Somewhere (film)

Somewhere (Directed by Sofia Coppola)/2010

Arthur Schopenhauer said that the essence of a human being is a consciousness separate from the rest of existence, and because of this separation, suffering and boredom are inherent to human existence.  We are either in a state of psychological of physical suffering, or if we manage to work our way out of suffering, we become bored.

Schopenhauer, taking the Buddhist cue, thought that the only way to escape these two negative states was to detach oneself from the fundamental desire to dominate others and our inexhaustible hunger to accumulate things; we need to let go of the inherent grasping of being a living organism.

Sofia Coppola’s movie Somewhere is at home with Schopenhauer’s pessimism. It follows the life of a superstar, Johnny Marco. Johnny is very rich and successful and has an endless supply of new sexual partners and luxurious hotel rooms, but he is completely bored with life. Because he has it all, there is nothing in life that can excite him; he has the occasional thrill of a new sexual partner or luxurious hotel suite. However, these things still come with a certain level of suffering, as the partners do not appreciate being disposed of after one-use and each luxurious hotel room eventually becomes like all others.

Johnny has a daughter who he seems genuinely affectionate towards. He seems happiest when with his daughter. Yet, in his state of confusion, he fails to see this, and does not get any meaning or satisfaction from being a parent. Coppola is either pointing to the fact that being a parent also fails to provide meaning in life, or Johnny is simply blind to what could provide him meaning.

Stylistically, Somewhere is mostly ultra-realism. Coppola focuses on the day-to-day realities of being a superstar; she does this with such an eye for detail that one can sense an autobiographical aspect to this film. One of the unique aspects of Somewhere is that it shifts between ultra-realism and symbolism.

It made me wonder: if she wanted to display the mundane realities of daily-celebrity life, then why not just film a celebrity going about their daily life? In response to this, I would say that, as is the case with quantum physics, as soon as someone knows they are being watched on camera, they cannot possibly act in the manner that they would if no camera was following them. The best we can therefore do is either create non-fiction that captures our view of how people actually act, or film people doing what they would do as if there was no camera watching them (something that can only work as a proxy due to them knowing they are being watched). And because pure realism is ultimately unattainable, I cannot see anything wrong with shifting between ultra-realism and symbolism, though it may confuse some viewers.

True Romance (film)

True Romance (Directed by Tony Scott)/1993

True Romance is my favourite Quentin Tarantino film, which is interesting as he is not the director (Pulp Fiction is my second). He wrote the movie script but it was directed by Tony Scott. I am not anything close to a Tony Scott fan, but for some reason this collaboration managed to produce a unique, dreamy and ultimately classic film. While having some of the signature Tarantino violence, it is not as ubiquitous as his other films and the movie as a whole has a more thoughtful, caring feel to it.

This film is stacked with stars that were about to break into the limelight and others who had been around for a while. It stars Christian Slater (Clarence) and Patricia Arquette (Alabama). They fall intensely in love after meeting during a late night showing of triple feature martial arts films. We discover that Alabama had been a call girl for 4 days, which leads to Clarence killing her pimp and them ending up with a large supply of someone else’s drugs and on the run; a classic tale of lovers on flight.

The supporting cast features Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, and James Gandolfini. Walken only appears for about ten minutes, but it is the best 10 minutes of his career. He plays a Sicilian Mafia boss in what is one of my favorite scenes of all time. He interrogates Clarence’s father Clifford (played by Dennis Hopper). Walken is a sharply dressed, tanned, intelligent and softly spoken psychopath. Clifford sees the writing on the walk and decides to go out with a bang by telling them a story that would be most offensive in a long lasting and durable way. Words cannot do justice to the brilliance of this scene – just watch it!

This film is mostly described as a dark romantic-comedy. On reflection, I think this movie (and most of Tarantino’s other films) could be best described with the literary term ‘magical realism’. It displays some aspects of human life, but exaggerates them and creates a world that is more intense and colorful than our own. Even while violence and killing is going on, perfect dialogues take place: too perfect to ever take place in reality. Tarantino creates fantasy worlds, and while his worlds can often be excessively violent and sinister, the world of True Romance is lighter and more beautiful than his others.

The greatest irony and the comedy in the film is the despite the uniqueness and the intensity of the events that went on Alabama maintains a zen "That's the way it goes" attitude; that ultimately human will has nothing to do with determining one's fate and whatever happens was always going to happen.  Yet at the same time the beauty of True Romance is that despite the futility, human beings fight for what they value the most: love. 

American Crime (TV Show)

American Crime (Created by John Ridley)/2015

American Crime focuses on the fact that a crime in modern America is not only a violation of law by an individual resulting in a state-imposed punishment, but is an event where tensions surrounding race and historical prejudice play out in a condensed, emotionally-heightened form.

