Enter the Void, Avatar, elokuvan muoto ja visuaalinen stimulaatio.

Enter the Voidia katsoessani vieressäni istuva, minulle siis täysin vieras, tyttö piti käsiä silmillään melko ison osan elokuvasta, silloin kun pää ei ollut uneliaisuudesta notkollaan. Elokuvan loputtua takapenkissä ollut mies nousi ylös ja totesi "Tämä oli kyllä todella paska!".

Elokuvan alkaessa reaktioni oli päällisin puolin melkolailla verrattavissa siihen, kun olin katsomassa Avataria 3D elokuvateatterissa. Koin, että nyt näen jotain, kirkasta, värikästä, aikaisemmasta näkökokemuksistani poikkeavaa, silmiä viehättävää/ärsyttävää; Enter the Voidin kohdalla en ollut heti varma. Tämä visuaalinen ärsyke piti vallassaan melko lailla elokuvan puoleen väliin saakka, jolloin aloin siihen hieman kyllästyä. Samoin kävi Avatarissa, vanhana Sci-fi nörttinä olin ekstaattisessa lapsenomaisessa onnen tilassa, kun näin värikkäitä avaruuskukkia ja hauskasti pyöriviä aluksia ja muuta vilisevää, mutta kun elokuvan puisevuus puski läpi, ennalta-arvattavuus ja vääjäämätön loppurymistely lähstyivät, vaikkakin olin jo antautunut sisällöttömän piirretyn viihdyttävään kuvavirtaan, takaraivoani jyrsi kyllästyneisyys. Piristävä trippi oli saavuttanut huippunsa ja laskeutuminen alkoi ja puudutti aivot.

(Huomio: En todellisuudessa ajattele, että Avatar ja Enter the Void olisivat missään määrin verrattavia elokuvia, enkä vertaa niitä nyt laadullisesti taikka sisällöllisesti toisiinsa.)
Enter the Voidin leijuva kamera alkoi myös lopulta harmittamaan, osittain samoista syistä kuin edellisessä: se ei enää viehättänyt, henkilöiden taria toki piti saada loppuun, mutta minkäänlaista yhteenvetoa en heidänsuhteen kaivannut, oli vain ajatus, teema, kierto. Osittain toivoin, että elokuvan muoto rikottaisiin, siihen tulisi jotain ilmaa, osittain arvostin jatkuvasti sitä, ettei näin tehty.

Puheet kuolleiden kirjasta, uudestisyntymästä ja yksittäiset huomautukset elämänasenteista olivat pintaraapaisuja, heittoja, jotka toki tarjosivat pohjaa ja syvyyttä, mutta jäivät melko ohuiksi. Tuhannennen kerran kameran sukeltaessa lamppuun huokaisin ehkä itsekin hieman hermostuneena ja pohdin, kuin Avatarissa, aliarvioidaanko minua nyt?Kuten muutkin Noen elokuvat, Enter the Void rakentuu yksinkertaisista palikoista toteutettuna visuaalisesti koukkuttavalla, uskaltaisin väittää; elokuvallisella tavalla. Niinkutsuttu tarinahan elokuvassa on melko yksinkertainen, samoin tapa jolla se esitellään: henkilöt puhuvat ensin asiasta joka sitten tapahatuu. Harvinaisen selkeää. Elokuva ei missään tapauksessa ole sekava. Tämä on niin hyvä, kuin huonokin juttu.

Avatarin, kuin monen muunkin kaltaisensa, juonenkuljetus ja ns. sisältö ovat selviä katsojalle välittömästi kun ne on asetettu näytteille (jos on sattunut niin, ettei ole nähnyt traileria) jonka jälkeen minkäänlaista yllätystä ei ole luvassa, vain rakennettuja, helppoja onnistumisenkokemuksia; "Jes! Mä arvasin!". Enter the Voidia katsoessa alkaa myös nopeasti odottamaan, että koska sielu pääsee takaisin kohtuun, koska ympyrä tiivistyy niin, ettei muuta vaihtoehtoa ole, mutta tuttuuden turvallisuutta se ei tarjoile, elokuvan lopussa ei tule mieleen todeta "mä arvasin". Sillä siihen kerronta ei perustu.Enter the Void vaatii kuitenkin nykyään niin harvinaista taitoa; antautumista, ei niinkään älyllistä analyysia. Mielestäni tämä viestietään katsojalle yksinkertaisella muotoseikalla: olette nyt päähenkilön pään sisällä, koette hänen trippinsä, kuulette hänen katkonaiset ajatuksensa.

Päähenkilön kehosta irtautumisen jälkeen sielu käy läpi ensin elämänvaiheet, sen jälkeen kiertää sykleissä lähimmäistensä läpi, sukellellen pyöreiden aukkojen ja valojen kautta syvemmälle spiraaliin, kunnes saavuttaa oman alkupisteensä. Muoto siis sisältää lähtökohtaisesti ennalta-arvattavuuden. Tämä nostaa esille keston.

Tosin sekin elokuvassa mainitaan, että DMT trippi kestää ikuisuuden, muttei se mielestäni ole riittävä peruste pitkitetylle elokuvalle, joka nyt ei kuitenkaan ikuisuutta kestä. On mielekästä pohtia, mitä elokuvaan olisi jäänyt, jos se olisi karsittu minimiin? Riipivän toistuvaa leijumisia olisi vähennetty ja saatu vain kosketus siitä, että nyt leijutaan, muiden elämä etenee, meillä ei ole siihen kosketusta. Tämä tietenkin myös nostaa kysymyksen, että jos tämä ajan tuoma ulottuvuus tuo jotain merkittävää elokuvaan lisää, onko se riittävän arvokasta? Mikä on silloin elokuvan sisältö, jos se ilmenee vain keston, muodon, kautta?

Elokuvallinen kuva saavuttaa maksimikestonsa ja vaihtuu toiseen, jossa se paljastuu, muuttuu, etenee. Luo sisältöä. Noella on kahdessa viimeisessä elokuvassaan selkeä kuvakerronnallinen tyyli, jonka sisällöllisyyttä ja mielekkyyttä on oikeutettua kyseenalaistaa. Oman kokemukseni mukaan se kuitenkin on naturalistinen ja samalla vieraantuneisuutta lisäävä, välinpitämätön ja eteerinen. En ole elokuvamaailmassa niin korkea auktoriteetti, että uskaltaisin väittää tämän olevan jotenkin vähäpätöistä tai vain jokin merkityksetön muotoseikka. Elokuvan kuva on kuitenkin sen tärkeimpiä kerrontatapoja ja verrattuna aikalaisiinsa, ei mielestäni ole perusteltua väittää Noen kuvaa sisällöttömäksi, sillä Noe pyrkii ulos yhdestä kuvasta, pakoilee freimin rajoitteita, niinkuin kokeellisessa elokuvassa tapana on ollut.
Kokeellisen elokuvan historia on pitkälti keskittynyt juuri välineeseen ja muotoon, tarinan eri ulottuvuuksien ja kerrontapajen etsintä elokuvassa liittyy elimellisesti myös tähän. Näytelmäelokuvan puolella Synecdoche New York tosin keskittyi onnistuneesti tarinankerronan, sen ajallisen ulottuvuuden kautta saamiin mahdollisuuksiin edetä ja porautua henkilöön. Youth With Out Youth jossain määrin samoin. Näissä elokuvissa ei siis kuvakieli ole taitavuudestaan huolimatta erityisen poikkeavaa. Trierin Direktøren for det hele edustaa taas samankaltaisuutta Noen elokuvien kanssa, jossa tarina on melko yksinkertainen, mutta kiinnostavan siitä tekee toteutustapa. On ehkä väärin kutsua näitä elokuvia "Kokeellisiksi" mutta perusteltua on väittää, että ne ovat vähintäänkin "progressiivisia".

