The Kangaroo Panopticon
Why do I like Park Chan-wook’s Korean film, Oldboy, you ask? Why, the reason I like Oldboy is because I long to punish my enemies. Not only do I want to tit their tat, but also to utterly annihilate their entire existence while ruining everything they love. If they love nothing? Then I want to give them love only to violate it while blossoming. My enemies should not only suffer physically, but should also endure every possible psychological torture procurable. I want my adversaries to be at the peak of their hopes before kicking down their sandcastles. Before you indignantly judge me, you must remember that when I say “I”, you know that it means “we”: for beneath all of our politeness, beneath all of our reservations, linger spiteful, vindictive thoughts. Speak for myself? No, I will speak for all of us.
Elucidating this idea, Russell Roberts, the director of Vancouver, Canada’s Shakespearian Bard on the Beach play, Titus Andronicus, defends the choice of using gratuitous fake blood instead of “arty-farty” red ribbons:
“We’re very inhuman, we human beings. I mean, look what’s happening in Afghanistan, in Baghdad, in Somalia. It has happened since day one. This is no more violent or horrible than what’s going on around the globe right now. Titus has been catalogued as a problem play, but I think that the problem—if there’s a problem—is that we don’t like to have that mirror put up to us.”
Please, I Want to Go to Prison
Why do I like Park Chan-wook’s Korean film, Oldboy, you ask? Why, I like the film because I secretly want to be locked up for 15 years. In fact, I have dreamt of my incarceration since I was a kid. My romanticisation of a reclusive lifestyle began during one camping trip while reading Old Norse mythology. From the tales, there were a few that stuck with me such as those of the Norse God, Odin, who hung himself upside-down from a tree until he died. Why would he do that? He did it because he had learned everything except the knowledge of the afterlife, and his curiosity led him to explore the world that he could only reach through death. So I sat in my tent in solitude reading with no distractions of how Odin finally bartered his way out of Hades by plucking out his eye. Seemed like a good deal to me: an eye for immense, if not total, wisdom. Later, back at home, being so enthralled with the story, I came close to gouging out my own eye with a piece of broken glass. In the end, with the thin splinter against my eye, I thought better of the oedipism. To this day, I wonder how close I was. The fascination may be why I have a thing for cute girls wearing eye-patches.
Many years later, and with both eyes unpunctured, I spent most of my time in Cuba reading. I should pause to say this now: I am not an avid reader. Unlike the admirable voracious readers I have met, reading doesn’t come easily to me. Each page, for me, is onerous. Commas and semicolons, to me, are more like periods. I have an attention span that barely makes it until the end of the.
Oldboy for Little Girls and Little Boys
Why do I like Park Chan-wook’s Korean film, Oldboy, you ask? Why, I love the quirky action-packed romantic comedy because it’s good wholesome fun for the whole family! Are you a fan of true love, superheroes, and octopuses? If you are, you will definitely enjoy this showdown between good and evil based on the popular Japanese comic written by Nobuaki Minegishi. If you like anti-heroes such as the Dark Knight and pretty Grrl-power heroines such as Batgirl, you will love the zany adventures of Oh Dae-su and Mi-do. There’s no lame Aquaman in the movie! No way, no how!
Oldboy has it all: adventure, suspense, humour, and of course, love! Our hero, Oh Dae-su, similar to Harry Potter, begins the tale as a loser just getting through life one day at a time. One dark night, Dae-su is kidnapped then imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years. During this time, Dae-su trains himself by shadowboxing. He begins to find his true destiny that will lead him to making the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of others. When he is finally mysteriously released back into the world, Dae-su seeks to avenge the cruel murder of his wife and save his daughter. In the end, Dae-su must fight for justice and face the evil mastermind, Woo-jin, and his henchman, Mr. Han. Woo-jin has all of the answers and knows a secret that will change everyone’s lives forever. Dae-su must solve the puzzle quickly—it’s a race against the clock! Can Dae-su find Woo-jin in time?
Which Films and Literature Use Carpe Diem & Memento mori Themes?
Remembering our mortality significantly improves our daily lives if we can endure and overcome the sense of looming finality. We live each day in routine. Even those finding something new to do each day end up in the routine of novelty. Newness becomes their pattern. My own life desires some new narrative, or at least, a deepening of narrative developed through literature.
Therefore, please recommend books, short stories, and films containing themes of seizing the day, living in the moment, and enjoying life to the fullest with the consequence of death.
Secondly, perhaps harder to find, but please also suggest material with themes of the life after the thrill has come and gone or themes of having to deal with the consequences of living temporary bliss.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." ~James Dean
Quick Thoughts on The Battleship Potemkin, Casablanca, and 8½
Following up from this post, last night I watched 3 great classic films. They were Sergei Eisenstein's 'The Battleship Potemkin', Michael Curtiz's 'Casablanca', and Federico Fellini '8½'.
