Cross-Cultural Film

Monsoon Wedding

2009-07-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

Monsoon Wedding

Monsoon Wedding by is one spectacular movie, which entertains while adding the religious beliefs and traditions of the Indian culture. The wedding was just as big and beautiful as weddings usually are in India. There were also many yellow carnations everywhere, which is their way of implying that a wedding will soon take place. I thought the flowers were so beautiful, I also thought that they were very creative with how they decorated the flowers. They made an umbrella of yellow carnations! Although it isn’t too much like Bollywood’s movies, this movie was still amazing.

At first we see a man organizing flowers and calling for Dubey. The flower’s are all yellow carnations, meaning that there will be a wedding soon. Dubey is the wedding planner, who isn’t doing such a great job. Then we see a girl, named Atiti, who is at a TV show looking at the host, Victor. She then sees him backstage, she is obviously in love with him, but Victor only sees Atiti as a toy. He will not divorce his wife, so she decides to keep her wedding to another man, since she has no hope for Victor.

Atiti is on her way home with her cousin Ria. Atiti is talking about how she love’s passion. Then Ria comments that if Atiti feels that way, that she shouldn’t have an arranged marriage. But Atiti feels that she is ready to marry and doesn’t want to wait for Victor, since she has no hope.

As people arrive to the house, we see the mother smoking in the bathroom, but tries to put it out and puts air freshener to get rid of the smell. During diner everyone keeps wondering why Ria has not married yet. Ria moved in with Atiti and her parents after her father passed away. When Atiti meets her fiancé, she doesn’t seem very happy. She eventually goes and calls Victor, but his wife picks up, so she hangs up immediately.

We see the party planner, Dubey again; he is very lazy and complains a lot, even while he eats the family’s food. Ria wants to go to America to study Creative Writing, but some of her family thinks it will make no money. Dubey slowly falls in love with the house’s maid, Alice. We take a stroll through India with the camera’s, then we see that Alice meets up with her fiancé, they seem to have a pretty good time together, after the wedding they plan to move to America.

Some of the women go to a dress place to pick out Atiti’s dress and color with her. But Atiti doesn’t want to pick her dress. There are many days of celebration before the wedding. Right before the wedding, Atiti sneaks out to meet Victor, we find out that she broke up with him a long time ago, but she never got over him. They drive around and then go to the back seat. The police make them open their door and get out. As this happens, Victor’s wife calls, so Atiti is with the police alone, so Atiti feels scared but he doesn’t care, all he cares is that his wife doesn’t hear her. So Atiti makes her way to the front seat and drives off in Victor’s car.

The next day, Dubey is acts weird, and suddenly leaves work. The father is very sad that Atiti is getting married and leaving. The father wants to send Atiti’s little brother, Peter, to boarding school, because he is different. Peter overhears and gets angry.

Atiti tells her fiancé about what happened the night before. He was angry at first, but then he stated, that marriage is a risk and that he is glad that she told him about what happened. Since the beginning of the movie, Ria looked mad every time she was near uncle Tej. She catches him helping Ania, a little girl. Once she just catches him, helping her get some cookies. Ria doesn’t like that Tej is near Ania. Now she catches him talking to her at the engagement party, then he kisses her head and puts a flower on her. The girl is mad at him.

We then see a girl dancing, but guys begin to join, soon everyone joins. Atiti goes to a balcony with her fiancé and they talk then kiss. As this is going on, Dubey proposes to Alice with a beautiful heart made of yellow carnations and many candles. After Atiti and her fiancé get back to the party, they talk to a young group of people, including Ania. They were talking about kissing, but Ania is discusted by the thought and she knows so much about it. Ria gets scared, because she thinks that she knows what is going on.

Ania goes to her parents feeling sad, then Uncle Tej says that he’ll take her home to rest. As they are in the car, Ria stops them and takes Ania out of the car. She then yells at him for doing things to her when she was Ania’s age and she yells at him for doing this to Ania. Ria then leaves with her friends. The family believes Ria instead of Uncle Tej. They do not want Tej or his wife to go to the wedding and they don’t want their money either. In the morning, the father wakes up and begins to cry. He cannot believe what was going on. He then goes to get Ria and tells her that he believes her and that he feels so bad about what happened.

At the wedding there were thousands of yellow carnations. When they went inside, the father asks Tej to leave; he says that they do not want him near them ever again. Atiti looks amazing. Then we switch to Dubey and Alice’s wedding, he gives her a beautiful necklace. Then they get married on a little romantic bridge, in the pouring rain with a beautiful umbrella made of yellow carnations. As Dubey gets married, so does Atiti. It was pouring rain and there was a marching band playing with the family members and friends. Everyone was dancing and having fun, and then Dubey joins Atiti with his wife. They celebrate all night long. Atiti now seems happy.

I thought it was a beautiful and honest story, of a girl with an arranged marriage. It portrays the thoughts of this arrangement along with the feelings that linger from a past love. I also believe that the casting was great! You can really feel how Ria feels about Tej since the beginning. You can sense the tension and hate she has for him, without knowing what happened in the past. You can also see the indecisivness through the eyes of Atiti along with the love of Victor. I loved this film!

