ziaraswan

[ziaraswan]

Wishes

I find all cultures interesting due to the fact when you get to learn about them you realize how everything is so much different then your own and then sometimes you can also see the similarities somewhere too. Southeast and East Asia is a culture that I love. I have watched movies that were American movies that were based on Southeast and East Asian culture and loved them. Loved them so much that I’ve rewatched them over and over again and still do till this day. Now I know American movies don’t always totally depict cultures in the best way possible. So if there was an international movie made off of this same culture about anything I would totally watch the movie. I don’t have a specific topic that I would like to see a movie about. Anything made in any genre and in any age group I would watch. Think about what you know about this culture and think about all the good it has to offer and all the things you see on it that has kept you like omg. Now think of all the American movies you have seen and how much better it could be if you saw a movie made by someone who really knows all about Southeast and East Asian culture. One thing I remember hearing Denzel Washington say is not that a person who is not of the culture cannot make the movie always about culture and a person who not only knows the culture but actually lives in it because they will always depict it be the someone who only knows it. Which is totally true and you see it in a lot of movies you can tell the difference when it comes to certain movies. For example, I have seen many cultural movies and one that tops them all for me even Southeast and East Asian culture is South American culture. I have taken a class that has taught me much about international films and I will say that I loved the majority of them. My top choice was City Of God which is a South American movie. It showed me something I have never seen before in South American movies made in America. It looked so different. Not saying that there aren’t any great South American movies not made internationally but you can definitely tell the difference between the two. That being said I would love to see any kind of movie within the culture to be fair I would more likely be willing to watch a movie that is a drama, comedy, action than anything else. The movies that I preferred more in the class where I learned a lot were usually those movies that fall into those categories. So if there are any movies out there that are made within these categories then suggest them and if they are not I will be waiting for someone to get inspired to make them because one thing I have learned this year is it good to get out of being okay with only knowing your culture and the basics of other cultures but to dive into them because you may find something very interesting out like the facts that you have never known before.

[ziaraswan]

The White Tiger

I actually loved this movie. I enjoyed watching the character go through the motions and his plotting. When you watch movies like this you always think to yourself that it couldn't be me but you’ve never been in that particular situation. He had to get a job to help his family and it was normal to be someone's servant and to hold your family over you so that you never fail at being a servant. So when your “master” asks you something you don’t question it. So you have this part of the movie when the family practically forced Balram to admit that he was the one who ran on the kid and killed them. The funny thing about that whole seen is when he walked in the treated him totally different then how the were treating him before like in real life how people do all the time the butter you all up and whole time it’s unreal they really just want something from you and that’s exactly what the seen was it gave me flashbacks to the point where I had to laugh a little. As much as the scene makes it seem like it was his choice, what was he supposed to do, say no and walk out? Then the movie has this part where he goes through the motions about it and says why didn’t he ask for nothing when they asked him to sign the paper like they would have really given him something. It made me think I can’t imagine being in that situation because he was stuck in a bad situation where he has to sign this paper and if he was to run the family he’s working for would kill his family. Imagine you have the chance to be away and happy but if you do your family is dead that’s a terrible thing to live with. Then you have this fake man who claims he’s for the people and his wife who's the same but it's a front. Ashok was a man who got away from Indian culture and saw a whole different world for years and nothing stuck with him like and he tried to embrace the culture I mean he married an Indian American whose views differ from his. He was still like his father and his uncle. He was supposed to be this cool boss but let Balram get bullied into signing those papers , talked to him crazy , and put his hands on him. He was no better. He soon realized that he couldn’t embrace the culture and he really was a true Indian and kept repeating it once he realized but it didn’t happen until his wife let him. Then you have the wife who may have different views and yes she had little influence on the whole situation with Balram but she was crying calling the child “it” instead of referring to the child like a person. Then you have her tell Balram like oh you're not going to jail anymore because they're not looking for you like she wasn’t the one who hit the child. Wrong messenger in this case.