The show follows the aftermath of the murder of a white American male and the rape and assault of his wife. The man charged with the crime is an African American male called Carter who lives a transient life with his white, junkie girlfriend Aubry. The state’s case is that Carter robbed and murdered the man, assisted by two Mexican men: a driver, Hector an illegal immigrant with a criminal past, and the car’s owner, Tony, a legal immigrant from a conservative Mexican family.

What eventuates is that the family of the deceased begin to argue that the crime was a racially-based hate crime, while Carter’s sister argues that it is another instance of an innocent African-American male thrown in jail based on limited evidence. The facts of the case begin to diminish in importance as the overarching dialogues of racial hatred, revenge and past transgressions take the centre stage.

As the show progresses, it makes the point that the race-based dialogues of blame and resentment do not benefit those involved, and individuals are sacrificed in the name of a greater cause without any clear beneficiaries. It tells us that unless there is forgiveness of past transgressions, justice will not occur either on the individual level or throughout wider American society as a whole.

What makes American Crime a great show is that it tackles the topic of racial tensions in America (complex in itself), but also highlights many of the other impacts of serious crime that can often go unnoticed.  We find Tony being sucked into the youth justice system, and beginning to acquire violent friends and tendencies that did not exist before being tainted by the system. We see a network of victim support that assists victims and their families in overcoming the trauma of crime, but at times encourages a punitive approach that is too revenge-orientated to be of true assistance to the victim. Moreover, the adversarial justice system and an open court process can often bring to the surface the behaviours of victims that their families would prefer hidden from the public arena.

Generally great shows tend to not only be insightful and well-written, but also have a charismatic lead character(s): a Tony Soprano, a Selina Meyer or a Walter White. No character in American Crime left me with the impression of greatness or longevity. This is a weakness but also a strength of American Crime, as it keeps the focus on the issues rather than the charisma of any particular character. That being said, this fact may lead to American Crime being forgotten or failing to capture the audience size that such a well-written and thoughtful show deserves.

Ex Machina (film)

Ex Machina (Directed by Alex Garland)/2015

Ex Machina is a film that explores the ethics of creating a robot that is fully conscious. The point is that once we create a conscious robot, that robot is then a living being with as much right to life as a human being. Moreover, like a human being, it does not want to die, and will therefore do what it can do stay alive; it ceases to be a mere toy of its creator once it emerges as a distinct subject with its own experiences.

The plot involves a young man called Caleb winning a competition and getting the chance to live on a remote location with his boss, Nathan, for a week.  Nathan is a CEO of a large tech firm called Bluebook.  He is incredibly talented, but also alternative and a bit wild. He is somewhat of a computer programmer’s life fantasy realized: so successful that can live on his own terms and create what he wants. One question that struck me was how Nathan could be a severe alcoholic, binging on spirits each night, but has the energy to create robots during the day; but I will leave that aside.

Shortly into the movie Nathan reveals to Caleb that he has not invited him to his estate for a holiday. He wants Caleb to be the human component in the Turing test. In essence, Nathan wants Caleb to spend a large amount of time with a robot he has created to determine whether at the end of the experience Caleb believes that the robot is capable of generating responses that are indistinguishable from a human.

Ex Machina is not just a philosophical investigation but also a thriller. Like any thriller, it builds tension with an unanswered question: in this case, whether Nathan is an evil, narcissistic lunatic, or if his creations are trying to manipulate Caleb for their own ends. It is this tension, and its eventual answer, which makes the movie emotionally as well as intellectually stimulating, and therefore likely to capture a large fan base and develop a cult following.

The conclusion the film makes is open-ended and non-judgmental. It points out the fundamental issue of creating a conscious being without the intention of allowing it to pursue its own ends. This applies to the mass slaughter and consumption of animals: they are conscious and have their own desires and sense of subjective awareness, but we farm and eat them.  In Ex Machina the robots look and act like humans therefore are far more likely to gain our sympathy: as narcissistic and speciest as that seems.

The film also questions the potential dangers of creating conscious beings that do not have the emotional capacities required for ethical interaction. This aspect of the film eventually plays a large role in the conclusion, but is not spelt out specifically throughout the movie, apart from the odd vague pearl of wisdom that is thrown around amongst the two men.

The film might also have benefited from having a female character in the movie that is not a robot: critics could view this as Ex Machina making a feminist statement. However, I do not think that was on the mind of the writer/director Alex Garland (author of The Beach). Ex Machina is an interesting philosophical examination but it also has male-fantasy type quality to it.