On Death Row – Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal

“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour” (Revelation 8:1).

Death, as in life, can be ironic. The passing of Ingmar Bergman in July last year provoked much outpouring of grief and respect for the man, one that was universal in its mourning for the loss of one of film’s most renowned directors. Ironic, because as a director, his films can be downright depressing. Witness Winter Light, a movie about faith (or its lack of) in religion, and The Seventh Seal (which we will look at closer). Such is the angst caused by his films and the man himself that the Swedish film magazine Chaplin published an anti-Bergman issue in the late 60s.

And yet, here he lies, a man hailed by Swedish royal King Carl XVI Gustaf as “one of Sweden’s greatest directors and dramatists of all time.” There is Woody Allen, deifying Bergman as a film god of sorts. “The finest filmmaker of my lifetime,” he wrote in a New York Times article.

Here Comes The… – Max Payne

The trailer was released recently some weeks ago, and it was that that put the project back firmly in my sights. Quite frankly, beyond the initial rumours before the film was actually shot, I had not followed it at all. In fact, I thought it died a not-so-gracious death in development, like a lot of other films.

After all, video game adaptations tend not to do so well. The likes of ‘Resident Evil’ might stand out as having enough box-office legs, but the rest of the lot simply didn’t bring in enough money. ‘Hitman’, despite all the hoopla, didn’t do the business for the box office (or for me: Tim Olyphant looks really, really weird with a bald head, for some reason). And you can pick any of Uwe Boll’s recent filmography to see how they didn’t really set things on fire (although having said that, it probably also highlights the fact that the idea and its execution need to go together hand in hand).

Trippin’ – Across the Universe

From one musical to another. I am rather glad to be shifting away from ‘I’m Not There’ unto something completely different. Of course, a bigger part of me would rather be lost in ‘The Dark Knight’, but given that it’s release it’s not due until next month in Korea, I’ll have to make do with other options. And given that the belt has to be tightened (perhaps other factors are tightening the belt, rather than other way around, but that’s another story), I have plenty to fall back on with the DVDs.

Under normal circumstances, I feel little desire to watch ‘Across the Universe’. Though I enjoy songs by the Beatles, I didn’t really get into them the way that my mother did. After the experience with the Bob Dylan movie, I feel that there is a need to further familiarise myself with the subject matter at hand, in order to get more enjoyment out of it. However, given how pushy some of my friends are (you know who you are), I’ve decided to give it a go. The intention, mainly, was to shut them up.

Maze – I’m Not There

Once in a while, you come across a film so ambitious, so ambigious, so brave that it threatens to take apart the conventions of film that you tend to watch. ‘I’m Not There’, the biographical look at the life of Bob Dylan by Todd Haynes, is one such film. Much like the man himself, it is a cross-cultural, cross-genre, even cross-gender portrayal of the pop icon that is Robert Allen Zimmermann. Fact is, the man led more of a life than most of us could ever hope to achieve that a more ‘normal’ (linear, with only one actor filling the role) would probably not do it justice.

It is unfortunate, then, that I was nearly lost in the maze of the film to the point of nearly falling asleep. It should be noted that I didn’t fall asleep, and that the fault probably lay with me, but the truth shall come out regardless. I nearly did.

Garin Nugroho the Photo-poet – A Rendering

“Art is a medium for open dialogue. It is a public space for the meeting of different perspectives. Art can break barriers between people and make them more human again. It can bring about a rebirth of human feeling. That is art.”

Garin Nugroho
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The semiotics of Garin Nugroho’s photo-poetry is in the im-sign (image sign) and not the lin-sin (language sign). It is not in the prose but in the poetry. Garin treasures the cultural, the historical, the traditional and the spiritual that is ingrained in his subjective upbringing. In all these instances, none is separated from his enumerations, utterances within the landscape of his imaginary and real composition of films.

Going Crazy – The Value of My Sanity

“The Value of My Sanity is one man’s unfortunate fall from grace; a tumultuous unasked journey into the comforting and inviting abyss of insanity. It is an amusing and lighthearted glimpse into the trials and tribulations of modern life, and a reminder of how easy one may fall into the cracks.”