[ziaraswan]

Man on Wire

The act of walking on a wire is impressive within itself. Someone who's never been out of the country sees something like the twin towers being built and automatically says their destiny to walk on a wire from those buildings is amazing. The twin towers were as high as ever and some people can’t even balance just putting one foot in front of the other on the ground. This man Philippe Petit had great strength within mind & body. A lot of people wouldn’t even walk on the wire if it was 1 foot off the ground because they would be scared of the fall. When I picture it all I could imagine if it was me and I looked down I would panic and misstep and you cannot do that you have to have 1000% focus. Walking on a wire at a height really high is always associated with death which is the reason you can't do it. But not Philippe Petit, he was a person who wanted to push the boundaries even after his friend was like I don’t think you should be doing this, nothing stops him. I have great admiration for him because anything could have happened to him, yeah he had been walking on wires for years at that point but he wasn’t doing anything like what he set out to do that day. Everyone who watched it happen and heard about it had some kind of admiration for him. Honestly, even the cop who was supposed to arrest him had to stop and just watch it happen because it was like a “wow” moment. Philippe Petit was a determined man when it came to this goal, sneaking in and hiding from the security guards watching the place with determination because he did it all the time. I found the part when he twisted his ankle or something like that and he had to use crunches from a little bit he realized the crunches gave him a cover because people seem to give handicapped people leadway he went he peeped that he was even using them after he had healed because he no longer had to work so hard to get into the building because now he didn’t need a cover or extravagant way to get in. Which is completely true because 9 times out of 10 when people see I handicapped person in a situation where they need help and leave them alone because they’re trying to make their situation better or at least less stressful than it already is. Talking about one more than I love the support he got from his friend even though he thought the wire walking across the towers was a crazy idea. He understood how much it meant for him to complete the goal and he helped him get there with the help he could give even though he voice the opinion to Philippe like no this is a little crazy. Having a friend like that in your corner is a good thing to have really because even though they may not agree with you they believe in you for the fact that you believe in yourself.

[ziaraswan]

The Prophet

Now this movie was a great movie in my opinion. I really enjoyed it. Someone said that this movie had a great way of showing growth in all areas and I agree. Malik walked into the prison without fully understanding what exactly he was walking into. He was shown as a weak criminal who got pushed around and bullied. He easily had his shoes stolen and as I would say bullied into killing Ryad. As the movie went on you can obviously see him understanding the way to move throughout the movie. How he moved through the hierarchy of the Corsian mob even though he was muslim and there was a clear discourse between them and the muslims in the prison. The way he handled the situation when he first decided to move the hash with his friend while he was in prison and he ran the drugs smoothly throughout the prison like even the person he was working under did know until a little while of him actually doing it. Then when he ran into the problem with the guys stealing his drugs and kidnapping his friend he handled that pretty well and how to get his drugs back onto the streets. As soon as he realized Luciani was going to get in the way of his organization and his growth he handled that situation accordingly and smartly. When you think about who Malik was when he walked into the prison and who he was when he walked out there’s no denying that growth because he walked in with nothing and walked out with a whole gang of people behind him. Malik's mindset throughout the movie kept me interested. I love watching a movie where the main character can think complex and ahead of things while playing things smart without creating unnecessary problems. When you watch movies that have things to do with characters in the same situations sometimes you have characters that play it fast and loose and end up in problems that would have never happened if they just really thought about what they were doing before actually doing it and then you have them have a partner that’s usually the smart one that has to clean everything up and this time this wasn’t the case. People always say that prison changes you and people usually never say that prison changes you in a good way because of the things you go through while in prison. Yes you could say that Malik transition was not a good one because he went in as a low level criminal and basically came out in charge of the organization and that’s not what type of transition people are looking for. When you think about it though, his transition was definitely a good one because at the end of the day he came out a changed man. He couldn’t even read when he first got there and he left when better reading comprehension skills then what he had due to the fact he hadn’t been in school since he was 11 years old. You cannot deny the fact that even though that is not the change prison is supposed to be known for he kind of did change for the better. When you think about it a lot of people come out prison total different people and not for the better the be worst then when they came out and that's not the case in this movie.

