Pan (2015)

Yesterday we watched the premier for Pan, a new take on the classic fairy tale of Peter Pan.

This movie boasts many big names like Hugh Jackman, Emma Stone and Amanda Seyfried, and of them all Hugh Jackman is truly amazing as Blackbeard. He struts around and is ruthlessly villainous with a taste for after-his-time Nirvana, the major source of humor in this movie. Perhaps the best parts were to see him putting up with his ignorant crew with sassy impatience. Levi Miller, who plays Pan, is a fantastic actor who is tasked with the burden of carrying the whole movie. He does so with his boyish charm and soulful eyes (really, how much bluer can those eyes get) and sells his role extremely well.

The plot is less about Peter Pan stealing children and more of how he was stolen and 'returned' to Neverland. He finds out his destiny through a prophecy and the movie revolves around him, the unlikely child hero, defeating the big bad (bald) villain. In terms of enjoyment, this movie was highly enjoyable despite being riddled with plot holes. Much of the elements of awe stems from the particularly dense intertextuality of the film.

Fans of Hook starring Robin Williams or even the Disney cartoon Peter Pan would probably be disappointed at this movie and how it rushes through the plot despite a great chance to explore more of the lore and world. I don't appreciate how Tiger Lily was white-washed, but the costume and make-up artist definitely did a fantastic job on designing her character. The Tribe was a symphony of colors and sights and a giant melting pot of cultures. There are hints of Hindu, Chinese, Aboriginal Australian culture, to name a few obvious ones. It was a marvelous job by the team designing the set and costumes for this particular aspect. What I really disliked was how the film absolutely glossed over the mermaids and their story. The very conveniently explanation of the mermaid's "water charged with memories" was simply too ridiculous for my disbelief to be suspended even momentarily.

Pan caters to the almost grown-up millennials that are still have protective of their childhood and Disney in particular. There are many references to previous Disney movies. Blackbeard's line "I am surrounded by imbeciles." is almost a direct quote from The Lion King when Scar famously claims that he "is surrounded by idiots".

When Blackbeard loses his hair (spoiler!) he touches his head, much like how Hades does after his hair is blown out by Pegasus in Hercules.

These are only certain examples that I caught, but they are fun easter eggs to hunt throughout the movie.

Sure the film has some pretty bad moments, but overall it was a fun and enjoyable movie if you're not too critical about everything. The colors and visuals were very well done, and though the film has heavy CG, it doesn't took terrible with 3D. (Though I'd imagine it would look very fake in 2D.) Pan is a pleasant movie that I'm sure will be followed up by sequels.

Alice In Wonderland vs Spirited Away

When I first watched Spirited Away, what stuck me almost instantly was how similar it seemed to a classic Disney cartoon, Alice In Wonderland. Yet it was later when I recently went back to rewatch the cartoon that I noticed it was greatly different as well. The main characters in particular, made all the difference. Both Alice and Chihiro may be young girls who entered a fanciful world, but their journey made greatly different impacts upon them.

Let's start with the beginning.

In Alice In Wonderland, the film starts off with Alice being bored with her sister's lessons. She then tells her cat Dinah that "if I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense". This obviously means Wonderland. She wishes that she can 'escape' the boring life and have fun adventures elsewhere. Then she notices the white rabbit, and out of curiosity, follows him through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. While she falls, however, she turns around and says "Goodbye, Dinah!" in a forlorn voice. In Spirited Away, Chihiro is grudgingly taken away from her old life by her parents, and she actually does not at all want to go forward with a 'new place', as shown by how she was sulking in the car and unwillingness to follow her parents, even asking them to "Go back!". The falling through the rabbit hole in Alice In Wonderland and the walk through the tunnel in Spirited Away may be similar in meaning, where they journey into a new fantastical world, but the situation in which the two main characters make that journey are vastly different.

Now that the two main characters have reached the beginning of their journey, how do they react? How do they deal with the problems that arise? How do they interact with the other characters in that fantastical world they're not used to?

