Change Your Image
jinmo2007-1
Reviews
Disgrace (2008)
Father's disgrace, daughter's humiliation
The story line is that: the father has sexual proclivity for colored young women, and abuses his power to get what he wants; the daughter (who, of course, is white) who lives a secluded life in a sea of blacks, chooses to endure and submit to the humiliation of being raped, robbed, and taken advantage of by her black neighbours, so that she can continue with her way of life in the country; the father, gaining insight into his own past abuse of power through the blacks' abuse of power upon his own daughter, finally repents and becomes genuinely remorseful for his own abuse of power (over young black women). In other words, he has finally realized how "disgraceful" his past conduct used to be.
So, it is an allegory of the nation of South Africa itself: father is the old Apartheid-South Africa, abusing, humiliating and taking advantage of black people; daughter is the whites in the 'new' South Africa with blacks in power, abusing, humiliating and taking advantage of the cowered whites in their turn. Just as the old whites robbed the blacks of their land, made them beg for their mercy, the daughter is now being robbed of her land by Petrus and depends on him to keep the black boys away from her. Now the table has turned. Just as Lucy has voluntarily become Petrus' tenant on her own land, South African whites, by handing the power over to the blacks, become blacks' tenants in their own land. Simbolically, across Lucy's house Petrus has built a brand new house, as if telling Lucy that this land is now my land.
The thing is, the movie is improbable and rather far-fetched in one crucial aspect: why the victims are going to so many lengths to submit to the abusers (in both father's and daughter's cases) to such extreme degree. Did the college girl not have the option of reporting the professor's conduct to the disciplinary board? Did she not have the free will to refuse the invitations and wining and dining? Did the professor force himself upon her? Now let's turn to the daughter: She knows that Petrus had masterminded the robbing and rape in order to drive her out of the farm: Yet she still makes a deal with him on such humiliating terms for his "protection" The victim of rape is seeking protection from further rape by making a humiliating deal with the rapist. Is she an incurable masochist? Or is there some compelling reason that she will not or cannot leave the farm? The movie never tells. Perhaps the movie is attempting to allegorize and translate into personal dimension the change that has happened in the relationship between the whites and blacks in South Africa in general. But the story as told in the format of movie simply fails to convey the subtle nuances in the novel, and would only look improbable and far-fetched to whoever sees the movie without first reading the novel.
The Conspirator (2010)
Mary Surrat was guilty of not informing the authority,
but not of being part of the assassination conspiracy as such.
In the movie, she claims that she never knew about the assassination plot(even though she indeed owns up knowing about the plot to 'kidnap' Lincoln). Her claim of ignorance is not plausible. How could she have not known about it? Wasn't her son part of the plot? Wasn't herself an ardent supporter of the Southern cause? Was it possible that her son did not discuss it with her? No.
The prosecution knew that Mary Surrat, even though not actively participating, at least was fully in the know. That's why they did have any qualms about using her as a 'bait' and --eventaully--scapegoat for her son, who behaved cowardly from start to end. He took off alone and then did not turn himself in when it was apparent that they were about to go ahead and execute his mom in his place.
Earthlings (2005)
What is the message?
The thing is this movie is attempting to convey too many messages in the same package.
1) is the message "Let's all turn vegetarian"? They are forgetting that many of the animals in the movie themselves are carnivores. Human would not have developed brain (and thinking ability) had he not been omnivorous. Brain requires a lot of calories.
2) is the message "Kill those animals more humanely!"? It is patently impossible to kill all those chicken, cows, and pigs humanely. Of course, too much brutality is no no.... But life has its ugly aspects. Even for humans the scene of birth and death is not pretty. Everybody uses toilet.
The Cove (2009)
The restaurant is still open for the Japanese.
Western countries' attempt to close down the Japanese whale harvest is somewhat comparable to a restaurant patron's demand to close the restaurant after he ate his fill so that no other patron may eat.
The dolphin harvest was not unknown to the Western countries such as Norway, Iceland or Danmark. They too used to drive dolphins to a cove and slaughter them, well into 1960's. British and American whalers decimated the whale population in the Pacific and the Atlanticto virtual extinction. South Georgia Island, a British possession in the southern Atlantic, used to be a practical killing field for whales (and seals). The very reason International Whaling Commission came into being was the belated bad conscience of those countries.
Let there be no mistake--I am no lover of Japan. However, there indeed is an element of hypocrisy in criticizing the Japanese practice. Why didn't the film crews of the Cove first go to South Georgia island and Nantucket and erect some memorial to the hundreds of millions of whales massacred only until a few decades ago?
Revolutionary Road (2008)
An Honest and Intelligent Movie.
This is an honest, intelligent, and thought-provoking movie, well-directed and edited even though perhaps a little overacted. This movie is about a middle-class couple whose high aspirations and dreams are not backed by commensurate real talent. The story is repeated in every suburb, every generation, all over the world..... People who are smart and ambitious sometimes attempt to compensate their lack of real talent with peculiarity. April is such a case. The misfortune of April is that an even nuttier stranger (the realty agent's son)came into the picture and pushed her nuttiness over the edge...
I commend the production for not succumbing to the all too obvious temptation to turn the movie into let's-make-money "suburban Titanic II."
Valkyrie (2008)
A great, well-researched movie
(This is one of the best-researched movie on WWII. Superb, accurate details. I especially liked the faithful reproduction of Hitler's mountain retreat Bergof. The outside and interior were exactly like the real thing.) The German people had made a pact with the devil, even though they did not know it at the time. Belatedly they realized what they had done, by which time it was too late. In retrospect, even if they succeeded in killing Hitler, I doubt that it would have been the end of the story: Goering, Himler,Goebels and other Nazi henchmen almost certainly would have put down the coup, with or without Hitler. The Nazi apparatus was too much entrenched to be dismantled simply on account of Hitler's death.....
Cross of Iron (1977)
This is a great movie but it has its flaws.
One glaring flaw of this movie is its portrayal of the "privileged" officer/nobility class in the German army of WWII. Hitler was himself a gefreiter in the Reichswehr of WWI and, to give the devil his due, during the inter-war period he had tried very hard to eradicate the class- and rank- inequality in the Wehrmacht. Not only that, Hitler actually HATED the German officer/nobility class and did his best to screw them given half the chance. For example, in the movie, during the dance party for the patients in the military hospital where Steiner recuperates, the adjutant for a visiting general gives order to "take meat and wine" from the buffet table "to private room" (so that the general and his entourage may consume it in privacy). Such thing could never happen in Hitler's army. Had there been any general attempting such thing, he would almost certainly have been court-martialled.