Dreams

2009-07-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

Dreams

Although some dreams have meanings, we usually do not understand them as easily as we wish. In the movie Dreams directed by Akira Kurosawa we see a few dreams with very clear meanings and others with unclear meanings. It is about 8 dreams, which include Sunshine Through the Rain, The Peach Orchard, The Blizzard, The Tunnel, Crows, Mount Fuji in Red, The Weeping Demon, and Village of the Watermills.

The first dream was Sunshine Through the Rain. In this dream a boy is standing in the rain and his mother tells him to go inside, because the fox’s are having their wedding and they do not like outsiders to watch. The boy ventures out to find the wedding. He sees it and returns home. His mother is mad at him and said that a fox stopped by and gave her a tanto knife for her to give to him. This tanto knife was for him to kill himself. His mother said that if he doesn’t want to kill himself that he should go under the rainbow to the fox’s home and ask for forgiveness, she also said that it is not common for them to forgive. The meaning behind this dream seemed very unclear. It may be about privacy and listening to others. There is a reason why curiosity killed the cat.

Then we see The Peach Orchard. This one was about the day of the celebration of Peach Tree’s and how people very people who would tear down the Peach Tree’s were the same people celebrating the life of the Peach Tree’s. The dolls which are used to celebrate the tree’s are angry and do not wish to be celebrated for the wrong reasons. The boy is very sad, so the let him see his orchard full of tree’s one last time. Soon after he sees the tree’s they disappear. This dream tells us that humanity is tearing down what is left of Mother Nature because they do not appreciate it.

The third dream was The Blizzard, which we skipped. We went right to the fourth dream, The Tunnel. Here a man walks into a tunnel being barked at by a scary dog. After he gets to the other side of the tunnel, he hears footsteps. So he waits to see who was there. It was a soldier who was in his platoon. The only problem was that he is dead but doesn’t believe it. This soldier died in the arms of this man in the past. The soldier then walked back through the tunnel. All of a sudden he hears many footsteps. It was his entire platoon. None of them were alive. We find out that the man was the only one who survived; he was then taken captive and feels like his life was punishment for their death. He tells them to go back and rest in peace. After they leave, the dog returns. In this dream, the dog represents the never-ending nightmare in his life, which is his regret for not stopping the platoon from going to get killed.

The next dream was a very interesting one. Being that the name was Crows, it sounded different from what it was. We first see an artist in an art museum looking through artwork. He later goes into the art himself and begins to look for Vincent Van Gogh. When he finds him, the man becomes confused, because Van Gogh has a bandage around his head and it was because he cut his ear off after not being able to draw it. Van Gogh tells him that he is wasting his time, because there is so much beauty to paint. The man chases after Van Gogh and as he does so, he is actually walking through the different paintings I the Art Museum. Then when he gets to the painting named Crows, he leaves the painting. This dream was about how people do not always appreciate the beauty of nature and nature is always beautiful, even if it is just a tree or the sky.

Mount Fuji in Red is the sixth dream. This dream is about Fiji, the Volcano erupting. Although it hasn’t been active for many years, the nuclear power plant near by exploded. So the radiation and radioactivity was in the air. Everyone seems to have thrown themselves into the Ocean, except a man, a businessman, and a woman with 2 little girls. The businessman seems to know a lot about the radioactivity, he later says that he is one of the people who worked for the power plant; he then threw himself into the ocean. Then the man tried to air out the place so that he, the woman, and her kids could live. This dream was about how humans are the cause of their own destructions. By trying to compete with other countries and trying to scare away others. They also kill their own people.

The Weeping Demon is the seventh dream. We see a man walking, he then see a demon with one horn. He is running away from the demons with 2 and 3 horns that feed off the single horned demons. The demon then calls humanity stupid for ruining the Earth. The radioactivity destroyed all of the beautiful flowers and scenery. Now all there is left is huge dandelions that were obviously mutated because of radioactivity. All there is left of nature is all mutated and not pretty, such as one eyed birds and hairy fishes. The two and three horned demons cry at night because their horns hurt.

Finally the eighth dream was Village of the Waterfalls. This dream is about the people in the world that take care of the Earth and are taken care of by the Earth I return. A man talks to an older man who is over 100 years old. The Village is beautiful and full of peace and tranquility. Instead of using tractors and electricity, the villagers use cows, horses, and candles. The man makes a great point; he says that people tend to forget that we are a part of nature too, so we shouldn’t destroy the environment. Because of the lifestyle a lot of us live, we are loosing nature, along with clean air and clean water because of the pollution. The movie then ends with the funeral of an old friend and ex of the old man. The funeral is more of a celebration of the woman’s life, rather then the mourning of her death.

My favorite dream would have to be Village of the Watermills. Because of its portrayal of the human race and how we want everything quickly and that it’s ruining the Earth. I liked the peace and tranquility in the Village along with the connection the people there had with the Earth. The Weeping Demon on the other hand, was not my favorite. It does have a good message about how people are ruining the world with nuclear bomb I didn’t like the scenery, which is probably what the director wanted us to see. I believe he wanted us to realize that it is us who are ruining this beautiful Earth.

