A STAR IS BORN

After a term spent studying popular culture, this movie speaks to me about singers being commodified, dehumanizing the person who owns the talent. The male protagonist was a well-known musician who apparently was allowed to be himself while his female counterpart was quickly commodified into a profitable pop culture icon for entertaining the insatiable appetite of mass audiences with little interest in appreciating the deeper message in her songs which once formed the heart of her performance.

This movie is also about two pop culture icons crossing paths: one near expiry date and the other one just starting out. Without giving anything away, the finale especially, is a poignant symbolism of the person that has to bow out to the star that is being born for mass consumption. Ironically, the price for a star to be born is very high indeed.

It is interesting that I had a pre-movie conversation with another woman friend about the movie Pad Man (the movie about the Indian man who made low-cost sanitary pads and was rejected by women steeped in traditional thinking), feminist activism, and how women can be their own worst adversaries without being even aware of how much they are playing roles prescribed by paternalistic systems, traditions and cultures. The right to deeper thinking about the messages circulating in our lies, the right to deeper self-reflection and the right be caring and humane to anyone who crosses our path on a day-to-day basis are often qualities of person hood that are obscured by what we imagine to be more important and louder rights for women to be heard. As women, it is worth cultivating the habit of deeper thinking so that how we live as women will add greater meaning to conversations about empowering other women. 

I found myself forgetting that it was a movie because I had seen a documentary of Lady Gaga before and in the movie, she appeared as down-to-earth as a star could on the big screen which made the story real. Best type of movie to go with company that doesn't mind the movie dialogues being interjected with your sniffles of over-identification with the movie characters.  

HIDDEN FIGURES

HIDDEN FIGURES gets you metaphorically under the skin of racial and gender discrimination through the career trajectories of three African-American women – two mathematicians and an engineer - who worked at NASA in the earlier days when racial segregation was normal and legal.

It brings to mind the sociological conflict theory (Karl Marx) of power conflict that originally focused on class conflicts between the haves and have-nots, but exists today in the form of gender conflict, the digital divide, old and new citizens, and ageism.

Being black and female, the three protagonists endured open discrimination from white women and misogyny from the men, yet kept their focus on doing what they were gifted to do excellently. (It seemed to me that the saddest part was the animosity from non-black women.) However, they dignified their personhood in a way that no education or class status could attain, and no humiliation could take away. They didn't deny themselves self-respect even when others denied them due respect!

Even with the advancement of science and technology, the movie will resonate with female engineers and engineering students who are still vastly outnumbered by their male cohorts in Singapore. My childhood neighbour, who worked for IBM her entire life, was an anomaly when she studied engineering back in the days.

Some forms of discrimination have changed for good, but many still prevail behind the veil of security and job threats, and in the form of xenophobia where older migrants are hostile towards new migrants even within the same ethnic groups. 

Finally, I love this biopic not only for its women-centred theme, but also its reminder that courtesy and faith in God are personal choices more than they are cultural products.

COLLATERAL BEAUTY

Three reasons why advertising is important to people: time, love and death. 

"We long for love, we wish we had more time, we fear death," Howard said to his staff, three years before he lost his only daughter to brain cancer.

Three of his partners and closest friends hired three actors to personify time, love and death and to engage Howard upfront face-to-face. They figured that if he opened up to these elements that were important to him, he would no longer need to write them off and cut himself off the principles he had lived by. 

We cannot regain any loss that we don’t allow ourselves to feel, to grief and to acknowledge are still important to us. That is the beauty of life – to recognize that what causes us hurt and disappointment may actually point us to what really matters. To live without facing pain and our fears is to allow passion to atrophy. And passion is what makes us happy, fulfilled, laugh and what can also truly hurt us, cause us to cry at night, and let us down. Passion is all this collectively. To accept only the feel-good aspects of it is to deny ourselves of what living with passion is all about.

The three friends who were alienated hired three actors to orchestrate face-to-face encounters with hurting Howard because they knew that truth and grace could only be delivered in person - something their friend was running away from for three years.

A movie I can watch over and over again. Have tissue at hand. 

Watching movies but reviews not catching up

Have definitely been watching movies at the rate of about 3 a month, but sorry, no reviews to share. But some were pure classics that justify a review in the days ahead.

Among other things...Facebook got in the way.

The Butler (2013 DVD)

What does it take to walk into the most powerful office in the country every day yet not let that go to your head?

It would take one who is grounded and level-headed, not easily affected by power, prestige and privileges. THE BUTLER is a semi-fictional account of Eugene Ellen (1919 – 2010) who served as a butler in the White House for over three decades. Like Nehemiah, Joseph and Daniel of the Bible who served kings, he accepted the calling to serve as a butler, and knew that his place was to let presidents be presidents, regardless how long he served as a butler.

Ellen never let familiarity on the job and with powerful presidents distort his concept of self. “You don’t hear or see anything in the room.” Those who serve kings know that they have to keep their comments, opinions, and emotions to themselves. They do not humanize their roles. Not for a moment do they drop their composure, alertness and response in any situation.

Not everyone can serve kings or presidents. People in powerful positions have complex undertakings that cannot be easily explained or their effects seen over a short time. Those who serve them have to be mature, wise and so in touch with themselves that they know that anything is subject to the error of flawed assumptions and conclusions. They know that kings need to do what they need to do, and they are responsible for taking care of kings – not their decisions. They are impartial towards good and bad kings.

Those who have served kings long enough understand that the most dangerous and challenging moments  are when kings confide their feelings. Kings and presidents do not need friends, neither do they need servants to counsel them. That’s how kings remain kings. Populists rarely make good kings for kings often become public enemy no. 1; whatever policies and whichever side they take, there will always be people who disagree with what they do or say, or dislike their personality.

Those who serve kings don’t engage in gossip or murmurs that trivialize or belittle kings. They serve kings each day, yet their lives are not enmeshed with the kings’ lives. They do not idolize or become infatuated with their kings.  They serve kings and keep a professional distance comfortable for kings to be kings, presidents to be presidents, CEOs to be CEOs. And as they do, they know that many will benefit from a head that is well-served.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

DAY-DREAMERS, space-cadets, dim-witted are terms used variously to describe those who routinely and effortlessly drift into fantasy realm - even in the midst of company and conversation.

To these drifters, the physical and the illusory worlds co-exist. 

Calling someone a day dreamer summons an image of one who is lazy and ineffectual but I would argue that conjuring fantasies is actually a complex mental process not for those accustomed to mental sloth. Each fantasy typically involves the orchestration of a story line with intricate character casting, scripting, and location visualizing. It's a virtual and vicarious life.

Walter Mitty has the required intensity, intelligence and introversion that makes it easy for him to indulge in fantasies that gratify his emotional, intellectual and social needs. That gratification is real even if the imageries are not.

At best, wool-gathering is an effective way to cope with a life of sheer banality, and to the itinerant mind tripper, a life of having been there, done that!

In the case of Walter Mitty, a romantic interest gives him the courage to move out of reverie into reality, and subsequently, the castles in the air lose their lustre.

  

On the whole, a lovely year-end movie with visual effects that are are brilliant and stunning.

Go see it!

G R A V I T Y

‘Gravity’ has only two star performers (Bullock and Clooney – what a combination!) to hold audience in suspense for 90 minutes with bated breath.

Yet it is the simplest movie revolving around two NASA astronauts floating in orbit, and functioning as best they can.  They are the product of education as much as of specialised and rigorous training in science, technology and human endurance in punishing conditions.

Maybe because it’s set in cosmic space, it gives us no capacity to compare or comment. For real or not, ‘Gravity’ offers the closest look at what it is like in outer space. It’s almost as though we have floated in the outer void to see the action.

As any movie that inspires self-reflection, Gravity has weight (not a pun).

Bullock’s character, Dr Ryan Stone, is extremely reclusive single mum mourning the lost of her young daughter.  She copes by immersing herself in work and driving home, and becomes more comfortable with solitude than social conversations. 

Matt (Clooney’s character): What do you like about being up here?

Ryan: The silence...I can get used to it.

Matt: What do you listen to when you’re (in the car)?

Ryan: I listen to any radio station as long as I don’t talk.

When you are drifting in a world of your own,

hearing another human voice makes a big difference. 

Like it or not, Matt’s voice becomes an external frame of reference that draws her out of her mental seclusion.  I especially like it when Matt said to Ryan:

 “You have to learn to let go…to survive.”

- to let him go so that she could live.

"You can shut down everything in the system...no one can get to you, hurt you or disturb you. (But) You are going to start and get a life!!"

- to go on when she begins to shut down the oxygen supply.

Now, she is reaching out to someone for help.

In a moment of facing her mortality, Ryan cried out, "Can you pray for me? I have never prayed in my life...nobody ever thought me how.”

It’s not hard for anyone to draw life analogies from their exchanges, and even from the plot.

When you are falling, find a visual focus 
to keep your sanity...

even if it’s just your hands.

If you have been drifting too long, 

learning to walk again is a big step.
  

It’s easy to get lost in space.
You are moving but going nowhere. 

LES MISERABLES

There are not many movies that centre on pain and hardships, or touch on the virtues of love and mercy.

My family got hold of Claude Lelouch’s 1995 French movie ‘Les Miserables’ on VCD a couple of years back. It is actually a semblance of Lelouch’s own life as a Jew who grew up with his mother telling him telling him that he was Cosette, his father, Simon, was Jean Valjean, and she was Fantine.

I came away from the 175 minutes of interlocking heartrending tales of destitution and hardship shaken, in spite of the goodness and faith that eventually triumphed over tribulations.

With trepidation therefore, I braced myself for the must-see Hollywood musical version - adapted from the Broadway version of Victor Hugo’s novel - directed by Tom Hooper.

This time, it is shorter - 158 minutes – and screened in the digital hall of Lido 1 that has the widest screen and a superb sound system made for epic movies such as this. On this weekday morning, we felt privileged to be enjoying the 900-seater with just a handful of people!

Having seen the French version, I was able to enjoy this musical and its cinematography without getting too emotional and then spending time to recompose!  

Although the Hollywood cast don’t speak a word – every song is performed life during filming – there is a greater embodiment of soul and vulnerability in songs than spoken lines. Maybe that’s how singing helps people to let go of anguish in their soul. It also makes gut-wrenching scenes more bearable to watch.

Every scene is as picturesque as it is richly lyrical. It is an outstanding showcase of human grit, grace and stoicism in the face of humiliating circumstances and people who mercilessly hound you.

But it’s also a tale of hope found only in the darkest hours - Éponine when she dies in the arms of Marius whom she secretly loves, Valjean when the Bishop’s unexpected gracious gift of two candlestick holders spares him from returning to prison, and when Valjean indeed pays it forward by showing kindness to the dying Fantine.

Hugh Jackman brings a commanding screen presence to his role as Valjean and is outstanding in representing the antithesis of cruelty, vengeance, and legalism. (Brings to my mind Bible accounts of David who repeatedly held himself back from killing King Saul even when he had opportunities to do so.)

Russell Crowe is convincing as Javert who lives only on the doctrine of justice at all costs. He is repeatedly countered by Valjean’s inexorable mercy. In their final face off, he bows to the adage that good will always triumph over evil by jumping to end his life. In so doing, he deals with his own demons, and so spares Valjean's life.

Samantha Barks shines in her screen debut as Éponine. She holds her own beside heavyweight actors like Hugh Jackman and Helena Bonham Carter.

Both movies end with a wedding.

At the end of Lelouch’s French movie, the universal theme of hope is encapsulated in one line, “We are always a few sorrows ahead...but the best years of our lives are yet to come.”

Hooper’s musical finale is, however, a beautiful celebration of human love that triumphs over cynicism and adversities; as well as a rapturous vision of hope. That it is set in a monastery only elucidates that God alone is the source of love and hope that is beyond reason, beyond justice, and beyond expectations.

The 5-Year Engagement (2012) and Everybody's Fine (2009)

These two highly enjoyable movies mark the start and end of the family life cycle.

 THE 5-YEAR ENGAGEMENT tellingly describes the ups and downs that a young couple (Jason Segel & Emily Blunt)go through from the time they decide to get engaged. In the process of trying to strike a perfect balance and portray a picture of conjugal bliss, juggling career aspirations, and dreams, they began to lose their passion and personhood. In time, they found that the more they tried to be a couple – doing couple things as and when expected – the greater their tension for personal space. In the end, they separated just to recover the two individuals who had initially come together because they were fascinated by each other’s difference. (They met at a year-end costume party and were immediately drawn to each other: the man dressed as a fluffy frumpy pink bunny, and the woman as Princess Diana. How much more diverse can you get?)

On the other end of the spectrum, EVERYBODY’S FINE is an endearing movie about a recently widowed middle-aged man (Robert De Niro) whose four adult children conspired to hide the reality of their life struggles from him. In the process, he was alienated from the children he boasted about. But as he began to look at them as mere young children, he began to see their naivety and vulnerability, and to bring their follies as well as his fantasies to an end. In the end, his courage in facing reality with his children rallied the whole family and strengthened their bonds.

Undeniably, the underlying theme of both movies is the human tendency to sugar-coat our life and family experiences.

From the young couple on a long threshold of marriage, to the father struggling to connect with his grown children,  when we avoid unpleasant conversations, even arguments and confrontations, when we deny ourselves of expectations and aspirations by living in another person’s shadow, cracks are bound to show up in one way or another, and sooner or later.

There’s truly no better time to know who we really are than before getting hitched and after a loved one is gone – by death, divorce or desertion. After all, we are born single and will be single when we die. Singlehood is a precious time to discover self, to discover an amazing relationship with a living God, and to discover the ultimate meaning of life when you strip away considerations like if you married, who you married, the quality of your marriage, the children you have or not, etc. You begin to see life simplified when it’s just about you, and what on earth you are doing here.

Recently, a married friend asked me if it was possible for Christian couples to be lovey-dovey, affectionate throughout their marriage or if it was normal to expect decline.  Coincidently, this was brought up in a group discussion just a day before.

My simple reply to my married friend was to consider if the couple allow each other space and time to grow spiritually and emotionally. Or if they take the phrase ‘two become one’ wrongly and become so enmeshed in their identities, personalities, preferences and choices that they suppress, stunt, and stifle each other. In such a state, it’s hard for anyone to contribute to the relationship in terms of spontaneity, imagination, surprise and delight.

In Luke 17:1-3 Jesus issued a sombre warning His disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” Married couples would do well to apprehend this.

From sizzle to fizzle, when routine replaces romantic impulses, when what is expected replaces what you really feel like doing, and when familiarity replaces fascination, your relationship will become as interesting as dried prunes.

I persuaded my friend that it takes two people in love with God, who are continually renewed in His love and passion to bring passion and renewal into their marriage. Even if it is a one-sided effort, improvements will be seen as one draws on the enduring, immeasurable and indescribable love of God and lives in the freedom and power of His love. One vibrant is better than none. If it only takes a spark to get a fire going, then somebody has to light it first for all to enjoy!

Funny moments from The Five-Year Engagement include a really cute Italian song, 'Cu Cu Ru Cu Cu Paloma' sung at a wedding; father of the engaged bride-to-be who keeps bringing a different Asian girlfriend to family events; the lure and drain of a sweet young fling for the engaged groom; and the energy of a high-end restaurant kitchen. I have watched De Niro's Everybody's Fine twice and will probably watch it again before it's due for return at the video shop.

The Artist

It’s hard for me to watch a movie without audible dialogue and the usual sound effects that mark everyday life. To compensate, I found myself reading the actors’ lips with great effort, ad lib what should have been spoken and wound up mentally exhausted by the end of the movie. Kind of like running ahead of the laconic intertitles that leave a lot unsaid!

Silent movies, quiet libraries, and a solitary walk in the park without headphones have the capacity to accentuate one’s internal self-talk. The movie helps me realize that hearing people talk is so important to how I experience and enjoy life and relationships, and how frustrating and inhibiting it is when open communication is missing.

More than just an absence of sound, silence spans an impenetrable space between people. Look around and see if people don’t sit further apart when they are silent than when they are engaged in conversation.

Silent film actors have good mastery of body language, facial expressions and dramatic pacing to make up for the lack of sound. The Artist dramatizes the career trajectory of a well-loved silent film actor, George Valentin, from its peak to eventual demise. He feels inexorably that talking movies distract audience and downplay the dignity of acting. As talking movies appear and replace silent movies, George beomes a repressed icon that fades into his own world of silence. His dog, Uggy, becomes the de facto liason between silent George and the speaking world. George also has a guardian angel in the form of an up and rising silent-turned-talking movie star who is grateful for the first break he gave her earlier on.

If every man who hits rock bottom has a supportive community like George, the turnaround would be much faster. He has a faithful dog, a guardian angel, and a chauffeur cum buttler so loyal he works without salary for a year just to serve him. But he prefers to languish alone in the jaded glory of the past in an empty apartment than courageously embrace a new future in a supportive community. Pride can be an inseparable companion to a man bankrupt of hope.

Clearly, a change of circumstances hardly changes the core of a man. It’s often frustrating to help someone determined to spend his life in gloom and doom.

Fortunately, this movie ends on an upbeat note when George relents by taking a dancing role in a 'talkie' [speaking movie]. Ultimately, he learns to dance to a different tune and finds a new lease of life!