Täytyy tässä vaiheessa myös sivuhuomautuksena kertoa, että olen ihminen jonka mielestä Transformes 2: The Revenge of the Fallen on viimevuosien suurimpia kokeellisia elokuvia. Selitys: elokuvassa ei ole samaistuttavia henkilöitä, elokuvan tarina on lähes käsittämätön, sisältöä ei käsittääkseni ole ja elokuvan tekeminen on maksanut enemmän kuin osaan kuvitella ja kaikki tämä raha on käytetty muotoon; siihen tehosteiden karnevaaliin joka sytyttää aivoissamme viihtymisen tunnetta stimuloidessaan silmiemme tappisoluja.

Eli, Enter the Void lukeutuu kokeelliseksi, suoraviivaisuudessaan kuitenkin eri lokeroon kuin kaikkien ihailema unimaakari Lynch taikka aavikkomystikko, symbolitykittäjä Jodorowsky.

Vaikka Enter the Void oli minusta ylimitoitettu, kotiin päästyäni en kuitenkaan koe että se aika olisi hukkaan heitetty. Se ei välttämättä ollut hyvä ratkaisu, mutta koska mm. tylsimmän elokuvan paikasta mielessäni taistelee joko Batman & Robin tai Muumio, en voi väittää kokeneeni että aikaani olisi tuhlattu. Kun ajattelee postmodernin Hollywoodin popcornipojua Tarantinoa, jonka Pulp Fictionin jälkeiset elokuvat ovat kuin luokan tähtioppilaan tarravihko kaikessa kylmyydessään ja kiiltelevyydessään, on EtV:n jokainen minuutti oli minulle nautittavampi.
Avatarin henkilöt olivat karikatyyrejä, selkeästi määriteltävissä. Samaa voisi sanoa Enter the Voidista. Henkilöistä ei annettu järin moniuloitteista kuvaa. Toisaalta, näin taannoin 5 ja puolituntisen elokuvan Carlos, joka ei kestossaan saanut aikaiseksi juuri minkäänlaista hahmoanalyysiä. Päähenkilö oli kokoajan etäinen ja vähän vituttava. Ehkä se oli tarkoituskin. Verrattuna vaikka Profeettaan, joka normielokuvan mitassaan kertoo äärimmäisen herkästi henkilöstään, voisi tätä seikkaa kummastella, mutta tässä palataan muotoon; Elokuvan muoto, kerrontatapa määrittelee pitkälti sen, miten lähelle henkilöä päästään tai miten lähelle häntä on tarkoitus päästä. Avatarissa karikatyyrimäisyyden vuoksi, EtV:ssa leijuva kamera ei yksinkertaisesti mahdollista kuin pintaraapaisun henkilöihin, tai ehkä Noe ei onnistunut saamaan henkilöhinsä syvyyttä. Henkilöiden keskustelut työn orjuuttavasta luonteesta lisäsi tietenkin elokuvaan jonkinasteista pihviä ja päähenkilön uravalinnan vuoksi tässä tilanteessa ollaan, mutta koin nuokin nopeat informaatiot osana hentoa kudosta jonka avulla katsoja voisi kokea jotain henkilöitä kohtaan, eikä varsinaisesti kannustuksena laajempaan yhteiskuntakritiikkiin.

Helposti hauskoja hahmoja jotka piristävät pakettia löytyi toki, mm. geneerinen mutta toimiva huumediileri ja hänen läävänsä. Mutta, muoto myös antaa meidän ymmärtää, että oikeastaan me olemme päähenkilö, meidät pakotetaan kokemaan päähenkilön elämä ja kuolema. Noe haluaa antaa meille tämän tripin, ja henkilön menneisyys on läsnä selittämässä nykyisyyttä, jotta ymmärtäisimme edes vähän siitä, miksi hän oli sellainen kuin oli.









Vaikkakin psykedeliakuvauksia on tehty mielinmäärin, Blueberry, Avaruusseikkailu 2001 ja Trippi nyt esimerkiksi, eihän EtV ole pelkkä trippikuvaus, vaikka sekin tulkinta on mahdollinen, mutta jos näin on, onhan se sellaisenakin merkittävä. Jo pitkän tradition omaavat psykedeliakuvat eivät EtV:n screentimeä juurikaan vaatineet ja se, mikä oli, oli ansioikkaasti toteutettu. Yhteys Avaruusseikkailu 2001 loppuosaan on myös kiinnostava, sillä EtV alkaa värityktyksellä, ja vielä psykedeliatripin alkaessa kuvamaailma on katsojalle melko uutta ja siihen on vielä totuteltava. Psykedeliakohtaus toimii rauhoittavana ja näköhermoja hivelevänä, vaatien antautumaan. Jos sen haluaa ottaa vastaan. Psykedeliakuvasto on hyvin sumuista ja muistuttaa sitä miltä näyttää kun painaa silmäluomia sormilla, eikä näin siis keskitytä elokuvissa usen nähtyihin huumehallusinaatioiden symboliseen maailmaan. Kohtauksen jälkeen elokuva tuntuu pitkään siltä, kuin 2001:n psykedeliakohtauksen jälkeinen aika tuntuu, jokin on sijoiltaan, jokin on vinossa, mutta irrallisuus estää saamasta siitä otteen. Huomioitavaa on myös elokuvien samankaltainen lopputilanne.
Kuten Irreversible, Enter the Voidin teemat olivat nivottu erottamattomasti elokuvan muotoon. Ei tuollaisella tyylillä voi kertoa tarinaa, missä rikas poikamies ottaa otteen elämästään, oppii vastuuta ja löytää kumppanin. Tässä mielessä elokuva oli harvinaisen onnistunut, vaikkakaan ei yhtä häkellyttävä, kuin Irreversible aikoinaan oli, pikemminkin tyynnytelty versio siitä. En tiedä korvaako seikkaa se, tämä elokuva oli huomattavasti positiivisempi ja toiveikkaampi.

