Laughable Loves (book)

Laughable Loves (Written by Milan Kundera)/1969

Kundera explores human desires and fragility in the seven stories contained in this book (fragility caused by ego, shame or fear).  Naturally one of the greatest desire in human beings is sexual desire.  In order to acquire the object of their desire the characters in this book go to great lengths to overcome their shame or fear.  On the other hand, the shame or fear stops them in their journey leading desire to intensify as unrequited love.  Moreover, sometimes ego drives a character’s desire: what makes one proud or worthy in the eyes of others dictate what one desires rather than following what is natural to one’s being.

Kundera provides knife-sharp analysis of the internal debate that goes on in the characters and really exposes their vulnerability until the reader has nothing left to ponder.  I found this approach a bit harsh and brutal at times and felt sorry for the characters who were left naked and empty at the end of the story.  The effect of this for me was that it had removed all romantic and magic like qualities of love and it made pursuit of love to be a pathetic attempt by characters to acquire whatever they wanted to fill their void – which may be the intention of Kundera.

The stories themselves did provide an interesting backdrop to make philosophical statements about the greater human condition beyond love and sexual desires.  However it had the most appalling portrayal of female characters I’ve ever read.  The men were very proud, quite macho and either idealised women as pure and innocent beings or the object of their sexual desires.  Despite the philosophical turmoil that was going on, their conscious mind appeared to be only interested in pursuing sexual intercourse.  They were completely unaware of their inner dilemmas and lacked any self-reflection which made them drift from behaving one way to the next.  That may be the reality and how people generally behave when it comes to relationships and desires where emotions run high. 

Over the course of various stories however, the male characters develop. In the first story they are dominated by fear, then the characters grow into being inspired and overcoming their fear, and in the final story, the central male character realises that despite physical pleasures if one fails to pursue spiritual or intellectual endeavours one will continuously feel empty.  By contrast Kundera’s women appear to be one of two types: beautiful and insecure or ugly and lecherous.  At one point he actually compares a woman to a beautiful horse – a type that can’t be resisted apparently.  He promotes the idea that women are pursued for their bodies and a woman that is fat or old does not deserve to be pursued.  I realise that this was written in the 60s and it made me appreciate how far women’s positions in film and literature have come along.

Hill of Freedom (film)

Hill of Freedom (Directed by Hong Sang-soo)/2014

This movie was my first viewing at the 2015 New Zealand Film Festival. The director of this film is Hong Sang-soo from South Korea. As a screen writer and director he brings a uniquely quaint and feel-good quality to his films.  When I watch them I tend to drift off into a comfortable feeling, and enjoy them for their soft, caring approach and their lack of violence or overindulgence in pain or drama.  Painful things happen, but they are explored with a realism that gives dignity to the characters without forcing a moral, judgmental structure onto the viewing experience.

Hill of Freedom is about a young Japanese man called Mori who comes to Korea to find an ex-lover he feels he has failed in some way in the past.  He writes letters to his ex-lover, Kwon, letting her know of his experiences in Korea and waits for her arrival at a guest-house.  The order of the film follows the order that Kwon reads all the letters; she reads them all in one sitting without ordering the letters first (they are not dated).

One curious aspect of this film is that there is no stylistic indication when the movie moves back and forward in time.  It caught me beysurprise a bit as I am used to some kind of indication that the movie was moving in a nonlinear fashion: for example, a change in the colour to black and white, a slight blurring, or a slowing down of time.  I initially found this a bit strange, but on reflection, this cutting gave the movie a crisp and refreshing style.

The nonlinear style of the film makes the intentional point that linear time is not an objective thing.  The point is made explicitly by Mori as he explains that in the book he is reading the argument is made that humans experience linear time due to the survival benefit it has for humanity. Our minds create a past, present and future because experiencing reality in this way allows us to reflect on past actions and create future plans, which in turn aids our survival.