To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed with the characterization of Alice. She is self-centered, rude and cocky, and I didn't like her at all. She insults or angers each character she meets, she wrecks havoc, she messes up the regular order of Wonderland (or at least, order as regular as Wonderland can be). I suppose, however, that it was a portrayal of exactly how childlike Alice is. A child dropped into the land of (supposedly) her own imagination must feel like she somehow can control it, no? According to her song in the beginning of the film, before she meets the White Rabbit, she has already wanted to speak to flowers that know everything and other magnificent creatures. It is later when she does meet the flowers, however that she finds out how mean the flowers are (although she herself was not all that polite as well). Her discourteous manner or inconsiderate attitude was already shown in the beginning, when she tried to open the Doorknob. She was irritated and frustrated she could not get to the other side. Another notable moment in the film was when she was rude to the Caterpillar. He gets into such a rage he actually turned red. Alice was impertinent to the Caterpillar, and after a while she stalks off, even when the Caterpillar was trying to help, somewhat. After she eats the mushroom she grows and knocks into a mother bird and her eggs. She never apologized (never once throughout the whole film, actually), and forgets about the incident afterwards. Later, after finding the White Rabbit's house, and being mistaken for his maid, she goes into his room and eats the EAT ME cookie. Keeping in mind that this film was produced in 1951, wouldn't it be rude to barge into someone's home and just simply eat things that are lying around? (Even now we don't take things without prior permission!) Of course it's a Wonderland habit, but this time Alice really didn't get permission, unlike from the Doorknob the first time and from the Caterpillar who told her to eat the mushroom. So then Alice grows huge and generally breaks everything in the White Rabbit's house. Neither does she apologize for doing so.

However she changes after meeting the Cheshire Cat. She had gotten sick of chasing after the White Rabbit and laments that she wants to go home. The Cheshire Cat pops out. Alice is quite scared by him, as she doesn't act as forward and mean to him as she had done to the previous characters. When the Cheshire Cat tells her there is no way back, she is worried. She also rejects the idea of joining the Mad Tea Party, but then the Cheshire Cat tells her that everyone is mad in Wonderland. Later when she does stumble upon the Tea Party, she is polite and courteous. Perhaps the Cheshire Cat had changed her mind about how Wonderland works. Alice obviously never thought of the dangers of Wonderland before, but now she is faced with potentially threatening characters - "mad people". So this time she does not demand, or argue. She tries to go along with the flow of conversation and is later distracted by the White Rabbit again. She loses him in the woods. It is only now that she feels scared and the urge to go home, it is only now she feels as if she might not find a way back. Thus, helpless, she cries, displaying that she is quite useless and weak. And like all good Disney cartoons, the creatures flock to her as she cries. Of course. Again she is saved by the Cheshire Cat, who tells her to see the Red Queen. She first meets the three cards painting the roses red, and she decides to help, which was a great change from how she is usually breaking things and being nasty to other characters. She also humors the Queen, most possibly because she thinks the Queen is her way back home. Later however, when she eats the mushroom at the trial and grows huge, she scolds the Red Queen. At the same time when she got smaller, she loses that courage. This shows that Alice actually is quite the bully and not a particularly nice girl. She gets chased by everyone in Wonderland in the end, all of them angry or worked-up. Compared to Chihiro, I felt that she is immature and quite self-centered.

Let's move on to Chihiro. At first she displays signs of being spoiled, because she whines a lot. In the car, she grouses that she had to move house, and later refuses to go through the tunnel. After her parents turn to pigs and she doesn't cross the river again in time, she is forced to work at the bath house. To be honest I thought she was quite dumb and useless as well, when she was in the boiler room and trying to "help" but not doing a very good job of it. Later when Lin takes Sen under her wing, she tries to work, but fails miserably in efficiency compared to the rest. No one quite knows what to do with her.

Yet she also shows that she's strong-willed and hard-headed. She demands Yubaba to give her a job, and she tries her best to do it, as shown by the lengths she would go to help the river god, and later, No-Face. While the rest of the workers in the bath house shy away from the "dirty customers", she undergoes her tasks dutifully, even using the best hot water and noticing that there was something wrong with the river god- and she helped him out. Not only that, when Haku fell ill after stealing Zeniba's secret seal, Sen took it upon herself to get to Zeniba and apologize on Haku's behalf. Even if she had to "walk there following the train tracks", she would make the journey. She doesn't think twice, she doesn't doubt herself. She just does.