Perustuiko Tokion valinta lokaatioksi noenvalojen täyttämä ympäristö? Valo oli, kuten monesti kuoleman ja elämän välistä tilaa kuvattaessa, tärkeä elementti. Tokion kaduilla ei näy luonnollisuutta ja elokuvan todellinen Tokio sekoittuu pienoismalliTokioon.. Julistettuani asetelman yksinkertaisuutta tämä kuitenkin jäi minulle arvoitukseksi.

Tämä oli selvennys siitä, miksi mielestäni ei ole oikeutettua todeta että Enter the Void oli "paska leffa." Eikä vain siksi, että on niitä paskempiakin. Kuten Trierin Antichristin tapauksessa, totean myös tässä: Älkää katsoko tätä kotona, dvdltä, pausenappi syyhyten. Teatterin pimeyden, suljetun, intiimin muttei kuitenkaan yksityisen tilan merkitys on joissakin elokuvissa lähes yhtä suuri, kuin katsottavan elokuvan tarina.

Star Wars - the story about fathers love

Now comes an interpretation of Star Wars and an attack towards a great film theorist.( I put this back on the front page)

Some time ago I watched all the Star Wars movies, yes, all 6 of them, even the 3 new ones. I must admit, that even being an old somewhat "hardcore" star wars fan, it was quite a struggle. The new 3 movies are just bad movies, bad cinema, and there is no way around it. The most pleasurable view were the episodes 4 and 5, New hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Even Return of the Jedi was a bit eerie. But, although I´d like to, I am not going to complain about the 3 newer episodes or the changes made to the old ones, even though they make me feel sick.

But now when all the 6 Star Wars movies are out there, what is the saga about? If we look at the characters, we see that there are 3 characters appearing in all 6 of them. R2D2, C-3po, and Anakin Skywalker, although he appears as Darth Vader in 3 of them, but the core person stays the same. So I think it is safe to state that the main character of star wars clearly is not the 2 robot buddies, although they are 2 important ones.

So the the lead character of star wars is Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader. He goes trough the biggest changes, he learns the biggest lessons.
Anakins mom states to Qui-Gon, that Anakin was born without a father, miraculous birth due to the high count of midichloriants. So, wanted Lucas is or not, we make an instant connection to Jesus, and all the talk of Anakin being the chosen one makes the matter even worse and irritating. Well only thing I´m going to say about that is this; Jesus had somewhat complicated relationship with his father, don´t you think?

Originally a slave boy, Anakin is characterized in a quite cartoonie way to be lost and unbalanced kid who has mixed emotions and is quite temperamental. He longs for recognition from the Jedi council but the Jedis are not so eager to accept him to be their savior and wonder child. This strange and somewhat unexplained longing for recognition and power is not too clearly explained in the film. Anakin just is that way. Yes, he misses his mother who had to be left behind, but the emotional motives for Anakins behavior are not too clear, possibly due to bad directing. Anakin is constantly saying lines like "I am the best pilot!" and "I am the strongest Jedi!", like he had something to prove someone.

Well, isn´t there a theory about sons and fathers, and the emotional distresses they can create? Anakin, a fatherless child never had the fathers love and acceptance that he is important and adequate to full fill his place in the world. He longs for it, but can never have it. Anakin finds his father figure from the "most powerfull man" in the Galactic senate, a strong senator Palpatine who quickly rises to be the leader of the Galactic senate. This person is the only one who Anakin sees to be sufficiently great to be his replacement for a father. And he turns out to be a Sith lord. So what choice Anakin has? He has to be his apprentice, cause he is like a father he never had.. A note for later: Palpatine appears in 5 of the six movies, as same as Yoda, but has much more screen time..In Episede III Anakin is totally lost, he needs Padme, but doesn´t seem to be able to emotionally connect to her (there is something realy fake in their relationship, is it the acting or the story?), he respects and hates The Jedi´s at the same time, Padme and Anakin have this secret relationship that is unaccepted and Padme is pregnant, and it is forbidden to Jedi´s to have children. This is like a too young kid going trough life too fast, not quite understanding whats happening and ultimately unable to take the responsibility needed. (the story telling might be similar to Anakins feelings, concentrating on the wrong things, alot of extra stuff..)

The scene what we all were waiting, where Anaking finally turns in to the Darth Vader we know, is irritatingly inter cut with the scene where Padme, his fiancee, gives birth to Luke and Leia and dies in the birth her self. So we witness the birth of Luke and Leia and the birth of Darth Vader - the birth of the next(or the old)chapter of Star Wars saga. And we see the death of Anakin, Padme, the Jedis and the Galactic senate as it turns in to the Empire. Death of this trilogy. How brilliant...
But more importantly we see the transformation of a fatherless Anakin,to a father him self. Not having a father he can not become one now, without turning in to some kind of monster. Even tough he is not aware of the children surviving. Hes anger towards himself is catalyzed by the lie that he killed Padme himself. But the concrete thing we see is, that when Anakin becomes a father, he becomes this inhuman dark machine. As I heard somewhere that Darth Vader is based on Dark Father..eh.

So now, the old, good, Star Wars films tell a story about Luke, an orphan, a bit restless and rebellious. He has this unexplained longing to somewhere, which is common to teenagers, I think. He hears a tale about great wars and about how great pilot his "real father" was and how Darth Vader betrayed and murdered him. Luke starts to follow the path that eventually leads him to confront Darth Vader. This is of course told in a way much more believable way than anything in the new saga.
Luke becomes something of a hero and seems to be pleased about the fact, but something still troubles him. There is the tension that Luke must confront the man who supposedly killed his father and therefore robbed him of the love and bonding between father and son. Comparing to Anakin, Luke has a goal which he can reach for, the supposed reason for his detachment where Anakin never had any target to put all his energy to, cause there was no clear reason for his fatherless life.

Luke sees a hallucination which tells him to go to this distant planet to became a Jedi and for some reason he follows it. There he has another vision of his friends being in danger. He also fights imaginary Darth Vader and kills him, seeing that the Darth Vader was actually he himself. This is later referred as "the failure in the cave". As in if Luke just kills Vader, he fails and kills a part of himself, the chance to become complete. To reach the unity which lies in the truth about the true relationship of Luke and Vader. And also gives clues to still ignorant viewer about whats going to be revealed.

Well, soon enough Luke finds out that the reason for these weird visions was that Darth Vader did not kill his father, but is his father. Then we see a great scene where he shouts "No! That´s not true! Thats impossible!" Yeah.
"Join me, so we can rule the galaxy as father and son!" As we know, Luke jumps down from that thing, he chooses to take the chances of dying in the fall and not to join Darth. Cause the fact of Vader being his true father, his origin, is at this point seems too terrible to live with anyway. It is in incongruity with everything he had believed. This can be argued that Luke knew that he would not die when he jumped down..but then a gain..did he?