The Eye

2009-07-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Eye

A suspenseful horror movie, which got me sitting at the edge of my seat, was The Eye Directed by the Pang Brothers. This movie was truly amazing; I enjoyed the suspense along with the actual storyline of the movie. I do know that there is an American version released a few years ago, but being that this was the original, it is most likely the best of the 2.

The movie starts off with a blind woman named Wong Kar Mun walking around, when she gets home she takes a nap, we later see her in the hospital. She got a cranial transplant by Dr. Lo. When they take off her bandage to see if she can see well, she sees everyone very blurry and bright, but she also sees a ghost, but she doesn’t know that it’s a ghost. She sees herself in the mirror for the first time and soon after she takes a picture with Ying Ying who is her 11-year-old friend at the hospital who has a brain tumor.

During the night, she sees a person taking an old lady who shared the room with Mun. Mun follows and is scared by the ghosts, but she doesn’t understand what is going on. In the morning she finds out that the old lady died during the night and wasn’t taken by anyone.

Later she goes to her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother puts some home movies of her when she was little so she could see what she was like. A boy later asks her if she saw his report card and she says no. At night she has a nightmare about a hospital. Mun talks to the boy that lost his report card again and this time the grandmother realizes that he is dead, so she talks to his parents to see if they can help him finally rest in peace.

At night she has the same nightmare and wakes up to her room changing from how it is to a different room with photos of other people. Today her father tries to teach her calligraphy. When she is sitting down and writing a girl yells at her because Mun is sitting in her seat.

Mun talks to Dr. Lo’s nephew who is also named Dr. Lo. He helps her take her sensory knowledge to visual knowledge. After a visit with him, she confides in him and tells him about what is going on with the ghosts. He doesn’t believe her at first but slowly begins to believe. He tries to help her by getting the cornea’s downer’s records.

When she gets back home she sees a man in an elevator facing the corner, she then looks at the elevator screen and he isn’t really there, so she realizes that he is a ghost. She doesn’t get into the elevator with him, she gets into the other one, although he changed elevators and got into hers. When he was in there he began to get closer to her, he was missing a part of his face. She runs out and realizes that she is on the wrong floor. So she goes up the stairs, which is where the boy asks about his report card again then jumps out the window. After this she takes out all of the light bulbs and hides in her room. Young Dr. Lo finds out and makes her go to the blind orchestra to play. She plays intensely as her home was being cleansed from ghosts. She then collapses and is sent to the hospital. At the hospital she sees Ying Ying and she tells her that she is finally getting out. Mun is happy for Ying Ying until she realizes that Ying Ying has passed away. She then goes to her funeral after she gets out of the hospital.

Together Mun and young Dr. Lo venture out to find the donor named Ling who also saw death coming to get people. She sees the hospital that is in her nightmares. She later goes to Ling’s home and decides to sleep in the girl’s room. She finds out that Ling hung herself after a huge fire that killed lots of people. She tried warning everyone, but everyone tried to make her go away and called her a witch and a bitch. At 3 in the morning, every morning, Ling sets up her death. She pulls the chair up and puts her head through the cloth she hangs herself from.

Mun tries to get Ling’s mother to forgive Ling before 3 in the morning. The mother doesn’t believe it. But after a while she runs up the steps and grabs her and says its ok and that she forgives her. They then go to Ling’s grave in the morning and go back home on a bus. There is heavy traffic on the way back. Young Dr. Lo is sleeping in his seat, she then looks out of the window and realizes that she sees many men who get the dead. She then tried to warn people, after a while she sees that the reason that the traffic wasn’t moving was because of a overturned gas truck. Then a man turns on his car, which sets off the fire. Mun is warning the people in their cars to get out and run but no one listened. Then young Dr. Lo got up and was looking for Mun, he sees her and pushes her onto the ground as the explosion happens, before he pushes her down pieces of rubble get into her eyes making her blind again.

The next day we see Mun walking and she walks towards young Dr. Lo. She says that she realizes that she is blind for a reason, but she is glad that she experienced beauty and that’s all she wanted.

This was an amazing movie; I really like how the directors put this movie together. I enjoyed it much more then the American horror movies.

Shanghai Triad

2009-07-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Shanghai Triad

Reveling many truths about gangsters in China, Zhang Yimou directed a interesting movie named Shanghai Triad. Here I learned more about the gangsters then I had ever thought. Although we do see the life of a gangster through the eyes of a teenager just starting out in the business, he lets us know that it isn’t his type of job a boy from the country looks for. We learn a lot yet the movie is only detailing what happened to the boy in one week.

On the first day, we see a boy waiting for his uncle Liu. First Liu picks him up and takes him to a secluded place where only a certain amount of people went. He stayed in the truck. Someone ends up getting shot and they get back into the truck and drive off. Shuisheng Tang, the boy is given the job of taking care of Xiao Jinbao, also known as Bijou, Miss, and the mistress of the boss who just happens to be a cabaret singer at his club. Shuisheng goes to Miss’s house and is given a room under the stairs. He wants to leave, but Liu smacks him across the face and tells him that he can’t leave; other people would love to be in his position. Miss is having an affair with Mr. Song, who is the Boss’s second hand man.