People are drawn to Chihiro as well. Obviously she has Haku on her side, but later the boiler man Komaji can't help but be taken in by her simpleness. He produces the train tickets for her to go to find Zeniba, a particularly heavy gift. Lin also cares for her, though she may deny it. She guides Sen through the life of the bath house and supervises her work, sometimes giving her the easy jobs intentionally. No-Face desires to be her friend, giving her all sorts of present and wrecking havoc in the process. A little closer to the end, all of the workers in the bath house were- if not friends, then positive of their reception of her. When Chihiro correctly guesses her parents, they cheer for her happiness and success.

From this we can see that the differences between Alice and Chihiro are quite vast. Whereas Alice was rude to the people she met on her adventure, and ending it being chased down by them; Chihiro slowly
worms her way into the heart of the people she meets, and she leaves with the others cheering for her. Whereas Alice demanded things to be done for her, Chihiro gladly took things into her own hands and made it happen.

This also brings me to how the two of them had matured and learned from their respective adventures. Alice never showed any sign of maturation. She goes through the whole adventure as a bratty kid and comes out a bratty kid. Literally all she did was go though the experience, but never learning. Chihiro, on the other hand, changes vastly. She grew up, basically. She started her adventure timid and hopeless, but came out matured and fearless. She became a woman who wasn't afraid to look forward to the future.

I was quite surprised how such a similar story can be vastly different when properly analyzed. Alice In Wonderland and Spirited Away are both childhood favorites, and I am glad to have been able to compare them in this way, trying to understand the characters.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_(1951_film)#Cast

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043274/quotes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/quotes

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spirited_Away

ET17: Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby is the sort of screwball comedy I wouldn't mind rewatching again, full of jokes and innuendos one won't get tired of.

The casting is brilliant. If at first no one had told me that Binging Up Baby would be a reversal of gender roles I would have thought it was a generic boy-meets-girl, and a series of events would be the main point of humour, though at the end they get together and live happily ever after. This is because Cary Grant is the epitome of the alpha male, while Katherine Hepburn is the epitome of the ditzy blonde. And obviously we have a prejudiced idea of how the characters would, and should, act.

The film blows that preconceived idea out of the water. Cary Grant, when we expect him to be well-composed and suave, turns out to be a bumbling socially awkward archaeologist. Katherine Hepburn, when we expect her to be silly and ungrounded, turns out to be a brave strong woman who would do anything to keep her man.

The alpha male is, surprisingly, portrayed by Hepburn. She has all the alpha male characteristics: she is stubborn, headstrong, cunning and charming. She also has a pet leopard, which subtly shows her 'alphaness' as she is able to tame it. The 'damsel in distress', funnily, is Grant. He is confused and led on a wild goose chase by Susan, he is basically led around, seemingly on a 'leash', by Susan. He is tame and sometimes cowardly in the beginning of the film.

Later, we see this change; Grant breaks free of the 'leash', it is as if he becomes the wild leopard. This symbolises that he gets back his 'manhood'; after always being controlled by Ms Swallow and later, Susan. He allows is alpha male side to show, and Susan becomes the 'beta'.

The romance is poignant since the two main characters meet. The sexual tension is apparent and the many shots taken to overcome the Hays Code is blatantly sexual, in particular when David and Susan both rip their clothing, and later press their bodies together to "cover up" and "maintain decency". This was a blatant expression of sex, as was apparent to mostly everyone. There was also a great deal of sexual innuendo in conversations and most prominently in the writing, for example, David's "bone", the symbol of his maleness, and also the thing he was searching for throughout the film.

The power relationship is complicated, since David has more power in the relationship if we go according to the Theory of Less Interest, which is that the less interested party holds more power. However I think in a way David is also interested in the relationship even though he denies it, hence in this case they would be equal. On other matters , however, Susan holds more power. She is the one who is able to convince David to do things he thinks are retarded (and still does it anyway), she is the one who manages to make David miss his own wedding, she is the one who in the end manages to keep David. Her status overpowers his in monetary value and power status, since she (technically, her aunt) has the one million grant that David wants for the museum.

The comedy was very well-done, not being too stupid or vulgar. There was a mixture of funny moments from the actors (David and Susan crawling around the ground looking for his bone), funny one-liners (when David announces sarcastically that he's gay) and the situations the character are thrown into (being locked inside a jail while a wild leopard prowls outside). I think that if any part of the comedy was over-exaggerated Bringing Up Baby would have been another generic comedy, otherwise easily forgotten. All this is, however, based on the fact that the idea of such a complete role reversal is, to the viewers, funny and unheard of, and thus humorous. 