It is unique to create a romantic-comedy with such an intensely philosophical undercurrent.  Moreover, the philosophy does not dominate what is most important to the movie: Mori’s quest to reconnect with Kwon.  This may not have been a conscious decision by Hong Sang-soo, but still reflects the role of philosophy in human life accurately: a background issue that sets the framework for our existence but in day-to-day life takes a backseat to other issues: love, work, sex, family and money.

Hill of Freedom is the name of the film but also the name of Mori’s favourite café in town.  He ends up having a brief romantic relationship with the owner of the café, Young-Sun.  In a standard American romantic-comedy this relationship would have ended in a kind of despair as the two ladies battle for the heart of the one man, with the pain of being rejected being played out loud, and the guilt of producing this kind of heartache significantly impacting Mori’s final reflections on the situation.

However, this does not happen at all, and the situation resolves without grief or guilt being central.  This might either display a lack of empathy in the mind of the writer/director, or a mature outlook that wants to maintain a care-free mind set in a reality where a certain level of suffering is inevitable.

La Grande Bellezza "The Great Beauty" (film)

La Grande Bellezza "The Great Beauty" (Directed by Paolo Sorrentino)/2013

The Great Beauty is a lush, sensual, dream-like wondering through modern-day Rome.  In it we witness the juxtaposition and the hidden layers behind modern life seen through the eyes of a successful theatre critic named Jep.  Jep has set out to achieve what he wanted in his career: ultimate fame.  Jep has spent many decades pursuing pleasure and establishing himself to be THE party of Rome.  Upon his 60^th birthday Jep decides that he will not do anything that he does not want to do anymore.  However he begins to question the worthiness in pursuing pleasure and beauty, and its perceived lack of spirituality.

Feeling reflective, Jep seeks out old friends and acquaintances.  People from the past before he rose to fame, people who are perhaps more “real”.  At the same time he sees his friends, whom he partied with for decades leave Rome in disappointment, not finding anything true to their existence and feeling they had floated through the years amongst the relentless current of hedomism.

Despite the famous, the powerful and the beautiful people Jep meets, Jep’s favourite people are his dwarf editor, his South American house maid and a high-class stripper.  The film follows a week of Jep's life: his work, parties and relationships and exposes his realisation of the hypocrisy in modern art and culture.  He interviews an avant-garde theatre actor that gives an ultimate performance depicting “pain”.  She babbles words of wisdom but turns out to be simply a fame seeking charlatan.  He spends the night with a beautiful and intelligent woman, who spends her spare hours taking selfies and wants him to acknowledge that she is beautiful in her desperate self-inadequacy.  He seeks spiritual advice from the archbishop who cannot offer anything except recipes of rustic cuisine. 

Behind the scenes we also see: poverty stricken aristocrats, no longer relevant with their status lost, earning money by making social appearances, the actress with an irrational temper of an artist but lacking self-confidence or direction, and a bourgeoisie house wife romanticising and promoting socialist values without self-reflection.

Jep is a hedonist but makes no pretence to be otherwise. The Great Beauty pokes fun at the materialistic, narcissistic, and superficially intellectual culture of the elites.  While the film is set in Rome, the message of the film is applicable to any other place in the modern world.  On the other hand, the film does not fully condemn the life of a Roman elite as wasted, as Jep actually enjoys his wealth and fame.  He enjoys interesting and beautiful people he meets, a few friends he has and the aesthetic and physical pleasure that it can provide.  Jep however is an exception, as others experience the dilemma of having enjoyed their life in Rome yet feeling that it has been that of frivolous pleasures and feeling empty in search of something more "real".  Perhaps this search for realism amongst the chaos of modernity may be hedonism itself as people find comfort and pleasure in something real and raw rather than illusory.  Looking at the ancient architecture that dominates the landscape of Rome in the background, one is reminded of the many generations of Romans that embraced hedonism which also failed to fill the void of longing.

The film is reminiscent of Fellini’s 8 ½ (which is also reviewed on this blog).  However I would propose that 8 ½ was an immersion into the mind of a hedonist where The Great Beauty is a narrative of cultural absurdities portrayed through a hedonist and the beauty within them.  Both films play on society’s desire for beauty and pleasure and let us vicariously live through that in the films.  They are exquisite to watch.  However in the end, 8 ½ takes a determinative approach where the protagonist realises frivolities in his existence and comes to regret and repent.  By contrast The Greaty Beauty is more post-modernist in that it portrays good and bad in all the inconsistencies that lie in modern existence.  What is The Great Beauty? The film’s message appears to be: life and all that is within.