When realizing that Palpatine was evil, Anakins most precious father figure, he dropped down to his knees and pledged his obedience. And when Luke hears that hes true father was the devil, sort of speak, he dropped to almost certain death.

Comparing to Lukes situation to Anakins: Palpatine represented the "Galatic Senate" and "democracy" at that point. Jedis were there to protect them, so the revelation of Palpatine being evil was much more difficult for Anakin, cause now he knows that the leader of the Republic that he had served and the father figure he had needed so much is, what only the Jedis call evil, so there was too much mixed feelings for Anakin. Palpatine supported Anakin on purpose constantly told him that he was "becoming the greatest Jedi" giving him this feeling of importance that parents often give, so how could he deny this.. Where as Luke and his friends fight the evil Empire anyway and it represented everything that they hated. So the knowledge of Vader being his father was too much, cause all the basis for his life was suddenly gone, the target of Lukes hatred was wrong.

Luke: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
Surviving and unable to avoid the fact, Luke again seeks confrontation with his real father, and whats most important: with acceptance of the fact that Vader, the so-called ultimate evil, really is his father. He goes to Vader and Palpatine and again Luke chooces the almost certain death to joining the evil, for the second time, when Anakin had failed at the first try. The saga ends to the point where Anakin who never had a father, sees that his own son, who he did not raise himself, loves him enough to trust his life in front of the Emperor (formerly known as Palpatine). Kind of unconditional love that he has never experienced. At this point Anakin gets all the recognition he has ever needed, the void of never having a father is surprisingly filled from unexpected feeling of being one himself, so and decides to end the manipulative and demanding relationship to Palpatine, and saves his son, who despite all the things Vader represents, believes in him. Vader sort of accepts that hes search has been futile, but sees that he is now on the other side and has now a chance to take the place of the father he should be.

There is this close-up shots just before the act of saving, which i think is the only shot, or series of shots, that had some extra meaning with the "new saga". In that shot we see the story of Anakin gathered to this one moment. But then again, it worked without the new saga..


Like the quote above states, that even though Lukes father had become a dark lord, he had a father, therefore he has something to cling on to, he wants to be a Jedi, like his father was, there is a meaning in that. Where Anakin was to become a Jedi, cause, well, he had no place else to be. Some one told him that he must be cause he is so good at it. But in the light of the new episodes, Luke is no longer a leading character, but supportive to Darth Vader in completing his story.

A famous film theorist Zizek said that in the birth-death scene, Anakin becoming Vader, we see the ultimate nightmare, our father becoming immortal. And this is what the old saga is about. There is this Dark figure that dominates everything, until the final confrontation of father and son.

But where Zizek was wrong, was that, at first, Anaking never wanted to be immortal. Both Anakin and Luke suffer from attachment to the persons near to them. I mean they can´t bear the thought of them dying or even being hurt and are always running to help them. They don´t trust their loved ones to survive them selves, they have this kind of narcissistic thing going on, where they their friends exist only to compensate some missing feelings of importance and safety.. Of course this has to do with the person surviving himself, but from my point of view Anakin does not seek a path to immortality, he seeks only to make sure that the persons he loves stay alive, what matter the consequences. This is stated very clearly in many Anakins lines in the movies "Someday I am able to stop people from dying!" and "I won´t let you die" and so on. Actually it is the good side of the force, the Jedis that find a way to make themselves immortal. There is only talk about this some sith lord able to save others from dying, but then not able to avoid being killed themselves.

So Zizeks Freudian theory of never dying father being the ultimate nightmare is somewhat irrelevant, I think. And takes things out of the wholeness of the story and manipulates the story and character to fit the spychoanalytic analysis. This seems to be common for this sort of analysis. He should treat the StarWars saga as a whole, cause he takes the basis for his Darth Vader-theory from Episode 3 but it only aplies in episodes 4-6. So in that way it becames a bit meaningless.

Through my view, view of Vader being the main character, all of the Star Wars films seem to be about finding the lost father. Anakin does not choose to became immortal(or in a sense immortal), he needs to become, because had he died in the burning lava after Obi-wan cut of both of Anakins legs, the longing for acceptance and love would never be fulfilled, and finally he dies right after the moment it has fulfilled. In the scene where Anakin almost dies, he does not beg for anyone to come for his help he just shouts "I HATE YOU!" to Obi-wan, as if now that he hates everybody he could as well die..
This somehow connects to the scene where Luke jumps down in ESB, seeing what his father was, makes life feel too unbeareble and meaningles and he feels that he´d rather die, but Luke survies the fall for the same reason as Anakin survided the burn.
The Zizeks explanation of Darth Vader is at least totally inadequate. As we see right in the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, is that Darth Vader is no overlord, that he obeys the Emperor still as an apprentice. In episode 4 Vader is all the time under the power of Grand Mof Tarking, he orders, Vader obeys. And as we can understand with the help of the new saga, this is the only thing that Anakin has ever wanted; to obey and get recognition about the good work he has done. He tries forever to be the "good son" he never could be. That´s why Vader is constantly shown to kill his vassals, when they fail to do the jobs Vader needs them to do. The whole saga ends with the death of the false father figure, the true source of all evil!!

At Luke does not treat Vader as this dark father figure that must be defeated, in Episode 4 there is no confrontation directly between Luke and Vader, Episode 5, the firs saber-duel Luke still thinks Vader killed his father, Episode 6 They fight for a time, but Luke repeatedly says "I will not fight you father" and Vader is the aggressive one, because of the Emperors will.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke still has chance to think if he would joins his father and complete their relationship as the Emperor wants, but if he does that, they´ll both be under Emperors might, and by joining Darth he would never find his real father.

If Luke is Vaders son, therefore there must be something of Vader in him, so it must work the other way around also. And because of this the final battle is not between Vader and Luke, but Luke and Palpatine, the Empreror. Vader intervenes, he wakes up from the dream that started in Episode III, killing the younglings and all that, and now kills the false father figure that has been around for so long and finally gets to see the acceptance and love of his son. Now, when the false father of Anakin has died, he can be a father himself, for the brief moment. He asks Luke to take the Vader mask of, which he psychologically does not need anymore, or which Luke has already taken off in a way. "Let me look at you with my own eyes." Anakin becomes what he never had, the thing he could never own. The saga could have ended there: The real father and son are united for the first and the last time. Had there not been all the other characters of course.

This theory might explain why the new Star Wars saga is so badly directed. I don´t know, but if Lucas had some father-son trouble of his own, the feelings might have been too clear for him self, so clear that he could not, or forgot to transmit them to the audience. So that we would know whats going on.

End question: Do you know how many times a hand is cut off in all the Star Wars films? Everybody gets their hands cut off!?! The theme of cut-off hands? Could some one tell me whats the idea behind that?