During the second day, at night when Mr. Song goes to visit, he treats her like a whore and she kicks him out. She becomes hysterical, so she yells and throws and breaks things, later she calms down and starts to cry.

During the third day, Yu’s people killed the Boss’s people. Liu was also killed in this blood bath. The Boss tells Shuisheng that his uncle died with his eyes open, which means that he wants vengeance. Tonight after he goes to Miss’s house, a man in a car takes them away; no one knows what is happening.

In the morning of the fourth day we find them in a little boat and we are told that they are going to a n island where only one woman and her daughter live. On this day we find out that their bathroom is outside and to make sure that Yu doesn’t catch them on the island, everyone is supposed to burry their rubbish.

The fifth day, Miss is bored on the island, so she peeps on the other lady on the island. She sees that she is having relations with a man. So she finds it funny to interrupt. She knocks on the door and starts to talk to the lady about anything. Miss then asks the lady for cloths, even if it is peasant cloths, Miss didn’t care, because her cloths were being washed.

On the sixth day, Miss is wearing the peasant cloths and seems to be friendlier around Shuisheng and the little girl. Miss sings a song with the little girl and then asks Shuisheng to join them. While the kids are playing, she sees a floating body from the distance. It was the man from last night. She gets sad and goes to the other lady on the island and asks her about the man. She then talks about how she is from the country. She is mad at the Boss, but he blames her for the death, because if she hadn’t seen him, they wouldn’t have a reason to kill him.

On the seventh day, Miss tells Shuisheng that he shouldn’t follow her, because she isn’t nice to him. As he is in the outside bathroom, he sees that Zhang and Song arrive on the island to meet up with Boss. Later that night he goes to the bathroom again, but hears Song talking to someone about killing Miss. So he runs to Boss and tells him. The Boss already knew though. He also knew all of their plans. They even knew that they didn’t go on the island alone. They had 18 other people with them. But by then the boss already had all of them killed. He also knew that they were going to try to kill Boos too. The Boss then burry Song alive. Miss then asks about the other lady. He said that she spoke to her too much, so they had to kill her too. He also said that the little girl was like a younger version of her, so he had Miss killed and replaced her with the 9-year-old girl.

I thought this movie stated something interesting, that once you know the people in the gangster business, you can’t leave the business. An example is when Liu smacked Shuisheng for wanting to leave. It’s like selling your soul to the devil. I also found it interesting that Boss got Miss from the country and replaced her with a girl from the country. I really enjoyed the cinematography of the movie along with the songs and costumes.

Bleu

2009-07-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Bleu

The first of Krzystof Kieslowski's trilogy, Bleu is a beautiful movie which tells a story of a woman who lost her husband and 5 year old girl in an accident. There are various twists in this movie which keep you wondering about why she does certain things. Such as why she was so nice to her husbands mistress and why she called Olivier 2 different times and asked the same thing both times, if he still loved her. This movie has a lot to do with letting go and starting over. It was very difficult for Julie, the woman who lost everything, to get back on her feet, since her memories didn't let her let go and completely be free.

In the beginning we see various shots of a car, letting us know that a family is riding around, right after they pass a guy who wants a ride they crash into a tree. It is a fatal accident were a man and a 5 year old die. There is only one survivor, who's name is Julie. We see her at the hospital, after she finds out that she's the only one left, she tries to overdose and die, but she ends up spitting it out. A lady tries to interview her at the hospital, but Julie doesn't want to talk. Her house was cleared out all except a pretty blue thing which hangs from the ceiling and her bed. Julie tried to hurt her hand with the piano top, she tries to hold in the pain, but we can still feel the pain.

Julie seems as if she doesn't want to write music any longer, since it was one huge thing she and her husband had in common, he was a famous composer and she also writes music. After a few hours in her home, she goes through her purse at night, she sees her daughter favorite type of lollipop and eats it quickly. After this she invites her friends Olivier to stop by, but the first thing she says on the phone is, "do you love me?" When he arrives, she asks him to take off his cloths and then they wake up together. She leaves on her way to town, she hits her knuckles against a rock wall, when she arrives she finds an apartment pretty far away. Julie is trying to go back to her maiden name, she really wants to forget.

She hangs up the shiny blue thing from the ceiling on her apartment ceiling. She likes to go to a certain cafe, because there is a man with a recorder who plays her husbands music. The guy who was by the accident got to her after a lot of searching and he gives her a necklace she lost at the accident. She tells him that he can keep it.

People randomly just barge into her apartment. She becomes friends with the stripper in the building. Julie swims a lot, we find out that she swims so that she can cry without anyone knowing. Olivier finds her after much searching. Then soon after she finds rats in her apartment. Julie expresses that she feels that friends, love, and memories are all traps. So she doesn't want any. She visits her mother who thinks Julie is Marie, because she heard that Julie died. Julie asks her if she was ever afraid of rats and her mother said that, Julie was always afraid of rats. Not remembering who she is talking to. Julie borrows her neighbors cat so he can get the rats.