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Jealousy can be a good thing.

Yes, I mean that. Jealousy, envy…anger, even, can all be positive. One can argue that it is not the emotions themselves that are necessarily negative; rather, it is the effect of, and the perception of, that is most damaging to these emotions.

What Happened? – The Happening

I always have time for M. Night Shyamalan. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I like all of his films, but I do think of several points when I think of him. One is the reminder that perhaps one shouldn’t come out of the blocks with all guns blazing. Though ‘The Sixth Sense’ was a success, it is almost impossible to follow up that effort with one that could stand on its own. And so it proved: none of his films were considered as successful or as good as ‘Sense’. Quite frankly, he became trapped within his own genius, a man whose talents surely deserved more than that eternal chain around his neck. After all, I thought that his movies were generally well-made films that is generally enjoyable.

Enjoyable though they may be, but they are also markers to his own independence as a filmmaker. Film experts often term him as an auteur, as someone capable of coming up with their own, original material. Comparisons with Hitchcock, on this level, can be found easily. Certainly, the tendency to want to shock, scare and draw the audience in by use of their names is there. On one level, I can see why that would be the case. On another…I don’t agree that M. Night Shyamalan is any more of an auteur than Steven Spielberg, Kevin Smith, or even Yasmin Ahmad is.

Filmmaker Disconnected – Edmund Yeo

Don’t mind the title, it is merely a reference to Edmund’s film, ‘Girl Disconnected’. He himself is very much connected when it comes to filmmaking. In truth, I had actually wanted to go with ‘Yeo Yeo, Ma!’, but, despite the classical influence evident in his film’s soundtracks, I doubt whether he would very much appreciate being compared to Grammy Award winner.

Then again, he might. Here, the maker of ‘Chicken Rice Mystery’ and associate producer of ‘The Elephant and the Sea’ sits down in front of his computer in Japan, and discuss with us his videoblogging antics, Woo Ming Jin’s ‘Elephant’ and why it will only be released only in one cinema in Malaysia.

Dead or Alive – Wanted

‘Wanted’ actually isn’t very high on the list of films that I wanted to watch this summer. After having watched so many movies for so many years, you kinda develop a system for being able to sort out the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, the pork from the pig (I don’t know why I thought of this, but the thought came to mind, and I found myself laughing out loud here in the library, and so I might as well include it here ). It’s actually not very good, for just as a book should be judged by the cover, a film should also never be judged by the poster.

In my defense, though, I am not really judging it by the poster, nor am I looking at the cast and crew list. Any film that has Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy would usually have me looking forward to its release. The fact that this is Timur Bekmambetov’s first American film (he of the ‘Nightwatch’ and ‘Daywatch’ fame) also failed to ignite much excitement in me. Sometimes, I don’t know why that is the case. I do know, however, that it is the synopsis of the film that got me deflated. A group of secret assassins, who, judging from the trailer, have the ability to bend bullets and jump really far, takes in a common man to train him to be an assassin like them. Quite frankly, it is one of the most ridiculous, most stupid ideas I have ever heard since…since…

Limited Edition – The Darjeeling Limited

Inspiration is not easy to come by. And I wouldn’t have bet on it coming from the middle of India, which is where this film starts. Which part of India, I don’t know. Being an ignorant outsider, quite frankly, the people and the place all look the same to me, though I like the food. In fact, my roommate just made some dinner earlier, which was delicious. He’s actually from Nepal, but the difference in food is not that great that to a hungry Malaysian, I feel as if I am back at a mamak stall.

But I digress. A business man (played by Bill Murray) is on his way to catch the train. However, he misses it just by a few lengths. Another man, younger, faster, and leaner than he is (though not as lean as he was in his ‘The Pianist’ days) is Adrien Brody’s Peter, who runs fast enough to get him and his luggage on the train. As the train pulls off into the distance, we see Bill Murray finally stop, feeling rather exhausted. Cut to his point of view, and there, in bright yellow painting, is the name of the movie scribed across the back: The Darjeeling Limited.