I talk to God, but the sky is empty

This movie somehow makes me think of The Turin Horse, both involve the issues of human existence, the struggle of life, the universe that contains us, the existence of God. While The Torrin Horse is bleak and hopeless, The Tree Of Life is very religious. Series of prayers/confessions/queries to God, sometimes it's a cry for help, sometimes it's a doubt of His existence. There were many scenes of climbing up the stairs, looking up the sky, i think it symbolizes our constant urge to seek the truth, or simply our want of edification. The film may be thought-provoking but it's not very touching (or at least it fails to touch me). Maybe it's too preachy, especially the last scene of "all together now" reconciliation of your own self, family, friends, neighbour or even strangers, although I do not entirely oppose to what it preaches (i.e. love and grace), we human being, those ungraceful Nature ones, do not like to be preached. So I admit that the quote that impressed me most is "What I want to do, I can't do. I do what I hate."

Because everything's in ruins

The Turin Horse

"Because everything's in ruins. Everything's been degraded, but I could say that they've ruined and degraded everything. Because this is not some kind of cataclysm, coming about with so-called, innocent human aide. On the contrary... It's about man's own judgement, his own judgement over his own self, which of course God has a hand in, or dare I say: takes part in. And whatever he takes part in is the most ghastly creation that you can imagine. Because, you see, the world has been debased. So it doesn't matter what I say because everything has been debased that they've acquired, and since they've acquired everything in a sneaky, underhand fight, they've debased everything. Because whatever they touch - and they touch everything - they've debased. This is the way it was until the final victory. Until the triumphant end. Acquire, debase. Debase, acquire. Or I can put it differently if you like: to touch, debase and thereby acquire, or touch, acquire and thereby debase. It's been going on like this for centuries. On, on and on. This and only this, sometimes gently, sometimes brutally, but it has been going on and on. Yet only in one way, like a rat attacks an ambush. Because for this perfect victory it was also essential that the other side... That is, everything that's excellent, great in some way and noble should not engage in any kind of fight. There shouldn't be any kind of struggle, just the sudden disappearance of one side, meaning the disappearance of the excellent, the great, the noble. So that by now these winning winners who attack from the ambush rule the earth, and there isn't a single tiny nook where one can hide something from them, because everything they can lay their hands on is theirs. Even things we think they can't reach - but they do reach - are also theirs. Because the sky is already theirs and all our dreams. Theirs is the moment, nature, infinite silence. Even immorality is theirs, you understand? Everything, everything is lost forever! And those many noble, great and excellent just stood there, if I can put it that way. They stopped at this point, and had to understand, and had to accept that there is neither god nor gods. And the excellent, the great and the noble had to understand and accept this right from the beginning. But of course they were quite incapable of understanding it. They believed it and accepted it but they didn't understand it. They just stood there, bewildered but not resigned, until something - that spark from the brain - finally enlightened them. And all at once they realized that there is neither god nor gods. All at once they saw that there is neither good nor bad. Then they saw and understood that if this was so, then they themselves do not exist either! You see, I reckon this may have been the moment when we can say that they were extinguished, they burnt out. Extinguished and burnt out like the fire left to smolder in the meadow. One was the constant loser, the other was the constant winner. Defeat, victory, defeat, victory and one day - here in the neighborhood - I had to realize and I did realize, that I was mistaken, I was truly mistaken when I thought that there has never been and could never be any kind of change here on earth. Because, believe me, I know now that this change has indeed taken place."

Liverpool

I should have written it months ago but I was tired and blank at that time. I'm still tired and blank but I feel like writing something about it now.

Liverpool - Lisandro Alonso

It's a simple story (if it can be called a story). A taciturn mariner set his journey back home for his ailing mother. There were hardly any dialogues, some people were playing games, but not for the taciturn man, he was standoffish, he's just present, and observed (or did he?) Just like the audience, we're just present, and observed (or did we?) but we were never invited by the director to connect with the film. The journey was long and hard, cruel blizzards all the way. There was no welcome at home (if that is a place called home). His mother did not recognise him. His daughter was not enthusiastic of his return. His father only wanted him to leave quickly. God knows what's happened there before. The world has already forgotten the taciturn man. He did not feel sad about it or at least his face did not register any sadness or disappointment. He left but the film continued. We saw what sort of lives that he left behind. It was the tip of Argentina, a place unknown to the world or maybe even to Argentina. The place was so remote that people have to live with limited resources and animal instinct. The world has not only forgotten the taciturn man, but also his family. Or maybe it's the world forgotten by the audience as we tend to dismiss the thing non-existing if we do not aware of it.

This is a film of microscopic examination of everyday's trivialities, detailed shoot of dressing, packing, eating and living. Banal and ordinary. No sentiment involved, if we only see thing as it seems. He tried to put the blanket on his mother, played around those little thingies in the house, stole a picture of his family, his hands were actually kept caressing the past and memory, though emotion also constantly kept restrained. Or he has been silent for a long time that he already lost the mean of communication. He gave a keychain to his daughter, bearing the name of a port somewhere. It might mean nothing to her, as it was not something valuable, and she seemed not interested to know what the word was about. But that might be the only thing that her father left her. A souvenir in the journey, record of a disconnected man wandering in the world, somewhere sometime, he may bear a thought of someone.











I have received several souvenirs of journey from others, some I like very much, some I just said thank you and put them somewhere now cannot be found, just like I also have given several to others, some may be being cherished, some may be regarded as trash as well. The only souvenir i got from my father is a bag from Guangzhou, cheap and ordinary. I never get along well with him, we don't talk to each other much. It is well known in family that I’m his least favourite child though I was also said to be the one who bore his character, a flawed character. He spends his humble life without much enjoyment and travelling. and I like the bag.