Julie sees Olivier on the television with her husbands music sheets and says that he wants to finish his last piece. Along with that he shows the things that were in his desk. Which included photos of his wife and his mistress. Julie finds out that her husband was cheating on her for several years with a lawyer. She goes to meet the woman and finds out she is pregnant with his child. She goes to the pool again. Then she realizes that the old house was probably not sold yet and gives it to the mistress so that she could have a good place to live with the baby boy. She calls Olivier at night and asks him if he still loves her. Then she invites him over. The director shows us what all of the different people from the movie were doing at night. This was like a reflection of the different life styles. She cries and that's the end.

I feel that when she met the mistress, this becomes her turning point. She realizes that he isn't someone that can stop her from living her life. She realizes that life is give and can be taken away. She also realizes that it is the memories which keep her stuck on him. But she finally gets a reality check and becomes free of those ties to her husband. I really liked how the director made her swim a lot, to show that even a strong woman can cry.

Talk to Her

2009-07-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

Talk to Her

A story about a stalker and a writer destined to become friends. Talk to Her is an interesting movie directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The director’s way of describing the lives of the two men is very appealing. We go on many flashbacks throughout the movie. Usually there are only one or two flashbacks, but Almodóvar tells us bits and pieces of the story in the beginning, then later her adds the scenes between what we watched.

The movie starts off at a silent dance performance. We see Marco and Benigno sitting next to each other, although they do not know each other. After the performance we see Benigno, who is a nurse at a hospital, caring for a girl named Alicia, who has been in a coma for 4 years.

We then meet Lydia, a bullfighter, who is interview because she is a woman and doing a “man sport.” Marco, who is a journalist wants to interview her himself. So he shows up at a bar and asks her if he can talk to her. She says that if he takes her home, he can talk to her. He then takes her home, she recently broke up with her fellow bullfighting partner and once she got home she saw a snake. She is afraid of snakes o she asks him to take her away, but instead he goes into her house, kills the snake and gives her the purse she forgot. She then asks him to take her to a hotel because she doesn’t want to go back home.

Several months later, we see them on the way to a big bullfight, he seemed to have been talking for about an hour, but she hasn’t said a word. She did have something important to tell him, but didn’t get a chance to, since she got hit and dragged by a bull and put in a coma. He goes to the hospital, after three weeks, the doctor tells him that there is no hope. He meets Benigno, although they did sit next to each other at the silent dace performance, they didn’t actually know each other.

Alicia’s father contracted Benigno and a few other nurses as Alicia’s private nurses. Her father one day stops by to ask Benigno of his sexuality. Benigno says he feels as if he prefers men. We meet Katarina, Alicia’s dance teacher, this makes Marco curious, and so he asks about her. Benigno then begins to tell the story of what happened to Alicia before the coma.

4 years ago Benigno had an apartment across from the dance studio Alicia went to, he observed her a lot, until one day, when he noticed that she dropped her wallet, so he picked it up for her and gave it to her, then he walked her to her apartment. He noticed that her father was a psychiatrist and made an appointment with him one day. He made a second appointment with him, but a car before the appointment hits Alicia, so Benigno decides not to show up to the appointment.

After Benigno finishes taking care of Alicia for the night, he goes to Lydia’s room to ask Marco if he wants to go to a silent film with him. Marco doesn’t want to go. Benigno looks at Lydia and fixes her up. He then leaves, when he gets back, he tells Alicia about it, but he says he didn’t like it. In the end it shows a little person going into a woman’s vagina and living there forever. He seemed to believe then that being a virgin forever isn’t good for him.

One month later, Marco decides to leave, but right before he leaves, Benigno tells him that hewants to marry Alicia. Around this time, the nurses begin to notice that Alicia has missed her period for two months and is pregnant.

Eight months later, Marco notices Lydia’s obituary in a newspaper. He then calls the hospital to ask Benigno why he didn’t call him when it happened. But instead he finds out that Benigno is in jail for raping Alicia. Marco then takes a plane back to Spain to see Benigno. Marco gets to talk to Benigno in jail. Benigno rents out his apartment across from the dance studio to Marco.

Marco sees Alicia at the studio one day and tells Benigno’s lawyer, but the lawyer tells him to keep his mouth shut about it. But because he kept his mouth shut, Benigno ended up killing himself because he had no hope left.

Marco goes to see a silent dance performance, he sees Alicia, and she begins to make small talk with him. He doesn’t say much. She seems to like him and doesn’t know why. Now the director leaves us with our own perception of the ending, being that he doesn’t tell us exactly what ends up happening between them.

I thought this movie was great. What I liked about it most was that Marco was an Argentinean living in Spain. I thought that was nice. I also saw the friendship between Marco and Benigno as a special one. I also thought the silent film the director put in the movie was comical and a good way of relieving the tension built up because of the sadness going on in the movie.

Strawberry and Chocolate

2009-07-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Strawberry and Chocolate

Directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio Strawberry and Chocolate has so much to offer. It is a spectacular movie with impossible love, plot twists, art, the culture of Cuba, and the understanding of the different people who were isolated in Cuba. A few of the major themes in this movie include sex, sexual orientation, and seduction.