Another film comes to mind when I watched Bringing Up Baby. The Proposal, (starring Sandra Bullock) was also a rom-com about the role reversal of the two main characters. Again, it is the female lead that has more power over the male lead. It is only later in the film that the male lead regains his 'alphaness'.

In general I truly enjoyed Bringing Up Baby, mostly because it isn't a generic forgettable romantic comedy that is manufactured by the film industry these days. There were a lot of layers of meaning underneath the surface, and many hints and inside jokes that one only gets when watching the film a second time. And speaking of which, I wouldn't mind watching Bringing Up Baby another time!

ET 27: Banned!

To whom it may concern:

I write to express my horror at a screening of a documentary called Paris Is Burning by Mr. Rey,a film lecturer of ADP. Although I am very open-minded, such atrocities still mustn't be shown to students at the easily influenced age! Imagine if all of them started to dress up like those men in drag!

Malaysians are still very conservative people. I do not believe in nonsense like sex-before-marriage and girls trying to be slutty. This is all corruption brought over from the Westerners who are all very slutty and uncultured even though they might be more modern than us. God dislikes all this showing of nudity and it is very inappropriate especially for university students. If they think that wearing short shorts and tight clothing is okay then chances are they are going to be raped because these slutty girls are just asking for it.

It goes against the higher powers that these men in the documentary try so hard to be women. God made you a man,so why not be a man! It is wrong to be a woman when you are a man. You will not go to heaven. If I had a son I wouldn't want him to be like those men. He would never get married and have kids and he will burn in hell. I would be so embarrassed and ashamed to have him as a son.

The most terrifying part of the film is that these gay people and transsexuals try so hard to be part of society- they are freaks! If they stop this degrading behavior at once then society will welcome them with open arms! It's quite obvious why we reject them when they so clearly do not abide by society's rules. They could be walking in our streets and no one would know,and slowly corrupt the young minds that going against god is the 'cool' thing to do.

I was not surprised to hear that one of the gay men was killed. He was a monster, and he got into cars of other men. Not only was he gay, he was stupid. Of course his end wasn't a happy one. In fact, good riddance! We'd be one gay less.

However there was the Mother (how disgusting, a mother is a sacred position, not one to be filled by the male sex!) of the House of Ninja who later on became successful in teaching dance. This shows how the entertainment industry is dirty and corrupt as well, since they allow such vulgar people to be in positions of power, or to be looked up to. It is a disgrace to society how these people think they can go against the foundations of humanity and still think there would not be repercussions.

Also the documentary shows a lot of sexuality and bad habits like smoking. God resents smokers, smokers will never go to heaven as well. Teenagers are very hormone-driven and would think that the decadent behavior is perfectly fine. It seems that many of the gays shown have had sexual experience at a very young age- and with other men! How very rude and inappropriate! What if other students who saw it,and being curious, tries it out? It would be a shame to them and their family.

The documentary teaches that it is okay be different from society, it teaches the viewers to think for themselves and be who they are, even if it goes against God. Of course all this is very bad mentality which Malaysians don't need because such thinking will corrupt us. We are still a very pure country, we don't need all this Western nonsense.

I dislike the idea that the documentary tells people that being gay and transsexual is okay because it is not. But the even bigger problem is that such a shocking movie was shown in a university course as a teaching material! Exactly what is the lecturer trying to teach the students?! He is obviously part of an evil gay cult who uses his status as a lecturer to try to brainwash students. He does not at all respect Malaysia's government and screens banned shows to easily influenced university students!

People should never go against God's will, and teachers should not be corrupting innocent young minds with sexuality and homosexual materials. If these people start to riot against the government because they want to be 'different' and go against society then Malaysia is going to face another scare. It would be hard to try to compose all the hormone-driven teenagers who were influenced by Western nonsense because of scandalous documentaries. I request that the lecturer involved remove the film from the course immediately and then use it as a warning to his previous students to not go down the road of those gays and transsexuals because they will end up raped and killed in a seedy motel. Malaysia is a religious country which upholds our traditions and morals, the younger generation is already too corrupted, we must stop it at once.