Bloodline (TV Show)

Bloodline (Created by Glenn Kessler, Todd Kessler and Daniel Zelman)/2015-2017

Bloodline is a show about how resentment of past ills destroys families and lives. It centers on the Rayburn family, who we discover to have an external façade of happiness and success painted over a troubled past. The dark events of the past are mostly hidden from the outside, primarily due to the exclusion of the eldest son Danny, who we find is distrusted by all of his family apart from his mother (played by Sissy Spacek).

The show begins with the arrival of Danny in the small town in Florida where his family own a resort. Danny is played brilliantly by Ben Mendelsohn. Wow, what an actor. He executes the fine line between charm and manipulation with subtlety and depth. Very early in the show we find out two things about Danny: firstly, that he is the victim of an unfortunate past that has left him with pain and substance abuse problems; and secondly, eventually he will be murdered by siblings unable to mend the fractured family.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the show was the slow development of Danny’s character. The question hangs over the show whether Danny is a manipulative psychopath or the victim of prudish, conservative and judgmental siblings that do not want him around due to the embarrassment he brings to the family and will and able to push him into his work excesses. Is Danny all superficial charm, or is he just an easy-going guy  trying to make good after a failed past? This question and its eventual answer is the heart and soul of this show, and the revelation of the answer is done in a fashion which manages to defy a potential plummet into cliché.

In contrast to Danny is John Rayburn, played by Kyle Chandler. John comes across as the all-American good guy. He is a successful police officer, has a happy loving family, and seems to care for Danny much more than Danny’s other siblings Kevin and Meg. Eventually, however, we find out much of this concern is from guilt, and John, like his other siblings, is willing to sacrifice anyone if necessary. Through John, Bloodline explores whether family ties and concerns for others can remain strong in the face of overwhelming strain.

An exploration of personal responsibility plays a large role in Bloodline. As viewers we are made to reflect on if we should forgive people for present actions if we have inflicted great harm on them in the past. Can people be expected to act rationally and with care for others when they have been the victim of excessive childhood trauma? On the other hand, when is the point reached where we can say an individual is using the past to justify a sinister desire to hurt others and no longer deserves a free pass regardless of past.

Stylistically, Bloodline is impressive. The show weaves the present in with the future, without confusing the temporal flow of events. It manages to do this by slowing down time, darkening the camera filter, and using hypnotic music when expressing the future words of John. These scenes have a dreamlike quality, and pull the viewer into the emotions that John is meant to be feeling. They also manifest the deceptiveness of the Rayburn family, as we eventually discover that when John is speaking to us from the future, it is not in the form of a regretful confession of guilt but the words on a man trying to make sense of his ability to perform terrible acts yet continue to be the family and community leader.

Amadeus (film)

Amadeus (Directed by Milos Forman)/1984

A huge hit in 1984, Milos Forman’s Amadeus has fallen out of popular consciousness to a great extent. Part of this may be due to its cartoonish visual qualities, and the blatant projection of 1980s American culture onto 18th Century Vienna. It maybe also be partly due to the failure of the lead actor Tom Hulce to do anything else of importance. While Amadeus is an extremely bad movie if watched as a historical representation of true events, it is a great movie if appreciated on its own terms.

Amadeus presents Mozart as an 18th century version of a contemporary rock-star. Mozart is a musical visionary that wants to make beautiful music, but is continuously constrained and judged by the conservative elites that commission his works. He develops a serious alcohol addiction, and slowly loses his mind. He comes across as childish and without any concern with social expectation, while the jealous Salieri is constrained by his inability to create without concern for the judgments of others.