[ziaraswan]

La Haine

La Haine was a good movie. I just didn’t find the movie as interesting as I thought I would. I understood the point of the movie to show how life is for people who are not actually from France but the events of the movie did not totally pique my interest. Pointing out some of the things that stuck out to me was when they went to a different part to collect the movie from Scooby who lived in a totally different neighborhood then them. Sayid said when speaking to the intercom trying to them to open the door to the building because they didn’t know Scooby real name so they were hitting anyone’s name he put Vinz in the front of the camera and told him “ You try because me and Hubert they might shoot us” the difference between Vinz , Hubert, and Sayid is that he’s the only white boy there so his result with them may be better because they would treat him differently then them. As that part of the movie goes on and they leave the building after finally getting in the cops are waiting on them after being called and they are immediately profiled and pushed up against the car no question asked. The funny thing about this and I don’t mean funny haha I mean funny weird Sayid said when he spoke to the cop about directions I think that even the cops around that neighborhood were nicer than where they were from for the simple fact is that they cops addressed him the right way. In this moment and a couple moments later when they were brought back to the station they were quickly shown that the cops were exactly the same; they never changed because they would immediately switch up. The cops were just bothering them at the station and had no real reason to hold them and making all kinds of weird comments to them and physically hurting them to release so late to the point where they missed the last train to get home on purpose. The different personalities in their friendship were interesting to me. The whole time Vinz was talking about shooting a cop, especially if their friend in the hospital died and Hubert had the idea that Vinz was crazy and needed to settle down. When they were arguing about it in the bathroom Hubert said something smart that Vinz needed to hear seriously he said “ If we lose our friend our friend is just lost but if you shoot a cop are all the cops gone?“ Which is a real question, like shooting one cop is not going to fix the problem that you’re having you’ll just have shot a cop and now you have bigger problems and the problem you swore you were going to solve is still a problem nothing changed. Sayid never really seemed to have any big opinions on anything but Hubert and Vinz had opinions on a lot of things. Think about it. The message was definitely clear in the movie.

[ziaraswan]

Amelie

I didn’t actually enjoy this movie. I don't like how some of the story was told and the main character’s actions I did not agree with. Like the goose chase she sent the guy she liked on was crazy to me. I thought the whole time watching it go down. I don't know how this man is still willing to play this game with her because I would have gotten tired of the whole thing after the first time when he first got the photo album. One thing I will say that I didn’t totally understand but I did like the end result was how she stole the gnome from her dad and sent it around the world because of that was exactly what her dad had told her he wanted to do but when Amelie was little the heart defect got in the way of that and at the end the dad decided to travel and I hope that was intention of how it was supposed to go when she thought of the idea. The thing I will say about the movie is that it really shows that Amelie really lived in a dream world and that there is no way to live life because you miss out on so much and that’s exactly what she did. It's okay to be introverted at the end of the day but to the point where you can’t speak to anyone you don’t know I find that crazy because how do you move in life like that. The game she played with the guy speaks for itself in the end when she started to cry over the fact that she lost the guy to her friend if she really did she wouldn’t have no one to blame but herself because when he asked her flat out was the picture she put in the album her after she told him to come to the coffee shop and she lied and said no and he rebuttal and said it was and she still said no and walked away from him. How can you be mad like that was your chance to say everything you wanted to say and you still choose not to and stay on the other side of the coffee shop. You can’t live your life based on the fact that you are scared of the outcome not going your way because that’s life like everything is not going to go your way and you have to be okay with that. Another thing that I felt wasn’t right that she did is when she meddled with other people's feelings. Like the set up between her friend and the creepy guy from the coffee shop wasn’t right because neither of them were worried about each other until Amelie said something to create something there. The end result for her just deciding she wanted to hook them up put her friend in a intense situation as you can see when she finally creeped out by him and he’s making her uncomfortable. Why would you set up your friend with someone that is already in the coffee shop bothering another one of your friends doesn’t even sound right. In the end she did decide to take a risk with the man but it literally took her the whole movie and that’s not something I can get with.

[ziaraswan]

Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers was a good movie. The black & white kinda messed up my understanding of the movie but for the most part I knew what was going on. I saw this video where this man was talking about war and it had me thinking and this movie reminded me of what he said in the video. He said “ you just help assist in taking over another country when the civilians inevitably rise back up against you and you call them terrorists and drone strike them.” That’s exactly what the movie showed. The muslims community in Algiers were trying to fight for their independence back. The problems that they faced affected their livelihood and they were tired. In the beginning of the movie when Ali was running from the police the guy tripped just because he was being an asshole and when Ali fought back the whole block basically wanted to beat him to a pulp for defending himself. Another example is when the guy was just sitting on the corner minding his business and something had happened to a cop and because he was muslim the whole community was ganging up on him to the point where he felt unsafe so he was running to leave the area and the cops arrested him based on the fact that he was running and his appearance. Somehow standing up for themselves leads to their communities being “accidentally” bombed. You cannot accidentally drop a bomb on a community purposely and the fighting got really serious at that point because now they were really mad. Now let's get into Colonel Mathieu he was brought in to stopped the rebellion and he and his unit did some terrible things to the FLN people they did catch they were torturing to the point where some of them were actually dying and when confronted about the torturing he played like he didn’t know anything about that and they are only doing humanly necessary things to help Algeria. The French side of the war was based on the fact that they thought they were superior and you can tell that just based on how the Colonel was acting. One thing I will say is a expected Jaffar to die for his cause like the rest of the people who were dying for the cause when he said “this is a stupid way to die” or “ this is a stupid thing to die for “ something like that I was like no he was supposed to die because that’s exactly what I expected because it looked like he was ready. Plus he was the leader like if anyone should die for the cause it should be the leader of the organization. When it came down to Ali I thought to myself he better die for his cause and not be like Jaffar because even though he wasn’t technically the leader of the FLN a lot of people looked up to him. You can tell by how many people were standing around at the time when the police came for him and the people who were in that hole willing to die with him no one hesitated. 

[ziaraswan]

Turtles Can Fly

This movie was definitely deep. Satellite is the voice for the village. It was surprising to me because he was a child taking care of children and not only that but the adults listened to him. Like when the guy thought he was going to force him to not do his job and do what he wanted him to do which was translate the news for him so he stole his bike Satellite told him that he was going to give him the bike back or he wasn’t doing nothing else and he was going to take the dish back and he gave him the bike back no hesitation and said whatever Satellite says goes.  Everyone definitely had respect for him. Usually when it’s a child talking whether it be to other children and especially adults the child is always questioned and maybe sometimes not even taken seriously because they’re a child and that was not the case in this movie.I had many questions throughout the movie though some of it was a little confusing until it wasn’t. For example, I couldn’t understand Agrin's hate for her brother and came to find out as the movie went along that it was just the story her and her real brother told other people and it was really her child. Then when I seen her child was a product of rape I understood her hatred for her child I thought personally it was intense because she left the child tied to something and just left him and in the end she drowned him. Another thing I didn’t truly fully understand was the predictions Hengov was having. The messages in that movie were real and deep. Agrins pain was real she had those suicidal thoughts very frequently throughout the movie and I pretty sure her brother knew. The one time when she was about to burn herself in the pond I was scared for her but she stopped because she saw her son which I thought showed that she was trying to love the child like her brother told her to because when she went back she tried to actually sleep with him. Satellite clearly liked her and she knew that but she couldn’t get over what happened to her so she never really paid him no mind and she tried to stay away from him as much as possible. The ending part when she drowned her son and jumped on the cliff hurt me a little because I felt the pain of Hengov like he saw the drowning of his nephew before it happened and then he went to the cliff where the only thing there was his sister's shoes and he was calling her name. I was like damn he lost all his family in one sitting in one day. When Satellite turned his back on the American soldiers after he had shown in intrest in them throughout the movie clearly had a deeper meaning to it. Did the disconnection start when the mine blew off his foot or when the fish died or somewhere in between that ? One more thing I want to point out his the name of the movie is Turtles Can Fly the only time you seen turtles through the whole movie is when the baby had them and he threw them in the water and you never seen them again . Curious to understand the representation there.

[ziaraswan]