((NOTE: ALL ABOVE CONTENT IS SATIRE. DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY.))

ET 25: Chinatown: the Ending

The ending of Chinatown is quite simply a chaotic mess of feelings. There isn't time to breathe, to understand what is going on, to explain. Everything happens too soon and too quickly, and ends tragically for everyone.

The whole ending is shot wonderfully. First off, the cinematography. The whole scene was shot on eye-level. Such an angle decidedly makes the viewer feel involved- it makes the viewer feel like he/she is standing there, on scene. We're caught up in the hectic mess of people on all sides accusing each other and screaming, and although we know the truth and are on Gittes' side, we're still quite drawn to the charming way Noah Cross calmly demands that his daughter is not sane- and for a short moment we start to doubt whether Evelyn was lying again, as she had been doing all throughout the film. Suddenly the truth seems clouded again and Gittes himself is uncertain. The music is important too- or more specifically the lack of music. The viewer becomes fully focused on the scene, there is no room for distractions- not even in the form of the absolutely stunning soundtrack for the film. And after all the babble and confusion that happens, Evelyn drives away with the person she wants to protect, and we think that it's all going to end well for her as her car vanishes into the distance and the gunshots miss her.

But of course it's a not very noir-like to have a happy ending, is it?

The sound of the car-horn deafens everything else. At first the viewer is confused, as the gunshots and the car-horn seem to meld together to make one sound, but after a while this great sense of unwitting fear and despair grip you from the inside as you recognize the sound for what it is. Soon after the car-horn melds with Katherine's terrified, almost inhuman scream as well, and without even seeing what happens, the audience knows it. It's the noir ending we thought we would be safe from.

We see Evelyn's blown-out eye and then everything that had escalated so quickly seems to come to an instant halt. There is only Katherine's screaming in the background and everybody is quite simply shocked. Noah Cross comes and whisks Katherine away, covering her eyes and telling her to "not look", acting like the caring grandfather he presents to society. We, the viewers, however, know what is going on- what is going to happen. Katherine will experience the same fate as her mother/sister Evelyn. Gittes had unwittingly made the same mistake he made the last time in Chinatown, when he had promised to be involved "as little as possible". This mistake was repeated. The murder of Evelyn will be forgotten as another incident that happened in Chinatown. It will be a repeat of everything again. Gittes wasn't able to save Evelyn and Katherine, nor was he able to bring Noah Cross to justice for the heinous crimes he had committed, just like the last time he was in Chinatown. It's a repeat of his tragedy.

The film revolves around Chinatown, quite like its title suggests, although Chinatown only shows up in the last minutes of this film. I would say that although it isn't shown, Chinatown is prevalent throughout the movie- or more specifically the events that had happened in Chinatown and how it had affected Gittes. Gittes, from the very beginning, was greatly affected by what happened. We see that he never could let go the past, and that his present was always dogged by his past. His actions, decisions, promises were all made with some consideration towards Chinatown. Chinatown could very well be a mental state in which he can't jump out of. He is stuck in that place, and he bitterly resents it. We are brought to Chinatown at the end and I feel that it perfectly expresses the repetition of the tragic events that had forever shadowed him, and will continue to do so.

The more significant Chinese character in the film is Khan, Evelyn's butler. He says little and is rather a minor character, but he is important nonetheless. He knows of Evelyn's secret and Katherine. He takes care of them both and protects them. He's loyal and simple of his goal: to protect his master the best that he can. I think it strikes a different idea of the chinese we imagine in Gitte's Chinatown... Such a world full of deceit must be filled with hateful, resentful, lying Chinese, but Khan is far from anything like that.

Robert Towne's ending was to inject some hope into an otherwise totally dark film. Honestly I don't think it would strike quite as hard as Polanski's terribly gritty outlook if it was made possible. In Towne's version, Katherine manages to escape, although Evelyn is killed. Noah Cross expressed exaggerated sadness over his dead daughter, and Gittes starts yelling at everyone in anger. In Polanski's version, Cross takes Katherine away, Evelyn still dies, and Gittes is devastated.

