the police, in order to protect their face. There are several real occasions that the police chief had lied to the public and I can share this if I can find the source.

Despite all these negatives aspect from the society, Ling's best friend in Hong Kong, such as Lei, was a strong character that was willing to fight for herselves. She joined the demostration and demostrate about women's right. That showed no matter how bad those conditions were, there were always some people there were willing to fight and stand up for him/herself.

Discrimination is also a major problem in Hong Kong. Even though Hong Kong is made up of most immigrants that moved there for the last 60 years, they still discriminiate against people that they consider as lower class, such as new immigrants from China, South Asian, Black, people with physical and mental disabilities. Ann Hui wanted to show people the problems of the modern Hong Kong society, using this film as an example. This film will probably end up as one of the best film in 2009, at least locally. 8.7/10.

Persepolis

Persepolis is a French animated film based on the comic with the same title, created by Marjane Satraphi. It is a loosely autobiographical film that talked about how her life experience in different countries, and how she thought about her family and her country.

Marjane Satraphi is a French graphical novelist who was born in Tehran in the year of 1969. The movie focused a lot politically with the government that overthrew the Shah during Iranian Revolution in 1978. Marjane was born in a middle class family. They were scholars who enjoyed their freedom until the Iranian Revolution, when women were required to wear veil by laws, alcohol was forbidden, and Islam was made the official religion.

Marjane was an outspoken person during her college year. She asked many questions regarding why females were not allow to do certain things that men could. Marjane's parents had sent her abroad to Austria to experience a new life. She felt homesick and went back to Iran. Eventually the political crisis in Iran forced her to move to France, where she was allowed to express herself.

Overall, Persepolis is an emotional film because Marjane faced many different problems throughout her life, such as drug, men, and the problem of her homeland. The style of this film is black and white, then it became colorful toward the end, when the film went to "present-tense", to where Marjane was thinking about her childhood when she was in the airport.

Whether this film has a political motivation or not, this film showed how Iranian Revolution had changed people's live forever. People could no longer enjoy their freedom, and they can be arrested by talking about the government, drinking alcohol. This film is banned in Iran, saying that this film has given an incorrect image of the country. Whether you want to watch this film is up to you. For me, this film is definitely worth watching. (8.3/10)

Okuribito (Departures)

Okuribito is a Japanese film that is known for the "Best Foreign Film" in 2009's Academy Award. After hearing the film from a friend, I've decided to take a shot. This is a film about an introverted married man named Daigo Kobayashi (played by Masahiro Motoki) pursuing his life long dream. After Daigo felt he failed as a celloist, he decided to move from Tokyo to Yamagata, where he grew up in. After realizing that Yamagata was a hard place to find a job, he saw the ad from a newspaper and interviewed for a job that he thought he would become a travel agent, but only end up as an encoffiner, a job that takes care of the funeral service. Although it is a relatively high paying job, it is considered as a dirty job in Japan (from the reaction of Mika and Yamashita), as death is considered a taboo in most Asian countries. This film is loosely based on an autobiography from Aoki Shinmon, a real-life encoffiner who wrote a book about his job.

The thing I like about this film was the idea of making a film that talks about people after their lives. As death is considered a taboo and dirty in most Asian countries, the film gave another perspective to audience how people view the death of their love ones. The film also talked about how conservative people are, when Daigo's old friend and wife, Yamashita and Mika, felt the job Daigo has was not a "real" job that normal people should have. Daigo felt happy and satisfaction when he noticed the death's relative gave gratitude of his work. He realized death is a part of life for everyone, and it should treated respectively.

I found Mika's role (played by Ryoko Hirosue) kind of boring in the beginning, because she was opposed to Daigo's job, probably afraid to the fact that Daigo would be discriminted by other people, or that she could not accept a husband that has a "dirty job". She was basically an obedient house wife that tried her best to make her husband happy, as her own happiness comes from Daigo. At first, she could not accept Daigo's job, until Tsuyako died in the bath house. From that point she started to understand Daigo's feeling about the job. Her support has made Daigo open his heart to other her, as he felt that he has something to be proud of. There is a lot of stuff that I did not talk about, you should go watch the film if you are interested. (7.8/10)