twentyonetonine-blog

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EN MAN SOM HETER OVE (A man called Ove) 2015, dir. Hannes Holm.

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Stranger Things | Season 2

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Cinema Redux of Hell or High Water (2016) dir: David MacKenzie

inspired by the work of Brendan Dawes

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So let me get this straight. You made a porno film where the point was the plot?

The Nice Guys (2016) dir. Shane Black

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Simple Lines Reveal Masterful Compositions in Iconic Film Scenes

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“I had your job once. I was good at it.”

Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve; 2017)

See the first teaser.

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But now I’m not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings.

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“We wanted to create a language that is aesthetically interesting,” says production designer Patrice Vermette. “But it needed to be alien to our civilisation, alien to our technology, alien to everything our mind knows. When Louise first sees the language, you don’t want to give it away to the audience that it’s a language.”

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La La Land - A technical wonderland with bland storyline

While most of us viewers may agree that La La Land was one of the best movies of 2016, I am into the side of viewers who don’t particularly love the story and the characters’ development. I know it’s nominated for a whole lot categories in the Oscar . In a comparison to Whiplash, whose director is the same Damien Chazelle, La La Land provides us a much simpler story - with a far tougher ending though.

The universe circled around Mia and Sebastian, two younglings who accidentally happened to meet real early in the opening in the movie due to traffic jam. Mia was a coffee shop cashier in the Hollywood set, who wanted to be an actress but struggled to do so - or at least finding the way to cast. On the other hand Seb was not much happier - a broke musician who regularly played piano in a restaurant for rich snobs and was barely appreciated for the talent he had. Mia and Seb met once again, fell in love (before that Mia had been with her boyfriend Greg for a while), supported each others’ dreams. At the near end of the film it was told that Mia got a role in a movie set in Paris for about 3 months. Mia and Seb kind of made a promise they will ‘love each other forever’. For the purpose of unpleasant, sick twist and fascinanting, unguessed ending, the movie ended with a scene which took a place 5 years afterwards. Mia was already a superstar, married and had a child with Greg, going somewhere off but due to traffic jam (aha) they bolted to a cafe they found out somewhere near the nearest exit, which happened to be, yep, Seb’s. Both Mia and Seb’s were shocked, a couple of “could’ve been-would’ve been” flashbacks and that’s it. 

Honestly I am a fan of unpleasant, sick twist and fascinating, unguessed ending, but only if it was rightly timed and prepared. The build-up to the twist was too short for me to perceive that “yo, there is going to be a twist”. I had too many questions to ask in those 5 years gap like “Where the hell did Greg come from?” or “Did Seb continue to be John Legend’s pop-band pretentious keyboardist?” or something simpler like “Why did they break up?”

They might be meant to stay unanswered. Maybe the film was supposed to show how La La Land (I assume it referred to LA or Hollywood? Correct me if i’m wrong) or presumably the cruel world of artists and actors would look like, where anything can happen in a sudden.

BUT - A big bold but.

the lighting, costume design, cinematography were extraordinary. Simply from the very beginning everything was colorful and it was obviously meant to be like that. Damien wanted to do the movie in the 30s 40s musical style and he totally hammered, nailed, killed it.

They were not scared to throw in striking colors into the screen and they know they gotta be cautious. If you had seen the movie (i presume you had because otherwise SPOILER ALERT! - but i guess it’s too late) you know how cautious they are selecting colors for the sets, costume and lightings.

I mean, just look at this. Look right into it. And then think, when did the last time you see a bathroom with green ceramics and pink walls? But it’s eye pleasing because pink is a derivative color from red and it’s the opposite color of green on a palette.

It was also mentioned that the dresses and clothings Emma Stone wore, were meant to fit Mia’s character development. Mia was a rather clumsy, witty and vibrant, therefore the colors of her clothings are at the start were striking blue, or green, pink, yellow or so on. But then as the movie went on, she wore more of a pale color, white or pastels, implying that Mia was becoming more mature. It’s very well common that costume should be correlated to character’s personality or current feelings.

Particularly on the picture above, notice how they made the sky purple and pink, just to make you feel a bit “aww” before breaking your heart into pieces at the very end. I know this is rather surreal, the purple sky. However it kind of represents the love they were feeling, just like..

This scene. Red could be anger, or love. Blue could be sadness, or melancholism. This scene was depicting the happy life of Mia and Seb, the love they were having, talking about the dream they wanted to achieve together by supporting each other. While the pinkish red was the bedlamp, blue was the street lamp and togethere made a mix of pinkish and purply (is that a word?). It was pretty typical throughout the movie though, that the streets and outside scenery were blueish in scenes taking time in the evening... or so i thought.

However in this particular part, it was green. I didn’t know if it was lights from the outside or they had a wall of green lamp covered in curtain. The latter made less sense, didn’t it? They nailed it though. This is the dinner scene where a fight took place. A fight that probably affected the relationship few years after. A fight which showed that they’re not the perfect couple the audience wanted them to. Technical wise, again, awesome. They really thought it through, Ryan Gosling’s tie, white wine, and candlelight was perfect and in place to enlight the scene and both Mia’s and Seb’s faces into green and yellow, which in a way hinted that there was going to be a fight, because yellow sometimes means insecurity and discomfort.

I didn’t particularly like the storyline as i said on the title but the technical aspects were top class because they threw colors into places where those colors are not necessarily common, but fit anyway. This showed you the quality of the makers and although the story was bland, other aspects they put tears and blood in, made up for it.

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I think we’re just gonna have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that.

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I wish you had stayed.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry 

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My Blueberry Nights (2007) Dir. Kar Wai Wong

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Cinema Redux “Her”

Inspired by the work of Brendan Dawes (http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/cinemaredux)

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Dope (2015) dir. Rick Famuyiwa

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BEETLEJUICE (1988). Michael Keaton is a demented bio-exorcist in this afterlife comedy from the mind of director Tim Burton. Alec Baldwin, Catherine O’Hara, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder co-star.