If the film was shot Towne's way, Chinatown wouldn't be one of the best noir films ever made. Firstly, there is hope. Evelyn's heroic death was for the saving of her sister/daughter Katherine- the sole reason of her deceitful life- and the hope that she would be free from the evil clutches of the evil Noah Cross. Noah himself would throw himself over Evelyn's dead body and cry- and is he really a man who would do that? All throughout the movie we've seen him portrayed as a cruel, evil man who thinks the rest of humanity are nothing and are worthless to him unless they can be exploited. This man had raped his daughter and impregnated her and hadn't really cared about finding her again until Hollis' murder and only then because Gittes was on the case. In fact he wanted to put all the blame on her! Is this really the same man that would cry passionately over the loss of his daughter? Secondly, Evelyn's death would have a whole other meaning. Her death wouldn't have been in vain, as she had allowed her daughter to escape. Instead she would have died a heroic death. And that doesn't quite make such an impact as seeing all her struggles were futile. All the lies and painful steps she took to ensure Katherine's safety were in vain, since in the end she is taken by Cross again. It would definitely not have the same helplessness of the situation if Katherine manages to escape. By doing so, however, we are forced to acknowledged the grittiness and hopelessness of Chinatown. Thirdly, Gitte's reaction to her death is drastically different. In Towne's version he is yelling at everyone else: he is putting the blame on other people, instead of himself. In Polanski's version, however, he internalizes the blame. He thinks he is the sole blame for Evelyn's tragedy and we can see that he shuts down: he is silent and expressionless, he is completely crushed. He thought he could change the present, if not the past, or that maybe helping Evelyn escape would redeem himself and he could properly let go of Chinatown. That is not the case. He cannot change what had happened, he cannot even help. Chinatown is still hard and unforgiving, like how he is hard and unforgiving to himself. Chinatown is not kind. Chinatown does not forgive nor forget, even though advice is given to him to "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Sources:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~jhartzog/chinatownscriptfilm.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/oct/22/best-film-ever-chinatown-season

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/gittes.html

ET 23: Spirited Away as Anime

There is a lot of misconception of anime from the general public, many of it negative. Anime itself is a little too large to be called a sub-genre, in fact I'd group anime in a genre all by itself as it contains subgenres of anime. I wouldn't dare to say that anime is all good, because I've seen really bad ones, but there are gems in all categories. Spirited Away is one example.

Studio Ghibli is pretty much the Disney of anime. Most of the anime movies created by them have been heaped with praise, which they deserve. And rightly so. What sets Spirited Away from the sea of other anime films is the principle of Studio Ghibli. The studio is adamant in defining its visual style, the long and old tradition of hand-drawn animation. The director, Hayao Mizaki, is also very particular about backgrounds and scenery: and truthfully, all this attention to detail is the best showcase of quality. Generally, "lazy animation" is boring, a lack of facial expression unless expression are needed, otherwise it's the same image being used again and again. However Studio Ghibli films are never boring. There are always things moving, there is no slight pause in the actions, there are no empty spaces in the background. The animation becomes much livelier and coupled with gorgeous imagery, truly Spirited Away is the epitome of anime.

In terms of subject matter, Spirited Away may at first seem like a typical anime plot- girl meets boy in a strange world, they fall in love after many adventures together, etc etc- but when you watch the movie it's not. It's not typical at all. Firstly, the characters make the difference. Generally in anime the character is a high school girl with the typical anime look- big eyes and a slender body. Chihiro is not. She's not particularly pretty, she's a little too thin, she's not perfect. She's an average Japanese child, she's someone we would meet on the streets and forget. Her parents are typical parents as well. Her father looks fatherly and her mother looks motherly. There is nothing special that sets her apart, unlike other animes in which the main character has special powers or looks or statuses. Characters in the spirit world are as unique in a well-grounded way. It isn't easy to forget any of the characters that appear in the movie, as unimportant as they may be. Also the romance between Chihiro and Haku is subtle. It's not cheesy love-at-first-sight romance, neither is it possessive love. It's the right balance of trust and friendship that blossomed into love. They didn't have to tell each other how much they cared for each other, they could do it all by actions alone. That, for me, can go further than any amount of words would. It also encompasses a coming of age theme, as shown by how Chihiro grows up from the beginning of the movie until the end. Her parents aren't forgotten as pigs as well, as she spends a good half of the film worrying over her parents, quite unlike how typical animes portray familial bonds.