Editing with the Steenbeck apparatus

So, now that I again do something that differs a bit from my everyday doings I might as well write about it here, cause I feel empty and out of ideas.

Today started the editing of Jalil- shortfilm, at Sputnik-production company. I am editing it the "old school way", I cut 35mm film, I roll the reels. I tried to talk my way out of this, I just wanted to edit it with my laptop or something, you know, the usual way, but the producer and director were quite strict about this and laughed at my worries about working with real film.
Many times I emphasized that I have no idea about how to work with film or with the Steenbeck apparatus. But everybody told me that it was going to be fun and I would learn it in a few days or something.

Well, last week I went to see the horrific apparatus and my teacher from school came to give me some advices about using the ghastly machine. The main thing now is that working with Steenbeck is soooo slow. But it is different than computer being slow. If computer is slow, you get mad and start to hit it and your blood veins start to pop from your eyes and temples, but steenbeck goes as fast as you can use it. You have to rewind the material all the time, you have to check the sync all the time, you have to do your little markings all the time and make sure they are correct. So it is kinda like more natural way of working, even tough you operate an infernal gizmo.

What I noticed right away is that it feels really good not having to work with computer all the time. You can not just click the screen and go to check your facebook site, see the status updates of your friends and you can not check your e-mail every 5 minutes. I find this really soothing. The one thing I hate in editing is the fact that you have to sit in front of a computer all day, and when you have free time at the evenings or weekend, and you have time to write or something, you always end up sitting in front of a computer. If you are not outside.

What bothers me a bit is the fact that picture and sound never really meet while working with film. They are always separate and that makes me feel uneasy. Working with computer you sync the sound and picture to the same file and they stay that way. With film you just make the film and sound the same length. So every time you load a reel you have to check the sync.

But quite quickly I got rid of the first weird feeling of handling the real film material. That you have to really pull and roll and touch and cut the film. This was something that I thought about before I started working with film, that it must feel weird, but that feeling went away fast. At first I didn´t even dear to touch the film, at the end of the day (I worked 11 hours at the first day) I grabbed it and pulled it and made some strange markings to it and cut it with no worries..
So, let´s see what tomorrow brings, I only have this month to cut this film. It should be 28 minutes long. Im not sure how much material I have cause I can not count from the reels given to me.

I got almost 3 scenes to sync on the first day. There were many delays and I worked slowly, I hope my tempo quickens.. but there are 22 scenes so a good start! :)

There is no gene for faith

The during the discussion about Fight Club some elements rose up that reminded me of another of my favourite films, or a film that like previous one, has made a strong impresion to me. I started to wonder the characters and the story in this particular film, and how I could compare it to Fight Club or to Demian possibly.
This is an underrated film called Gattaca, from 1997. Story takes place in near future, where children are conceived by genetic manipulation, to create a perfect human. Natural born humans are now a new underclass. Its a story about Vincent who fights against the future predicted for him, from his genes. Gattaca is a basic tale of one mans fight over unbelievable obstacles. So nothing new.

The Lead character Vincent has "invalid genes" and to reach his goals he has to become Jerome Morrow, a good gened guy with bad luck. He buys his personality. He becomes a so called "de-gene-rate", which is illegal of course.
In the world of Gattaca, where genes mean everything, the most unclean, and intimate things, which humans usually don´t exchange with each other, things that might be regarded as dirty, or the Abject maybe, are now the most precious and expensive things and things that matter the most. A big part of becomin Jerome is that Vincent must leave behind traces of the good genes. Humas loose all the time hair, spit, skin, things that all hold the persons individual gene in them. Vincent practically buys Jeromes blood and piss. (because the frequent blood and piss test).
In Gattaca humans personality is diminished to genes. If your blood is good enough, no one cares about anything else. when Vincent and Jerome meet and they don´t look anything alike, but the middleman says that "it is close enough! when was the last time you´ve seen anyone looking at a picture" or something.So now, an outcast man want´s to dive deep in the wrong-gone society and be one of the elite, but being an outcast he has to become some one else. Where in fight club, getting out, becoming an outsider, meant becoming someone else. So the direction is opposite from Fight Club.

The question of individual and personality in proportion to society and its expections and limitations is obvious.

Vincent: I can't go anywhere without seeing my own face. They'll recognize me.
Jerome: They won't recognize you.
Vincent: They'll recognize me.
Jerome: I don't recognize you.

It could be argued that Gattaca shows us what most of us are doing in real life. We have weird imaginations and expectations of our selves and what we should do with our lives, like Vincent has, he wants to go to space, and thats it, no explanations.

In order to attain these goals, like a good job or a career, the society around us gives us no choice but to leave our natural selves behind and become something else. We all must be better, cleaner, more intelligent and more good looking. We must be productive and happy. We willingly do unnatural acts to become these roles we have imagined for our selves. Because we think, or are made to think that we aren´t enough we have to be like society wants us to be, to reach happines or whatever.

Still, Gattaca shows us a hopeful view that anything can be done, but also shows the cost of it. Everything Vincent does, is for his career in space. Is that a good thing?There are 2 men in a really close relationship, which is not approved by surrounding society. And there is the one woman in the middle of them. The relationship between Vincent, Jerome and Irene is somewhat similar to the relationship of the Narrator, Tyler and Marla in Fight Club. Irene is in love with Vincet, but for her he is Jerome, much like narrator is Tyler for Marla. So Irene is in love with the "imagined" person of Jerome Morrow, which is not real, like Tyler isn´t. Of course Vincent can never discuss Jerome with Irene, like in FC "never talk about me" says Tyler.

This arrangement is not the main focus of the movie, but its still clearly there. When the process is reaching its end, the real Jerome kills himself, leaving only the secretion bags for Vincent to last the rest of his life. And when the real Jerome disappears from the world, Vincents identity is also finally destroyed and replaced by Jeromes, by a push of a button. The rebuilding of ones personality is complete, and there is no coming back.

Vincent: [voiceover] For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home.

In the movie Vincent has just reached his goal, but having second thoughts, cause he has now conveniently stepped to the life of a "valid", but fortunately he still remembers that his main goal was not getting in to a society of elite-people, but to use it to fly away from it.

So compared to Demian, where a bird must break the shell around it to break free, in Gattaca Vincent had to first built one, then be shipped in it to freedom. :)

A person from the dark world works his way up to the clean and desired world. Element similar to Fight Club are: society that gives the boundaries to fight against, 2 guys in a close uncommon relationship one being the unwanted starting point and the other the goal or the desire, the personality game, the process in which one becomes something new, a synthesis of 2 different factors, and maybe the Soap thing, if it is interpreted that way of the fat that it is made of is now being used to the goals of the characters, like here the real leftovers from human are precious for our main character.Im going to totally set aside the fact that this movie deals with gene manipulation and makes a strong statement about it.