Moodlaade

First off I want to say I love the way the movie was directed because it made the message so much more powerful. But I wanna talk about the men . The menin this movie were interesting to say the most and that’s because the majority of them were still under the impression that they had a say in what the women should be doing with their bodies. These men were stuck in that men should have control over their women and they should not have any say or the least amount of control in what goes on in their household or their lives. The men who stuck out to me were Colle husband, the Mercenary, and Ibrahiam. These men stuck out to me the most because they had the qualities of the rest of the men but they weren’t completely like them. Colle's husband was okay with Colle speaking her mind to an extent and was okay with the fact that she did not want their daughter to be circumcised and only became a problem to him when he had other people telling him that he was losing control of his house and he was becoming a laughing stock. He was getting so much pressure and I believe that he wanted to save face which led him to beat his wife in front of the whole village. But towards the end when all of the women decided to stand up and say no more female circumcisions he stood with them and told the other men “it takes more than a pair of balls to be a man.” I thought that was funny because it stunned the elders and he was completely right. Now when it came to the Mercenary he was a womanizer and the name Mercenary is not a good name. When he told the story of how he got the name the one thing I told was he was wrongly labeled why would he keep the name but to get back on track he was the only one to stop the beating of Colle and the only man brave enough to say it wasn’t right. At the end of the day Colle's husband knew it was wrong when his brother gave him the whip because he said I’ve never beaten a woman before and was very sympathetic after the fact but he still went along with it. The Mercenary, someone who you would think would agree on this due to the name or at least don’t care about the act and it was not the case. Along with the fact that Ibrahiam was telling him about the fact that his family wanted to marry his 11 year old cousin instead of Amasatou he called them out then too and told Ibrahiam that’s not right and his family are predators. Now I know I said Ibrahiam was not like the elders and that's what piqued my interest in him but what really did it for me was the fact that in his interactions with the Mercenary and his interactions with his father he didn’t seem to have a real opinion on anything. He was really upset when the Mercenary called his family perverts but it wasn’t completely clear to me what truly upset him. He was mad he was right and he had the nerve to say it or mad because it wasn’t true and that’s his family. When he came down the marrying discussion he was having with the elders about Amasatou and how he was allowed to marrying a girl who wasn’t circumcised he didn’t really say too much then besides the fact that his father couldn’t tell him who he would and would not marry but as soon as his father challenge him on that he backed down really fast he put up no fight. I found that interesting because he spent time out of the village he want in France for however long and it seemed like he had all the same opinions he would have left the village with and when you experience life in a different place and seem so many different things it usually changes you view of things and it doesn’t seem like that was the case. I think he was interested in Amasatou because she was different but that’s really it.

[ziaraswan]

DISTRICT 9

District 9 was a crazy movie in my opinion. The way these people treated the aliens was unreal. The aliens got to South Africa by accident due to something happening to their ship and humans decided to let them stay and built them a home that later turned into a slum as years went on. Why tell someone they can stay and then make/allow their home to turn into a slum. These people mistreated, abused, manipulated these aliens in every way possible and not just the government it was the humans that live in the next neighborhood as well. Wikus was a menace when he was first introduced to the show and had the assignment of trying to get the aliens to sign the papers so they can relocate. He was “aborting” children , assuming the aliens were criminals based off of what they had in their homes and just being an all around asshole. This man Wikus touched things he shouldn’t and it slowly turned him into an alien.  The thing that is crazy about this is one of the people he was trying to manipulate in the beginning with the whole relocating thing , was the alien that ended up helping in the end and he helped him as well. Christopher Johnson was the alien that helped him and he was a very complex character. He helped a man that had wronged him twice and in the end he was actually kind of hurt that Wikus had to stay behind. He had so much feeling of what was happening to his people and for his son. Wikus was a character that had struggled with doing the right thing in my opinion was one the reasons being he couldn’t understand the choice of Christopher Johnson wanting to save his people and putting Wikus problem on the back burner; to the point where he was ready to leave him behind and lied to his son the whole time.  He then switched around after he crashed the ship to help Christopher get on the ship and he sacrificed himself. By the end of the movie I had seen the people’s reaction to the whole situation weird but back to what I was saying before you can see a lot of things in this movie that relate to real life. But the people's reactions in the beginning of the movie were judging Wikus and bashing him and all kinds of ways and by the end their like all he had to do was ask and he if was to ask right now we’d help him the switch up is crazy. The aliens were treated horribly by everyone and the government tried everything in their power to keep them on Earth. Why force someone to stay where they are not truly wanted ? The government wanted them to stay for the wrong reasons, but no one should be subjected to what their neighbors were killing them and eating them and the government were killing them to experiment on them.

