ladymacbeth3759

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My Favorite Films of All Time(Updated!) pt.2

Solaris (1972) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

Breif Encounter (1945) dir. David Lean

In the Mood for Love (2000) dir. Wong Kar-Wai

Thirst (2009) dir. Park Chan-Wook

Call Me by Your Name (2017) dir. Luca Guadagnino

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My Favorite Films of All Time(Updated!) pt.1

Close-Up (1990) dir. Abbas Kiarostami

Elephant (2003) dir. Gus Van Sant

Moonlight (2016) dir. Barry Jenkins

Vertigo (1958) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Pandora’s Box (1929) dir. G.W. Pabst

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Love love love…

Louise Brooks in Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) dir. G. W. Pabst

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PHANTOM THREAD (2017) dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

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Seoul, Korea (March, 2022)

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Solaris (1972) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

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Marilyn Monroe, Red Dress Sitting, New York, 1957 - Ph. Milton Greene

January 1957 — Photographed for Life magazine, this series produced several memorable images. Milton did something during this shoot he rarely did, setting up his strobe bank light and adding a 10K tungsten spotlight, which bathed her in a golden yellow glow. The January 1957 sitting in that simple red dress would be their last assignment together.

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Starting my day with this(actually it’s already 4 pm here and I just woke up and had a very late brunch).

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Analysis on Bong Joon Ho’s ‘Mother (2009)’

Spoilers ahead

Whenever I see Bong Joon Ho’s work, I tend to notice a very specific and repeated theme of it. In his films, almost all of his protagonists, even antagonists, who’s in a big trouble seems not so special and normal at first glance.

‘Normal’ as in sense of what the society approves, and it even makes people wonder if there are a little nod to the question that the society, the everyday lives, which has a ‘normal’ regulations and laws that were socially agreed, is, in fact rotten inside in real life? And we don’t acknowledge it? That kind of question gains its weight, because at some point, it becomes clear that these everyday people are driven to their limits beyond their power as the story continues.

Regardless of what they may have believed in, or what they were, after the story ends, we know they could never be back to their normal selves again. And even then, the world, the ‘normal’ society continues to run peacefully as if nothing happened. It makes the audience wonder if this calm surface of a reality that we are now experiencing and standing on, has that same madness, that same history under it as we are now speaking.

This is a crucial factor, or at least a very repeated pattern in Bong’s work. It’s as if he’s saying to us, ‘What we are, or what we have been as a human, seems normal, but deep down there is a primitive madness that we all have and can’t get rid of.’ That madness, which is so well hidden, that no one took notice until one’s faith drove them to the maximum, is the scariest part of his films.

One of my favorite Bong’s film, Mother, is a very good example of this aspect. At first, the ‘Mother’ in this film starts off normal, or at least as nothing special. But our first impression change as the film continues because we notice that there is an uneasiness in the way Do Joon’s mother treat her son and how the film represents it.

Even now it is pretty normal to have a mother who is willing to do everything for their son. Especially if the society is very strict and conservative. What we expect from our truly ‘good’ mothers are generalized and judged. But Bong pushes it to highlight that ‘uneasiness’, as if trying to break the myth of the instinctive love of devoted mothers. At the end of the film, it almost feels like the director is trying to say that it is a kind of a collective madness.

The history of madness and obsession is deeply carved into our society and it usually hides its true nature. The coercion and sacrifice of motherhood, which has become the root of the patriarchal society, is constantly challenged by the human desire, sex, and something of that primitive madness in this film. The scene where Mother kills an old man and cries out for her own mother shows that we have been through this generations after generations, not even thinking of getting out of this chain.

Even in the last scene, Mother makes a choice to forget all of this, and then again melts into the collective madness, a persistent state that looks normal on the surface, but will never look normal again after watching the movie. Because we all witnessed what had emerged from the surface even for the slightest moment. Even if no one remembers, it doesn't mean that nothing happened. The madness that lurks in the thigh awakens us with horror.

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Okay i wrote several film reviews in my language but it’s soooooo hard and tiring to translate...AND I have to watch several times more to make it clear, and for some movies that’s a very difficult thing...(ahem suspiria...)

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small paintings of a landscape from the handmaiden

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Films I watched in May (2)

Barefoot Contessa (1954) dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The Host (2006) dir. Bong Joon-ho

The Trouble with Harry (1955) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

The Pianist (2002) dir. Roman Polanski

Inglourious Basterds (2009) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Shaun of the Dead (2004) dir. Edgar Wright

Get Out (2017) dir. Jordan Peele

The Big Lebowski (1998) dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Beautiful Boy (2018) dir. Felix Van Groeningen

Fight Club (1999) dir. David Fincher

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Films I watched in May (1)

Lolita (1997) dir. Adrian Lyne

Focus (2015) dir. Glenn Ficarra

Secret Sunshine (2007) dir. Lee Chang-dong

Rashômon (1950) dir. Akira Kurosawa

Bombshell (2019) dir. Jay Roach

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) dir. David Frankel

Born to be Blue (2015) dir. Robert Budreau

Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Blood Simple (1984) dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Double Indemnity (1944) dir. Billy Wilder

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Not me watching cmbyn again to freshly start a new month. It’s been years....

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You met me at a very strange time in my life.

Fight Club (1999) dir. David Fincher

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The Dude abides.  I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that.  It’s good knowing he’s out there, the Dude, takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

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I was in LOVE with this intro when Kendrick Lamar released Pride. Now they made a loop out of it.