The movie starts off in a cheap motel, where David tries to have relations with Vivian. She then says that she can’t believe him and that all men think about is sex. He then vows not to have sexual relations with her until marriage. Years later we see that she is marrying someone else.

As David is eating at an outside restaurant, a man sits in his table and begins to eat a strawberry ice cream and tells him how much he loves the Cuban strawberries. After this he gives him a book from outside the country and takes David to his home after convincing that he has photos of David Dancing. The guys name is Diego.

David bumps into Vivian. After a good talk with her, he realizes that he doesn’t want to love her anymore. He is given a mission by his roommate. David goes back to Diego’s apartment. He takes a magazine while Diego talks to Rocco. David gives out an oquard vibe. They drink whisky and talk.

Diego is an artist and photographer whose friend makes sculptures. Diego and his friend are trying to have an art exhibit that was cancelled. Diego and his sculpture friend get into a fight. We later find out that he calls his refrigerator Rocco.

Diego becomes David’s art tutor and professor outside of school. We find out that all Diego wants is to be accepted. Vivian shows up in David’s life again but she is leaving the country with her husband.

Diego’s friend who is also his enemy wants to take David’s virginity. After a nice dinner between Diego, David, and the girl friend, Diego leaves and the two have relations on Diego’s bed. Diego reveals that he is leaving the country and that the whole time he wanted David to fall in love with him.

After a tear dropping monologue from Diego, he says that all he ever wanted was a hug from David. David gives Diego a big and passionate but friendly hug. This is the end of the movie.

I enjoyed the literature and learning about the different artists and writers. This was an intense movie with lots of tear dropping scenes, especially in the end. This movie captivated me with its love of all things beautiful and elegant.

I thought that Diego was interesting because of his tea cups from out of the country, the books that were not permitted in Cuba, and the very disorganized apartment that have all of his photographs and his friends sculptures. He holds many treasures in his cramped apartment.

Yi Yi

2009-07-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yi Yi

Directed by Edward Yang Yi Yi is a wonderful film with exceptional actors who bring their parts to life. This movie is about life, I like how the director gave the little boy a camera, because the boy, Jian Yang-Yang has so many questions about life and how we perceive the things going on around us. So the boy takes the pictures of the backs of peoples heads. He wonders if we only see half the truth, because we can't see everything around us. The story of the family is told by 3 perspectives, the daughter, Jia Ting-Ting, the son, JIa Yang-Yang, and the father, N.J.

The movie starts off at a wedding, we find out that the groom, Ah-Di isn't marrying for love, instead he is marrying because of a pregnancy. This complicates many things. The woman who feels as if she should be the grooms real wife apologizes to the grandmother. The grandmother isn't too happy about the marriage herself, but she doesn't impose.

By the occurrences in the wedding, we can tell that Yang-Yang is picked on a lot, N.J. finds his old love, and Ting-Ting knows a lot about her little brother.Ting-Ting is a very nurturing individual, she is tentative of other people and tries to help. The day of the wedding, after the grandmother is taken home, Ting-Ting puts out the garbage, then she returns to the wedding with her father. When they get back home, a lady tells them that the grandmother has been sent to the hospital because of an accident by the garbage.

The grandmother is unconscious, but is sent home. They have a nurse that stops by the house to take care of her daily. The doctor tells them to talk to her about their day with her. After a few days, Min-Min, the mother of Ting-Ting realizes that her life is boring and finds nothing to talk about with her mother, so she leaves to the mountains to find her spiritual self.

Ting-Ting becomes her neighbors friend, the girl has a boyfriend, but soon she leaves him for a army man. Fatty, the neighbors ex, doesn't get over her quickly, he uses Ting-Ting as a middle man to get his ex to read his love letters. After a few letters, he writes one for Ting-Ting. They begin to date secretly. Although he is still in love with his ex, he tries to have sexual relations with Ting-Ting, but before going through with it, he realizes that its a mistake and leave her.

As the drama between the two young loves unveils, We see N.J. in Japan on business, but also catching up with his old love. He sees this as a second chance, so he can start over with his first and only love. All the while, Yang-Yang is being teased at school by the students and teachers.

After N.J. goes back home, he finds Yang-Yang's photos, they all focus on the backs of peoples heads. After observing a swimming girl, Yang-Yang tries to swim himself. He gets back home soaked. Yang-Yang gives Ah-Di the photo of the back of his head, hoping that it would give him a better view of his life.

We find out that Fatty kills an English teacher who was sleeping with both Ting-Ting's neighbor and her mother. While this goes on the grandmother finally wakes up. This makes Ting-Ting happy, because throughout the movie, Ting-Ting has felt responsible for the grandmothers accident, she wouldn't sleep until the grandmother woke up, because she would always tell her that if she wakes up that it means that she forgives Ting-Ting, but if she doesn't wake up, that means that she doesn't forgive her.