[ziaraswan]

Black Orpheus

First of all I want to say I love the scenery shots of the movie. Black Orpheus was a lovely movie. The start of this movie I assumed that he would already be with Eurydice and when he wasn’t I assumed it was a coincidence his name was Orpheus or the movie was going to be told a different way. I love the story of Eurydice and Orpheus. I really enjoy Greek mythology as a whole but some stories stick out more with me and this story is one of them. I remember hearing about the story while watching this movie and the guy was telling the story to the girl he liked and I atomically looked it up to read it. Let’s get into Orpheus, Eurydice, and Mira for a second in this story. Orpheus was a womanizer on the low. He married Mira and was messing around with Eurydice. Granted he really kinda was an unwilling person in the marriage but he played along with her all the way to the courthouse instead of just not marrying her. Mira was a crazy woman. I don't know how she let the man talk her into buying herself her own ring while Orpheus brought his guitar and a record player. The foreshadowing in the movie was great. When they were in the courthouse, the guy made a joke about Orpheus and Eurydice loving each other because that’s the story and the new girl in town happened to be Eurydice and nobody knew that yet. When Mira found out the new girl that she already felt like Orpheus was paying too much attention in the first place she was appalled. She was jealous of the girl so much that she threatened to kill the girl. Compared to Eurydice who was just mellow about the whole thing.But one thing that kinda hit me was the fact that they remembered each other I guess from another life and then they shared that very intimate moment with each other. Imma be honest at first I was like huh how do you remember him and y’all just meeting but then I thought about it. The reference to the Greek tragedy was noticeable from Cerberus the guard of the underworld and when he was talking to Eurydice and he was supposed to walk out of the “church” without looking behind to get her back. I did expect to see a bigger dog because he was supposed to be a protector but I got the point. The ending was different then what I remember in the actual tragedy but I did enjoy the twist that he did end up finding her and then they end up both dying together due him continuously stepping backwards because of Mira and the chaos he saw in front of him. Stories playing out differently always bring a different feel to the story and a different understanding. Just to talk about one more thing I loved Sarafina personality but when she saw her man and decided to stop chasing Eurydice because Orpheus had it handled I thought to myself that wouldn’t have been me as a cousin I would of still been running after my cousin whether he got there first I got there first or we got there together at the same time.

[ziaraswan]

City of God

City of God was an interesting movie in my opinion. In the movie they put more spotlight on the people who are “hoods” in comparison to the working people. I’m going to talk about this movie using a theory of nature and nurture & you becoming a product of your environment. Rocket was a character who wanted to be a photographer of all things while most of the people in his community were “hoods”. He had an older brother who was a “hood” , a friend who was a drug addict, and grew up and lived in a very negative neighborhood full of drugs and crime. The moment he decided he wanted to try to be a “hood” he couldn’t do anything he set out to do because he kept running into people he deemed cool and realized he couldn’t do it. He really was not set out to be a hood. He was the exception to the theory because most of the people didn’t beat the theory. For example, you got Li’l Dice/Li’l Z who was a completely different person. The movie didn’t speak too much about his background on his family but they grew up in the same neighborhood. That man was a real menace, his ambition, his patience, his whole character was crazy. The way he handled certain situations spoke a lot of him as a person. The two biggest things I didn’t see coming when he was first introduced was him killing Goose and him being the one who killed all those people in the hotel because I honestly thought Goose , Shaggy , and Clipper shot those people and the movie just didn’t show that part. He became one of the biggest drug dealers in the community after killing most of the competition. The way the movie describes him as being bloodthirsty. He was a true product of his environment. He became exactly what he wanted to be and his death was crazy because it was basically karma for what he did to those people and the kids in the runts. On the opposite side you got people like Benny and Knockout Ned. Now in Benny's case he was a character that didn’t have too much depth but he was a hood that was completely different from Li’l Dice/Li’l Z. They labeled him the coolest hood and he even kinda kept Li’l Dice in check especially on the Carrot situation. He was into the life of the hood since he was young and could keep up with it. Thing is, getting out of the hood and doing something else was so easy for him to do. Some people can’t leave that life behind that usually stays in that life forever because they love the thrill like Dice. Knockout Ned is another case when first introduced he’s got his bus job and talking about doing better than unfortunate things happening to him and he joins a gang. When joining the gang he still holds onto some of his morals and toward the end he’s like forget it and shoots whoever which was not how he started. These characters either challenge or prove the theory completely in their own way because Rocket was not a product of his environment and Dice was. Then you got Benny who was but wasn’t because he could have easily become something else if he wanted to mainly because of how easy it was for him to give up the life. Knockout Ned only became a hood for the simple fact of revenge; it had nothing to do with his surroundings.