There is the question of brothers in Gattaca. Vincent is a "child of love" a product of passion where is younger, better brother is carefully planned and properly produced child.
Brother becomes a cop who tracks down a killer, who he suspects is Vincent. So this is a kind of Kain and Abel tale, which brings us to Demian and to the Bible of course.
"The mark of Kain" is the mark of Vincent being an "invalid". But it is also the mark from Demians interpretation, mark of desire, power and determination.

Water and swimming play a big part in Gattaca, to be honest, I really don´t know what that is about. The 2 brothers compete by swimming, yes, but they could do it running I guess.. Except being in water is like being in space, there is no way out, you can´t just stop swimming and walk away, you have to swim, or you die. We all swim in the current situation we are in. We can´t stop it if we want to survive.. Maybe that´s the point? Anyways, it is the part that made an affect on me when I saw it the first time. Swimming scenes with the beautiful music score. Check it out.

Turning Demian into a movie

I´ve had this imaginary plan to interpret Demian by Hermann Hesse for the big screen. This is a project I´ve just rolled around in my head from time to time for 6 months or so, just for the interest of it. Project is in its beginning, nothing is written yet or anything, just some notes done. And of course I realize that this is never going to happen.

First I though that it should take place in the modern society, not in the period before World War 1, like the original story. But soon noticed that the time and the surroundings have too much to do with the story and the meaning of it that I just started to do gather the main events and characters and developments of the story, keeping it in its original surroundings. Like it should be.

But today I started to think that If the story is put to present day, all the symbols and meanings had to be changed, all but the basic story of Sinclairs (main character) development as a person from displaced and scared, and somehow missled person to understanding his significance and true self, in the context of the state of the world around him, and finding the same patterns from the whole world that he finds in himself.

-- Now follows a long and possibly pointless comparison of a book Demian, and a movie, Fight Club. This is insane, I know. I should probably read the book Fight Club, but the point is, that if Demian should be translated into a film about this time, could it resemble Fight Club and is Fight Club somehow the Demian of the 90´s? I am not saying that Fight Club is as good as Demian, but examining their similarities just as a curiosity. The point might be that the basic story is somehow architypical (?) and thats the main and only reason for any similarities. One difficulty is that movies and books use different kinds of methods of expressing things, but thats partly what this is about. And just to point out: I am not over excited about Fight Club. This just came to my mind today. --

So in Demian the main things are Sinclairs religious up bringing and the struggle of the "light" and "dark" worlds. Meaning the traditional (way of the parents and teachers) and way of the "outsider"seen as dark and forbidden, alternate way of interpreting things and living ones life. And there fore the whole state of European culture at the time had the same arrangement in it self. Old traditions started to tear themselves apart until it all culminated to WW1. So there is all the time this situation with opposites, with out any synthesis.

In order to move this story to present time, we would have to find analogous phenomenon from the present culture, which could be presented as being on the verge of breaking down.

In Fight Club, there is the empty, clinical and shallow world of white-collar worker whit negligent father who has told him what to do, but not why and never really got to know his sons. It shows a whole generation, which is described in the film ; "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. "

So there is the abstract culture of jobs for money, money for furniture and fun, but no deeper meaning. No knowledge of the spiritual side of life. Which could be seen as reverse arrangement, but also somehow similar to Demian, cause the old, firm religious tradition keeps young man from getting to know himself taking on a own perspective to life. Shallow traditional and restraining religion has changed into shallow restraining consumerism.

Next comes some obvious, or interpreted similarities, on factual events in the stories.

First, there is the Bully, Kromer, that keeps pulling Sinclair to the "Dark" side of life. In Fight Club, Jack is bullied by his insomnia which starts to notify that everything is not right.

The character arrangement is similar. While Sinclair is in school, he first starts to see Demian, not to talk to him, he just notices this boy with special substance. In Fight Club The Narrator, or Jack, doesn´t really see Tyler, but the audience sees him. On the one frame flashes and going past him on the escalator.

The first time Sinclair meets with Demian, He tells him that the story of Abel and Cain can be interpreted differently than the teachers want them to interpret it. ( Cain having the mark cause he is different and strong, not because he is evil). First time Jack and Tyler meet, Tyler tells him that the safety instructions are there just to give false hope and that one can make explosives from items found at home. Both tell a story which is about looking things in a different light, not the way we are thought to look. On both situations an important element of the story is introduced. In addition to the other character of course.

After this starts the journey for both, Sinclair and Jack, out of the past world to search for something new. Where Sinclair is tossed about in the life of a student, trying to fight his bad feelings and rip everything from the old person away from him, Jack starts literally to fight against the other people with same kind of problem, he fights with Tyler, and as we later on get to know, he fights with himself.

At this point the stories differ, cause Fight Club has taken more obvious view that Jack and Tyler are the same person, where in Demian, Sinclair is not so obviously "same" with Demian, but Demian shows the path and stays behind the curtains, but obsessing the mind of Sinclair. These 2 journeys are different, due to the different natures of the stories, but some similarities can be found.

When Tyler and Jack organize the Fight Club, they (or he) becomes some kind of icon or a celebrity. In Demian, because of Sinclairs "uncertainty" about his own personality and the world around him, he becomes, for a while, a daring "bar hero" drinking the most and talking the meanest things. And he is known to his entire school.

In Demian, dreams have an important role. and they tell us about the state of Sinclairs persona like in Fight Club scenes of fight or arguments with Tyler etc. Also the painting that Sinclair does in the story, which starts as a girl he likes, becomes Demian, then Demians mom Eva, then Sinclair himself, describes the lack of consistency of Sinclairs identity, or the path of finding the connection to his subconsciousness. And almost all the scenes in Fight Club can be seen from this angle.

Sinclair also often contemplates the fact that things that Demian says sound like answers to the questions an thoughts in his own mind. Much like the situation with Jack and Tyler. "Sometimes Tyler spoke for me.."

Cause Sinclair is a young student it is natural for him to paint and think and dream, as in Jack´s situation that would seem odd. So in FightClub the chain of events is presented by scenes of action and mischief.

Tyler saves a character named Marla from suicide in Fight Club. Marla has same kind of problems as Jack, and they form a problematic relationship together. Later on in Demian, Sinclair saves a young boy, Knauer, from suicide. The boy resembles himself when he was younger. In both stories the saving occurs unintentionally, or unconciously. Jack doesn´t remember that he went to Marlas place, cause it was Tyler, but he remembers the sex scene, but thinks he has dreamed of it. In Demian, Sinclair wakes up from a dream, goes out in the middle of the night and just walks "like a sleepwalker" to the place where Knauer is about to kill himself. Knauer develops an obsession to Sinclair for a while after this. Of course Marla plays a much larger part in Fight Club than Knauer in Demian...