At 2:30 Ting-Ting talks to her grandmother for a few minutes, then slowly falls asleep, she wakes up a few hours later in her room and finds out that her grandmother passed away at 2:30. N.J. is happy that he got to see his ex and was happy about his second chance, but decides that he'd rather stick to the life he has. He also quits his job.

The funeral was very sad, and the speech Yang-Yang read to his grandmother was heartwarming and touching. I thought it was a perfect ending to a wonderful movie.

I thought it was interesting how they began the movie with a wedding and soon after had a newborn in the picture, then ended with a funeral. I believe the movie has a lot to do with living. It talks about second chances, different perspectives, old loves, new loves, and death.

I noticed that the Chinese zodiac and superstitions are very important in China, maybe not to everyone, but it is important. Because Ah-Di knew that the birthday of the baby was unlucky, so he married on a very lucky day and named the baby a lucky name, hoping that it would balance the negative and positive.

Battle of Algiers

2009-07-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

The Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo, an Italian filmmaker directed The Battle of Algiers in 1966, which is set during a war for independence in Algeria. The movie starts off in 1957, when the army finds Ali’s hiding spot. Then we go back to 1954, when we see Ali running from the police, then being hurt by pedestrians and rescued by the police. He was then put in prison and saw a man get decapitated.

5 months later a boy is sent to give him a letter, which tells Ali to kill a policeman. He was set up, yet the gun he was given didn’t have a bullet. But he escaped and asked the lady who gave him the gun why it didn’t have a bullet. He soon joined a man who was against the army taking over Alger.

In 1956 Ali along with a group of people begin to kill policemen and place bombs in the purses of 3 women who want independence for their country. The women go back for more bombs, we can see that when they put the bombs in place, they feel bad, because of all the innocent people they will be killing.

In 1957 the army figured out how Ali and his terrorist team were getting the bombs to their places. Soon after, everyone goes on strike. They strike by not showing up to work. So they begin to interrogate many people at a time and use a torture method that they deny using. After much torture, people give information little by little, until the last person tells the authorities where Ali is hiding. Then we go to where the movie started. Although Ali doesn’t give in, so they bomb his hideout.

Then we go to 1960, where we see that there are still riots and strike breaking out for Algiers independence. In 1962 they finally attain the independence they have been fighting for a long time. I thought that this film was very historical, educational and explicit.

Tsotsi

2009-06-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Tsotsi

In African, Tsotsi means thug, but it just happens to be the word the main character is called by in the movie Tsotsi directed by Gavin Hood. No one in the movie knows the thugs name, but we find out that his name is David when he flashes back to when his mother was dying of HIV. The movie’s main point is poverty in Africa and how it affects the people living there. I also noticed that this movie has a lot to do with psychology and how your past can affect your future.

David is found with some of his thug friends, doing what they call work. They meet up at a subway station and stab a man that has cash. His friend Boston says that there was no need to kill the man, because he probably has a family and a life. Because of this and the interrogating questions Boston was asking, David repeatedly hits Boston, then leaves.

After he leaves, David steals a car, although we do see him struggle, as he struggles the owner of the car gets up and he shoots her stomach. He gets away, but a baby begins to cry. After the crying, when he looks back, he realizes there is a baby and crashes the car. David tries leaving the car, but the baby cries when he isn’t around, so he picks it up and puts it in a bag. He goes to his place and feeds ad changes the baby. Although the stink of the baby confuses his friends when they stop by his place. David knows that if his friends find out about the kid, that his reputation would suddenly change.

To feed the baby, David assaults a woman with a child in her home, so that she could give her breast milk to the baby. While she does so, he remembers his mother when she was very sick. In the flashback, his father kicked the dogs back because it was barking. We then go back to the present, when the woman asks him what the baby’s name is, he says its David.

David and two of his thug buddies wait in front of the house the baby is from until someone gets home so they can break in. When they do break in, Butcher looks for the jewelry and money, whereas David goes directly into the baby’s room and reflects on the life of a family, then steals teddy bears, milk mix, and baby bottles. When they leave, Butcher is about to kill the owner of the house, but David kills Butcher before he gets a chance. David then escapes with his other partner. Once they leave the police gets there too late.

The day after, David seems to want to start over, he dresses up nicely, puts the baby in the bag, and the teddy bears in another bag. He walks to the house and puts the stuff down. He then rings the doorbell and says that he is leaving the kid there. But as he is leaving, the baby cries, so he picks it up to make it stop. As he is holding it, the police arrive and he doesn’t know what to do. So he just stands there, after a very dramatic tear dropping scene, he gives the baby to the father and the police arrest David. This is the end of the movie.

Being that David had been through many tough things as a child, he grew up thinking that life doesn’t matter, so killing isn’t bad. Although, when he encountered the baby, he felt like he needed to take care of it, even if he had the chance to kill it, or give it away. Instead he tried to learn how to feed and change it alone. Later, when he was going to give the baby back, you can tell in his eyes, that he didn’t want to give the baby back. I believe, that the only thing David ever wanted was a family, but he didn’t get a chance to have one for long.

I really liked this movie. The script, lighting, and angles were all perfect. I really liked how they staged the flashbacks and how different everything was when the flashback was going on. How it was a lot darker but it has a clear point. This was a great movie.

Amores Perros

2009-06-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Amores Perros

This is a compelling movie directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The story is about 3 completely different people and how they connect in a car accident. The three different people have interesting stories to tell, but we learn somehow they all link with each other in more then just the car crash.

We start off in a car chase, where there is a dog bleeding a lot and we don’t know why. A jeep is chasing him; it has a fire decal around the front. He runs a red light and crashes into another car with a woman and dog in it. We then back track and see what happened before the car chase.

The name of the driver is Octavio, he is in love with a girl named Susana, who is married to his brother, Ramiro. His dog leaves the house for a while, when he comes back so does one of the dogfighters. Cofi, Octavios dog doesn’t seem to have a scratch on him, but the other dog was killed by Cofi. The owner of the dead dog wants revenge or money.

Octavio doesn’t think it’s his responsibility, since he wasn’t around and the other dog attacked Cofi. We then see how everything works in Octavio’s home, everyone relys on Ramiro, because he is the only one that works. But Ramiro also robs banks in his spare time. We also see that Ramiro beats his wife and treats her badly. She also has a baby and is attending school. Octavio is sweet and wants to help, but Susana doesn’t know that Octavio loves her.

We meet a wino that has many dogs and a house. One day he goes and shoots a man in a restaurant. After he finds out who it is, he becomes very sad and goes to the funeral. We notice a girl; her mother goes to the wino and tells him that he is dead to her, so he shouldn’t try to get into her life.

We go back to Octavio and he tells Susana that he wants to provide for her and the baby, because she tells him that she is pregnant again. That night Ramiro robs another bank and Octavio starts to save money. He gets his money by fighting his dog, he is new to this, but Cofi is good. After a while we see that Octavio saves enough to get himself a car.

We meet a man with two kids and a wife who is going out behind her back with a famous model. Susana cheats on Ramiro with Octavio, but Ramiro is also cheating on Susana with a coworker. Octavio wants to fight his dog one last time on Saturday, but Susana doesn’t want him to. The day before the fight he finds out that Susana left with Ramiro and the kids. Although, Susana and Octavio’s plan was that on Sunday they would leave together.

Saturday he fights the dog in a private place, the other guy is a sore loser, he hates that Octavio’s dog has killed all of his dogs. So he shoots Cofi, Octavio makes his dog and his friend get in his car while he goes to stab the sore loser. This is where we go back to the scene that we started off with, the car chase.

Now we go to Veronica and Daniel’s life. Daniel gets an apartment for the both of them, so they can be together. He just got the divorce from his wife, so he can be with Veronica, the model. She is so happy, and as she goes to hug Daniel, she accidentally makes a hole in the floor. Soon after she leaves with her dog. As she is driving, we see the wino on the street with his dogs. She gets a red light and stops, she puts on her makeup, as the light turns green she goes, once she is going she gets hit by Octavio.

We see her in the hospital, she is alive but her leg is badly hurt along with her neck. After a few days she goes back home. She plays catch with her dog Richie, but after a while he goes into the hole he accidentally made the first day. Later she gets her leg amputated, so there is no hope for her to become a model again.

We see the wino named Chivo stalking the girl that was at the funeral. He breaks into her home and takes a picture of her, her mother, and stepfather. We also find out that he is taking care of Octavio’s dog. We find out that this man has been in jail for 20 years for kidnapping people when he was attempting to bomb a place. He was once a normal professor with a wife and a daughter, but suddenly he became a madman, and after jail he was never the same.

We go back to Octavio’s life he is terribly hurt. But we see that Ramiro is now dead. He wants answers as to why Susana left with Ramiro and not him, but she says he was her husband so she had to.

Now we see that when Chivo gets back home he finds all of his dogs dead, except cofi, who is all bloody from the other dogs. Gustavo gives Chivo the job to kill someone. This person is both Gustavo’s stepbrother and company partner. Chivo refuses to do this. But he is forced to. So instead he gets Gustavo’s money and the man he has to kill. But ties him up in his house and makes Gustavo kill him on his own, but Gustavo doesn’t want to. So he ties up both men and makes them either talk or shoot. Chivo leaves when this is happening.

Before he leaves, he cuts his hair and beard and puts on nice clothing and takes a picture of himself and glues it on the photo of his daughter that he took and breaks into her house and leaves her tons of money under her pillow, the picture with his face glued on, and a message that said that he was still alive. In the end he goes to trade his car for money and walks away, it seems like he is going to start his life over.

I found an interesting connection, cheating. Because Chivo cheats himself out of a good life with his family, Daniel cheats on his wife, and Susana cheats on her husband, while Octavio tries to cheat his brother. Another connection I found between the people was love. They all loved someone and the love they felt was their drive to do certain things. Veronica was the reason why Daniel gave up his wonderful life with his famly. Susana was the reason why Octavio was fighting his dog so that he could persuade her to leave with him. While Chivo’s drive to getting lots of money was getting to know his daughter. I believe that the director is trying to send the message that everyone should make every moment count and to live life to the fullest