Bloodthirsty bastard

Story of a misanthropist. It could have been a better movie, but... It could be a shakespeare's tragedy - How a man was eaten by his own weakness and evil. It could be a greek tragedy - Man can never win the Fate, especially when the Fate is full of absurdity. Or...., don't be so serious, let's take a light-hearted approach. It could be a cult movie for the bloodthirsty bastards - Throat-slitting, lengthy blood-pouring, with the help of mince pie and corpse hill, what a perfect scene for any lovers of Vienna Actionist, Meat Joy and Blood Pleasure. Or..., don't be so arty. Maybe it's just a tribute to the B-movie, remember how we love pulp fiction! No no no, Sweeney Todd is none of the above. I'm reluntant to criticise this film, given that I'm so fond of Mr Depp, but somehow I do feel that there's something missing. I don't love the person Sweeney Todd, worse still, I don't hate him. I just have no feeling. There is no emphathy, no association. I blame it on the script (or the lyrics) that it didn't quite manage to establish the mentality of this man. Burton was used to be an expert to portray those lovely monster, be it sulky, melancholic, transvestite, hyperactive or simply, freakish. This time everything was a bit "surface". Joyless and humourless (except those bit about something like "i leave you to the mercy of your children" that's very Burton). I also blame it on the lack of chemistry between Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Their voices seem to have much more chemical reaction in Corpse Bride but in sweeney todd ... double negatives make a positive? two freakish persons may mean the loss of magic. And hey, why "Borat" just so quick to be killed? OK, i don't intend to make a series of complaint, especially to the work of my favourite people. At least i would say I appreciate the attempt of Burton, to make a gloomy "musicals" film about a serial killer and, I really love those gloomy Dickensian London scene. Fleet Street, I used to get my academic textbooks there, so bright so normal, it's hard to imagine its dark and mouldy past, err what? That city "is a hole in the world like a great black pit/ and it's filled with people who are filled with shit/ And the vermin of the world inhabit it"??? (I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap)


Razor-mirror, cracked mirror and "a pond of dirty water" mirror, that's too cliche to symbolise a mad man's vision (yeah I like to complain, cos I'm mad too)

The Lust of the Libertine

The Lust of the Libertine
Is really quite lame.



Lustful, promiscuous and intoxicated, that is all I suppose what a libertine is. Poetic, talented and bohemian, the A Must quality for a libertine. John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, is the second-rate libertine in the film. Lustful, promiscuous and intoxicated he was, I wouldn't blame him for that. To be a libertine, we all expect he/she a bit irresponsible and hedonistic, but that's because he/she yearns for the lust for life (mind you, i mean the lust for life, not the lust of life), to explore the deepest sensation, experience every passion - to get the most feeling of your life. The film did not quite manage to portray the Earl as the libertine in my mind. (P.S. of course this is not the fault of Mr Depp, he is always brilliant and charming)

A decade

If it was not Ms Pretty's invitation, I did not realise that this is the tenth anniversary of the death of Kieslowski. There will be a rememberance of kieslowski in Broadway Cinematheque in July but i'm going have a rememberance of my begone art-house days now.

This person (me) was unashamedly pretentious in the past but reality has reduced me to a humble miserable bore (some may call it down-to-earth as a compliment). I think I must have lost part of my soul in my humdrum mere existence. anyway I will not buy the ticket, that down-to-earh factor urges me to save every penny for the pension scheme (or save the money to buy the dvds).

I remember, I remember

The films selection of the rememberance is quite complete, of course I have only watched part of them. i forgot most of the plots (and the films of kieslowski are also over-analysed so i say no more), what is left is just the feeling but the feeling rambled below is probably twisted by my fading memory.

Liberty, equality, fraternity

We learnt it from the O'Level History lesson, so did in kieslowski's three colours trilogy. In Blue, Juliette Binoche liberated herself from the shadow of Death (the death of her husband, her desire to commit suicide, her mental death by cutting off the contact from the real world). In White, Karol fought for his own equality by getting rich, getting even. In Red, Irene Jocob and the eccentric retired judge developed a strange bond of fraternity. Or is it only a story about Poland - how it shakes off the tragic past, tries to have an equal footing with the world and yearns for the friendship of the west? The themes are highly visualise by colours, if blue is melancholic, red is warm and passionate, then what is white? It is pure and innocent, or bleak and cold in terms of Karl's revenge?

We are bound

But not together

My twin soul

lost and cold

Have you found your shelter?

Still breathing if I'm not around?

I really like The Double Life of Veronique. Irene Jocob was just so ... beautiful. They were so far away from each other but somehow they felt the existence of each other. Their paths did cross once. V1 took a picture of V2, V2 did not aware. They both loved music but made different choices. As beauty and sublime as poetry. The music of Zbigniew Preisner is just breathtaking. A perfect work of art.

Every page of my diary

contains your name .... and your stain

God knows how I fantasise you

and how I pay the price

for my ravenous mind

Dekalog 6 (A short film about Love) is not just my favourite Dekalog, it's my favourite among other kieslowski films. It's about love at the first sight, obsession or, simply voyeurism (but voyeurism has never been described as so innocent before). This is a story for lovers (ha!), but I don't mean the lovers in ordinary sense. Lover is the one who opens his heart to his feeling and who lives in the feeling of love regardless of any return. Sadly such openess will inevitably invite hurt and failure (fragility of openness, oh!). Tomek is the one who opened his heart and got hurt (by cruel sensuality/shattered illusion) but funny enough the ending is the looking-glass reversal, maybe that's because she has opened her heart finally.