Eisenstein’s ‘The Battleship Potemkin’ amazed me with the montage film work. The movie gave me many ideas for photography because his shots really focused on key, but irregular, points such as elbows to demonstrate motion and power. This movie really shows how art echoes itself, but always changes.
Remix and evolve.
Remix and evolve.
Remix and evolve.
Going back to this 1925 movie brought me to elements that I have seen repeatedly in films since then; for example, [SPOILER ALERT START] derivatives of baby carriage rolling down the stairs is in many later scenes of comedy and action in movies such as Speed, Ghost Busters, Naked Gun, and Nation's Pride / Stolz Der Nation (from Inglourious Basterds) . Even though I have been corrupted by the comedic images and likely that it would be hard to take the scene seriously, the scene did retain it’s power and intensity. Even though the limits of technology are obvious, the narrative and the scenes are done so well that they live beyond their date. The ideas and form retain their essence as an art piece. Many films lose their essence as their technology becomes dated. They simply become artefacts to be mocked. This Eisenstein movie, however, is more akin to paintings that live more as they age. Like Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’, Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les Demoiselles d'Avignon’, and Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’, Eisenstein’s film is a singular piece that lives in a timeless vacuum. It doesn’t matter how far technology moves forward, his film will maintain its own awe. While the Odessa Steps scene is iconic, my own three favourite scenes are the matched cut of the maggots with the officers, the hellish priest, and the Bolshevik, Grigory Vakulinchuk, on his deathbed with the sign “Killed for a plate of soup”. [SPOILER ALERT END]
A Voyage in a Film Time Machine
Although I have seen more films than any person ought to see, my lack of film culture is lacking. I have to be honest with myself that while I have viewed films, I have not given them enough respect by actively watching them. This is therefore why I have decided to trek into those very films that everyone talks about, but that I take for granted. My new mission is to go back and watch influential films critically. This means that I will not simply look at the screen passively with some drool dripping from my chin, but instead to look at the film in historical context, its relation to films by the same director, and all of the visual grammar. I have so far been too foolish; therefore, even though I must drop the front of some cultured erudite, I dedicate my first foot to the first step.
I'll keep a minimal log of the films here and use the information for something larger later. I hope to reach the point of working within themes.
What are Your Favourite Self-Reflexive and Meta Films?
These days I am on a self-reflexive cinema kick. I have becoming increasingly fascinated by metafilms and metafiction in general. As I explore the differences of film, theatre, and literature, I am ever more intrigued when an artwork draws attention to itself. What caught me in the television show, Modern Family, was the constant breaking of the fourth wall as the characters glance up at the camera at opportune or infortunate moments. This technique seems to reconnect with an audience in a why not too dissimilar from how actors perform in interplay with the audience. Similarly, Abed and Troy's In the Morning segments from the show Community just do something so right. I am trying to expand my repertoire of films and programmes in this genre; therefore, I would like to put it to you, Hivemind, for your own favourites. Which self-reflexive films have you enjoyed and what scenes stuck out to you?
Here are a few to get you started:
- Adaption
- Stranger than fiction
- Synecdoche
- Tropic Thunder
- 8½ (1963)
- Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
- Vanya on 42nd Street
- Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
- Blazing Saddles (1974)
- Spaceballs
- Inception
- Barton Fink
- The Hudsucker Proxy
- Breathless (1960)
- Inglourious Basterds
- eXistenZ
Defrocking Pornography: A Peepshow Into Pornography, Erotica, & Freedom
"It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it." ~Tony Hancock
Pornography. This unsightly, yet arousing word has an ambiguous nature of which provides legal force to moral judgements or untethers social taboos. This term imprisons or emancipates depending on the momentum of the social pendulum. Joining the fray to define, Britain A. Scott, in ‘Women and Pornography: What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us’, argues that females should have legal recourse if pornography harms them. To give legal footing, pornography needs a definition that protects females from abuse while not restricting sexual freedom. We should, therefore, disentangle sex from violence while defining pornography so that people have legal recourse if they feel that pornography has harmed them; however, at the same time we must be cautious that we do not degrade our freedom of speech and expression.
Simulacra Versus the Grotesque
Simulacra impressions hold the most relevance to our coherent reality; however, we must be of two minds; constantly shifting amongst competing optical illusions and observing the underlying truth. The techniques of Trompe-l'œil make the experience satisfying; however, if one is too satisfied with the superficial experience and neglects to scratch away at the palimpsest to uncover the grotesque reality beneath, one may pleasantly suffer the life of a passive observer; unable to know one’s own will or means to act according to the aspirations above the base rules of desire. Such as is art; experience comes from tricks on the senses and while unraveling the artist’s technique makes for an unsettling experience, the knowledge teaches the art of manipulating perception—creating an artist out of a once passive observer.
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- Please, I Want to Go to Prison
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