Quote from Demian (translated from Finnish to English by me): "The most true calling for one is only this: To become your self. Should it be a poet or a madman, prophet or a criminal - it is not for us to decide, and at the end, it makes no difference."

From Fight Club: Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Fight Club is more individual based, in terms of content I guess. Demian gives a lot more spiritual and possibly hopeful view, where as FightClub is a lot more violent in its opinions and has more harsh tone. And because of the different time periods they deal with different worlds and ideas. Demian dwells in the depth of subconsciousness and the unified soul of the world, finding answers from staring to the fire and listening to music, where as in Fight Club there are the same themes, but answers are found in more concrete level, on the dark streets or basements, doing a thing that most certainly feels and is real, fighting.

Demian describes an end of an era, Fight Club is done in the end of a millenium. And both describe an end of an era on a person.

The scene where Tyler leaves Jack, resembles the scene where Demian is last seen in the book. Jack and Sinclair both lie almost unconscious, Jack after near fatal car crash, Sinclair after a near fatal explosion. Jack tries to speak to Tyler, but can´t, same with Sinclair and Demian. and in the mornign Demian and Tyler are gone. We get the impression that Demian is dead. Or is he?

Because of the War Sinclair is sent to the army. Scene before of the scene where we meet Demian for the last time, Hesse describes very beautifully and with many image-like descriptions that can be interpreted in many ways, the event of Sinclair almost getting killed by a bomb.

In Fight Club there is this cool slow motion shot about Jack shooting himself to the mouth. We can see the explosion in his mouth and everything.

So, in a way, both, Demian and Tyler are dead in the end.

In the book Demian, we are left with the strong message, that with a person or with the world, in order to become what we are supposed to be, like a bird must break the shell around it in order to get born, we must break the shell, the shell being the restricting and "old" ways of seeing our selves or the world around us, if we want things to change.

And in the end of Fight Club we see a total destruction of the person Jack/Tyler used to be, and the destruction of the basis of the current career and money driven culture; The exploding buildings of banks and credit records.

One important thing missing from fight club is the symbol of synthesis. In Demian it is the god Abraxas.
But in Fight Club there is numerous remarks that refer to god and making a synthesis; it is not wanted anymore. " Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!" So at this time, we do not search for god anymore, we don´t care about those kind of thoughts, as long as there is something to believe in, something that is real.

Demian tells a story about a boy from 8 years old to 20-something. And Fight Club? About 25 to 30? maybe. So being done in a different time, it is only appropriate to tell about the next phase. Or is the culture today infantile? Tyler himself refers them selves, grown up guys to children. In both of the quotes I´ve written here.

The thing might be that this is no news for some, but for me it was some kind of revelation today. The stories and character arrangements are similar in many stories through out the history of literature and it is not a big deal. The things I´ve written here might come across quite shallow in terms of similarity. But what interest me the most is that Fight Club might well be a dated version of Demian. They are in many ways parallel to each other, just because of their differences. Differences caused by the time they were conceived and the way they´ve been made (book/film). These things have an effect on the way a story develops and where the emphasis lies. Is the similarity there just because of the 2 main characters and the story of finding your self in this messed up world?

I am also quite sure that there is a scene in Demian when Sinclair feels like destroying something beautiful and does some kind of act because of this, al tough I can´t remember/find it now.. In Fight Club Jack beats the face of this blond guy like a maniac and after this says "I felt like destroying something beautiful".


24/10/2008: I've noticed that many people come to read this post, It would be nice to hear your thoughts about it!

Blow of Fight Club

-- updated 27.2 2008 --

I just watched the movie Fight Club and realized that the movie is somewhere deep in my subconsciousness. Or the affect of seeing this particular film at a certain age, 16 at the time, is irreversible.

I won´t argue that the movie doesn´t use some shallow methods at times and represent a flawed view of the world. It is Ok for a movie to do that to a certain point. And I am not saying that is so "deep" or so "cool". There are many movies that include heavier substance than this movie.

But I remember the night I saw the film. For some reason I had nothing to do on a friday night. I asked my dad to drop me off to a movie theater located in Kotkansaari, about 9 km from where I live. When our car stopped in front of the theater, the door man was just opening the doors and watched me get off the car in my leather jacket and long scarf. When I walked inside to the empty lobby, the doorman (who also sold tickets) said " Was that your dad outside? Yes? Well, then I can let you in. This movie is not for people under 18". At the time I was irritated by the fact that he did not take me for a 18 year old. Not even with my leather jacket!

There was something like 4 people in the theater. The movie had been shown something like 2 weeks or so..When the movie began, and the scene with Norton against the tits of Bob was on the screen, I remember thinking "what the fuck is this..?" And after that I was in a state of muddled confusion right to the point when Tyler leaves and the ending starts to reveal. I wasn´t excited about the film, like "OMG fucking great movie!" It was more like a quiet enthusiasm and feeling that I just saw something I had not seen before.

This was the time when I started to really see movies, not just watch them. Time when I started to get interested in different kinds of films. Same time I tried to watch Le Mempris for about 7 times and never understood it. This was the time, when ( I´m ashamed to say) my consciousness was opening and possibly expanding, at least in terms of film and the world of cinema. So although I´ve never really considered this to be a film that is really important to me, it is one of them that really left a mark.

Weakest thing, possibly quite fatal thing in Fight Club is that biggest movie stars of our time with great muscles and looks talk about things like "self improvement is masturbation" and "not everyone will be movie stars and rock gods".. and so on. They represent the thing this movie is against. Or atleast tries to be. So this is the frustrating double-dealing point of this movie. But if we look past this, we can see a quite good package of visual storytelling and ideas about the world and the lifestyle going on in the late 90´s and feel the excitement and energy of the movie.

Interesting point is that when "the narrator" starts realizing that his life is not what he wants and tries to change it, he goes insane ( or meets Tyler). Like one must go insane to act like he feels like... The lead character never gets any help to his insanity, but works it all out himself. So this is a story how to over come schizophrenia. And how this one messed up guy becomes an icon for hundreds of people. Unwillingly. And how his mental illness just toys whit these people.
Scenes like where one guy tells tales about the "mysterious and great Tyler Durden" How he sleeps only 1 hour a night and was born in a mental institution, tell us something about the absurd grip of this story. And when one of the Tylers gang members says "when he said ´you are not your job!´ I was like; FUCK YEAH!". Viewer can easily understand that the makers are not so serious about this revolution..

I remember that somebody criticized the film about being fascistic. That might be, but that is also part of the attraction. At least for me. I´m not saying that I would like to live in a Tyler Durden- house. But in a way FightClub deals with freedom and finding alternatives to the way of living in our society. Oddly these kind of explorations often lead to situations that are easily interpreted as fascistic. If freedom is organized it ceases to be what it originally was.