The film is also distinctly Japanese, full of Japanese culture and references. However such cultural touches are not lost to the non-Japanese viewer, as many other anime does. We see traditional Japanese spirits and gods, the traditional Japanese bathhouse, among others, and don't feel isolated from the world. Instead we are quite absorbed into the bathhouse quite like Chihiro is, and this is also mainly due to the great attention to detail and background.

There are definitely many sub-genres within anime, like romance or horror or psychological thriller. Since animes are animated, it can hardly be fair to compare them to picture film genres, but there are quite many which do a great job. I think anime can still be developed a lot, but not like film, where we can play with camera angles and lighting and whatnot.

It is my opinion that the main reason why so many young people like anime is because, like with movie stars, we project onto the anime characters. Many of us can't do the same with movie stars because we're not pretty or rich, but anime characters are typically high schoolers, from a relatively average family that most of us can relate to. We see them being thrown into a world they're not used to and then fighting for themselves or their friends (a major theme for most anime is friendship and comradeship), strong-willed and stubbornly clinging to their values. They don't back down or give in to their enemies, they trust their friends whole-heartedly with not a shadow of doubt and everybody are nice people. I think many people want to be like that, which is why the genre appeals to so many people.

Anime aren't cartoons. Anime can be comical, but they're usually not as child-orientated as cartoons. Neither is anime purely entertainment, a number of them are works of art or absolutely genius creations.   There is always a main theme to the stories of anime and they tell of the values that we have overlooked- trust, friendship, love and moral values. Indeed I think anime is very humane in this aspect.

There are many must-see anime and anime films indeed, but suggestions would be Grave of Fireflies, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Ano Hano (The Flower We Saw That Day), just to name a few. It's a genre to be explored (though tread with caution, for every gem that comes along are at least seven pieces of dirty coal) and without negative bias.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli

ET1: Yourself as Audience

Last Thursday we had our first screening, and I brought snacks to eat. Why did I even think Thursday's screening would be popcorn-material, I don't know. The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was okay: dream-like in quality, with a surprising twist in the end. I enjoyed it immensely.

However Night and Fog deeply hit me where it hurts.

It horrifies me that people can be so disrespectful towards each other. And vicious.

I thought I was prepared for whatever the film would throw at me. I've seen pictures (gruesome ones) and studied the Holocaust in History before. I didn't like it, but there was a sense of detachment when you're just reading it.

Watching Night and Fog was like being pulled into the time of which these concentration camps happened. Being pulled in and defenseless against it.

There was one part in the film when I am reminded of a picture I've seen when I was studying the subject. In the film we were only shown the empty wooden beds but this image

kept popping up in my head. I don't remember why this picture stuck so vividly in my mind throughout the years, but it did. Maybe it was because the prisoners looked so indifferent- they had been so used to this ill-treatment that they just sort of lived with it. They didn't fight it anymore.

Honestly I quite enjoyed the film, as gruesome as that sounds. Mostly because the narration is fantastic, both the language and the voice.

Actually I think that was the only thing I liked about Night and Fog. I didn't like the content at all.

Pictures of the mass killings filled me with both disgust and disbelief. Thousands and thousands of bodies being bulldozed away filled me with anger at the disrespect these people have towards lives. Such cruelty that I can never imagine were one by one brought to life again in front of my eyes. Chemical testing? Sure. Tortures? Why not? "Scientific" experiments? Go for it. I was shaking my head for the most part, wanting to look away but not being able to.

The gas chambers particularly terrified me. Desperation sets in and goes mad. The scratches on the ceiling can only hint at what horrors the people inside went through. How did they feel? How did they react? How did they lose their last breath?

Quick deaths would have been more merciful.

Is it ever possible that Jews can relive a normal life?? How is it even possible that such atrocity can be easily forgotten? Or is it simply because such horrors were too terrible, so people wanted to forget? In this sense one can't blame them for trying to forget. I would want to forget, even though no one should.

If I were watching the film alone or with just a few close friends, I would have walked out. Or at least started to scream expletives, because really some things just need to be properly yelled at. This is one of the things.

It is hard to swallow the bitter truth that humanity has been used to such cruelty (to each other!!) for a long time. However the Holocaust brings things into a whole new level of wrong.

This is what I'd like to say to Hitler: