Film Talk // California dreaming

In Wong Kar-Wai's film Chungking Express, he explores ideas of love and the passing of time. While most films are made in about a year, Wong produced Chungking Express in two months. He had spare time because of production delays for another film so he decided to make another one while he waited. The short production time produced an interesting sense of youthful impulse. Free from premeditated planning, Wong produced a film that exudes a kind of liberating force - one that completed scripts and pre-production can easily spoil.

This spontaneity recalls the same of-the-moment feeling that Godard's film Breathless had. Both directors just picked up a camera and shot enigmatic and attractive young actors with a bare script to guide them. The end results in two of the most compelling and unexpectedly insightful films about life, love, time and people.

Even two of the female leads are so similar. Both have pixie haircuts, a feminine symbol of self-assurance, and both possess this undefined way of enthralling and mesmerising the audience and the men they attract.

Watch this clip of Faye Wong dancing to California Dreamin'. Don't you see a bit of Jean Seberg in there?

This is a repost from my previous blog, FILM MUSIC ART

Three Reasons // 500 Days of Summer

Directed by Marc Webb

Usually my eyes roll at an overly cute scene like this. But who doesn't want to do something like this at an Ikea store? This was beyond adorable.

Another overly cute scene that just worked. This was right after Tom and Summer just had sex and it was the perfect way to show how Tom felt afterwards. Hilarious, fun and super duper cute.

Summer is such a great character. Unexpectedly brutal but unabashedly honest. She was both the best and worst girl for him. This scene just breaks my heart every single time.

What are your reasons?





This is a repost from my previous blog, FILM MUSIC ART

Three Reasons // 2001: A Space Odyssey

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

The cut jumps from the Dawn of Man to a futuristic Space Age - from primitivity to advancement - probably the widest gap in time to jump cut, or arguably, to match cut to in cinema. The most surprising aspect about this cut is how it comparably shows how very little human beings have changed, despite the vast differences in time and evolutionary stages. We are still both destructive and disconnected. Our technologies still used as war weapons and tools to further separate us from one another.

The film is cold, distancing, depressing and uncertain at times but it is anchored by scenes of humanistic beauty. Showing moments that are collectively familiar to us as human beings, ironically conveyed by technology and man-made objects. While Strauss' The Blue Danube plays in the background, the spaceships and space stations seem to waltz with the music as they glide across the dark, empty space.

The film will surely please and satisfy two groups of people: the philosophical types, and substance users. 

What are your reasons?




This is a repost from my previous blog, FILM MUSIC ART