And even if I don´t live like the guys in the films, I still have something in me that resonates with lines like these (even though they might be a bit corny) :

"Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. "

"You have to know the answer to this question! If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? "

" Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!"

" First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die. "

Movies that make sense

Million Dollar Baby is a film about a boxing coach who loves the people he trains and therefore is unable to give them "big fights", cause he is afraid that they get beaten up too badly. So sooner or later the Fighters leave him. Until he reluctantly starts to train a girl and gets her to the top, then loses her just the way he fears. Se gets injured in a fight.

In the Valley of Elah is a film about a father who is a patriot, whose 2 boys have gone to the army. While investigating the missing of his older son he finds out that everything he has believed about the army, U.S.A. and therefore his entire life, has been, or at least is now, totally wrong and twisted.

Both of these movies are written by Paul Haggis. I am not surprised if 6 out of 10 would write the plot synopsis differently. For Example that Million Dollar Baby is about a woman boxer who wins her dreams or something like that.
That happens also in the movie, but it does not matter.
Valley of Elah tells us that the father finds out who has killed his son and so on, or the conspiracy in the army, but that is not so important also.

In both of these movies the main focus is how the lead character, and old man, deals with what decisions he does and how he copes with them and the decisions done in the past. In the Valley of Elah broads the view to the decisions of a whole country and to the war.

Lead character being a well-built, old, decent man also gives an interesting perspective. That same man could have been the hero of the movies while he was younger, but now he is just and old hero. Realizing that he is alone and all he has believed, or what he has done, has been wrong or meaningless. Now he tries to cope and find peace in himself, while, in both movies, a young energetic woman has taken the place of the hero, or the achiever. And it could be argued that the arrangement could have been the opposite some time ago. It also tells us something about our time and the ways of old perspectives.

These films give a simple, but meaningful statements, using somewhat usual stories or characters, but twisting them or making them the opposite. Sometimes a basic story, is a good foundation to a good filmmaker to do a film that has a meaning. These films are not great works of art. But in the field of film making they are good examples of films that at least make sense and are really well done.

It just seems to be the case that too many of us, including the people who study film making or watch them a lot have lost the ability to really watch movies. Some might say, including me, that these films contain some clichés or too common plots or characters. But no one never takes under consideration that a filmmaker would do this to use it for a purpose. Or just that we should or grow a bit more humble and not demand something innovative every time we see a movie.

Do we also have to grow old and on our last days see the iniquity of our ways? I think so. Or am I wrong?

Movies and real life

- Addings made 29.5 2007 12.44

(Sorry, I think that my english is on its limits in this text. Some thoughts might be a bit short or badly written)
When people are watching a movie, what do they think about the characters, I mean, why are the characters there, what is the motive for their actions...? Does anyone think this? Yes or no, either way things aren´t that simple.
Cause I´ve confronted some very scary people, and a lot of them, who seem to watch movies in a way which is totally odd to me. If a character is in a movie, Someone has written the part, and an actor has acted him/her in a way which supports the characters role in the movie. So, am I wrong by thinking that a character represents a certain thought, feel or "way of looking" or a "view point" to the subject of the film, or has a function in it to get the plot and message where it is going? This is ofcourse a bit shallow interpretation. A character must rise out of the text to be recognized as a human, not only work as a mathematical factor. But that is a big part of character. Think about the Aristothelic way of telling a story. There is the hero, the protagonist and the antagonist and many others, all have their specific part in the story to keep moving..
Now follows an example full of cliché ->
If we see a film made in the 50´s where the lead character is a man and an anti-hero who gets in situations where he must rise above his own powers compared to his life before, and the reason for this is a woman, who has a smaller part and is more shallowly presented, a troubled woman, who likes lilies but has no boyfriend and is in some kind of danger, possibly because his father is some evil nazi officer.
So, does this story present us an image of all men whit the expection for them to overcome their obstacles and stand up as men? and do you think that this storyline gives us the impression that women in general like lilies and need to be rescued?
My answer is absolutely no!
( yes, this arrangement is really stereotypical, but there is also the "era"-issue. Which is a totally different issue, but important also, interpretation must recognize the time and place where the piece was made, eventhough this isn´t an escape route or justification for anything).
Its more like a tale about overcoming obstacles in general and finding love and exitement in life or something..but not about what men and women are like!
Of course there is that interpretation, and it is true also, but it is very very dangerous to think that it could be the only way on interpretating it! Movies are art and if someone thinks that he can give a full and thorough analysis of a movie he or she should stop watching films and go out and live.
People can choose what they see. That is relevant in watching films too.

Every time someone shows us an image of a person or something, it is presenting somekind of characteristics that the presentator finds important or likable.
Every image is a statement!
But in order to make stories and movies, one must use images and characters and their characteristics and sometimes characters evolve in a direction which is not the must likable or not the most thorough presentation of the group that that specific character is a part of. Should every movie have in them a complete range of every characteristic a human could have to make them acceptable?

If the audience can not understand the connection between the different statements or images, what is the synthesis that they produce together, because that is what film is about, either the storytelling of a film is bad, or the audience doesn´t want to recieve the point, or is not ready to understand it.

Of course he/she who makes these images must be aware what kind of vision of world he/she is representing. And if the images are somehow questionable, one should maybe take the story and message under closer look.

I am not saying that portraying stereotypical images is OK or could always be justified. No. But if someone does decide to create some characters who are somehow stereotypical or something, there could be a reason for it? Maybe, maybe not.

My point in short is, that movies are small tales about life, they tell us things by presenting them through selected sort of characters and events, which are not to be taken literally in any situation. Movies are not telling us how we should live or how we should observe life.

movies affect our life, but I guess that real people have much greater impact on us than movies

Psychoanalysis is especially dangerous way of interpretating films. Being my self a big "fan" of Freud and Jung, It is the way of looking things, not the specific symbols or connections that those guys, especially Freud made. For example, ever though about the precious world-wide-famous award winning trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, in a point of view of traditional psychoanalysis.. some really funny stuff can be seen.
Or look at the same films keeping in mind the man-woman matter. Not so funny anymore.
You could say "Those films are fantasy films". But it might be just me, but films are films. In my eyes they are all fantasies. And how far of everyday life a film is, more exact it can be in telling us about our life. I dont make such direct segregation between films, just by in what genre they happen to be.

Connecting the same interpretations for symbols and characteristics from one artwork to another is not so right thing to do as one might think. I mean, that one must learn the system in whit a specific artwork works in, in order to analyse it and make connections from it to the real world:
"On a traffic light red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go. But on a banana it's the opposite. Green means hold on, yellow means go ahead and red means "Where the fuck did you get that banana at?""
-Mitch Hedberg

So, Im just warning everyone to think again. Was the interpretation you just made, out of the film or out of your own way of seeing and thinking life, and your own wants and desires was just unjustily placed on the shoulders of an innocent movie?