Director Milos Foreman is, in this movie, presenting his conception of genius, and simply uses the historical character of Mozart as a vehicle to do this. Foreman demonstrates that genius cannot exist with a concern for what other people think of it, and original great work will not be appreciated by the critics of the age. Moreover, he demonstrates how artistic greatness is ultimately tied to a self that is free from the shackles of fear and simply wants to create something beautiful for its own sake.

The darker side of Amadeus’ vision is that society will try to break the genius by criticising her work, and out casting her for not creating something that is within the realms of social expectations. The pressure placed on Mozart by society is personified by the man in the black mask, who brings Mozart’s death sentence in the form of a piece of commissioned music. That being said, the movie makes the point that it is better to die an authentic individual be a mediocrity that spends his life trying to please those in power like Salieri.

Viewers may take offence with the use of American accents, gestures and statements in a portrayal of Mozart. Yet, for me, this brought the movie to life in contrast to the wooden and overly serious portrayals of historical characters in other biopics. It made me reflect on the typical use of British accents and the bland, humourless characters that often litter historical movies. The reality is that living today we can never present a representation of what life would be like in 18th century Vienna: we can never escape our own historical and culture embeddedness to do so. If we accept this fact, then there is nothing wrong with presenting history overtly as the kind of existence we experience.

Finally, if you enjoy Mozart’s music, then you will love this film. Forman does an amazing job of weaving the music into the movie at the perfect time, and in a beautiful way. It is also fascinating to think about how at the time, classical music was the popular music of the day, and that a new opera would have created hype and drama in the manner of a Radiohead or KRS1 concert today.

Werkmeister Harmonies (film)

Werkmeister Harmonies (Directed by Béla Tarr)/2000

A whale came into town, carried in a long circus truck.  Everyone is curious: there is an electric tension in the air.  The whale is accompanied by a sideshow of a “prince”.  What is this “prince”? compared with the magnificent whale?: a man-made institution without any inherent value but the deluded people confer on him.

Werkmeister Harmonies is a cinematic portrayal of magical realism similar to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabella Allende.  While Marquez and Allende deal with revolutions in South America, Werkmeister Harmonies deals with the Soviet occupation of Hungary.  In doing so, it looks at the feebleness and absurdity of human existence in the face of the great and wondrous universe.

The film opens with a sweet interpretive dance by an unlikely crowd: a tavern full of men,  each dancing as a planet in our solar system.  Despite the modest and barren surroundings the narrative and the dance together brings home the message how amazing the universe is and the beauty of co-existence of humans in harmony. With this underlying message, the rest of the film goes on to expose human existence as a mixture of the humble, poignant, violent and absurd. The daily routines, the dreams, the revolution, the destruction and the futility of it all.  It would drive anyone insane.

The whale symbolises an ideology that excites people. Physically it’s a dead whale trapped in a giant trailer but it brings excitement and hope.  The film exposes the beauty of an idea or a dream but also how it can be used for good or evil. The prince uses the attraction of the whale to incite riots and violence; he is a fascist and sadist.  He encourages people to destroy and kill; those who question or think are cowards. The people get excited, they’re drunk and angry, and they go on a rampage.  The police make lots of noise and threats but they do nothing.  The army is self-indulgent in ostentation and privilege, and they have no idea what they are doing.  In great confusion people go out and attack the most vulnerable.  They don’t stop until everything is destroyed and they have made the most weak and vulnerable suffer.

Werkmeister Harmonies or the principles of Werkmeister Harmonies refers to philosophy of music which questions condensing down of the seamless spectrum of notes into 8 separate notes; an octave.  Perhaps this refers to the vast spectrum of individualism and ways of living in the universe and how humans, in order to understand it, condense it down to a few ideologies like democracy, socialism or fascism, which are open to control and exploitation rather than allowing people to better themselves and live in harmony.

The film is shot in black and white and it contains very long scenes of people marching or walking or running, as if to say that time still passes and humanity trudges on. The music is incredible and at times the melodies are so sad and beautiful in a way that ‘zings’ your heart. This film is an emotional journey through the life cycle of a revolution and it will leave you feeling empty at the uselessness of it all.  This is something no amount of historical statistics and facts can do.