So much said in a stare

Tsotsi, AKA David is a young man who is going through an awakening of his soul and conscience and all throughout the movie I am having an internal conflict as to whether I should feel sorry for him or hate him for being so selfish.

The movie starts and ends with an intense look from our main character Tsotsi that sends shivers up and down ones spine but for two very drastic reasons. 

 

In the beginning, Tsotsi is a hardened criminal.  He had a rough life that we really only catch a glimpse of in flashbacks.  He mother was very ill and died while he was young.  His father was a drunk who killed his dog.  In that one fateful evening when his mother was so sick and his father so drunk Tsotsi runs away.  He lives on the streets and learns to survive by whatever means necessary.  He starts to hustle, get in with bad groups and starts to rob, cheat, steal and in some cases murder.  When we first meet Tsotsi he is a young man who is in deep with the gangs.  He has this look of hate, pain, envy, greed and craziness in his eyes as he is looking for his next victim in the bus station.  Once he and his fellow gangbangers find their victim they corner him on the bus.  They rob him and one of the thugs ends up stabbing and killing the guy.

They take off running to a bar.  As they sit there one of the thugs, Boston, who is actually educated, is bothered by the killing.  He starts to talk about decency and where was everyone’s decency if murdering a person was done with no remorse or guilt.  After all, they got what they came for; the killing of this man happened afterward and not necessary. 

All through out Boston’s soliloquy you see Tsotsi staring.  His eyes are still enraged yet you see something change in him ever so slightly.  He now looks bothered and agitated by what Boston is saying.  It is as if it hits someplace close to him and he starts to question his own morality.  All this time he justifies his actions as a way to survive.  Everyone else left him, treated him like crap or never showed an ounce of concern for his well being so he never really had much base for morals.  His motivation was for survival by what ever means evolved into more and more greed.  Now Boston’s words confront him and his lack of morals.  This makes him rather upset.  He beats Boston up severely. 

Tsotsi takes off running.  He enters into a neighborhood that is better off than his shanty town.  It is raining out and a woman pulls into her home but the gate to her garage is not working.  She get s out of the car to ring her the buzzer so her husband can come and get her. 

**SPOIL ALERT**SPOIL ALERT** DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER**

Tsotsi see’s her and decides that he is going to carjack her.  In the process he ends up shooting the woman and the in the long run she ends up paralyzed.

Tsotsi drives the car to a wide open and vacant area.  As he is set to leave the car he hears a cry of a baby.  Unknown to him while he was carjacking this woman, he did not know there was a baby in the car.  Everything that Boston said earlier that evening was coming back to haunt him.  Where was his decency?  Would he go back and get the baby or leave the baby stranded in that car with very little possibility for its survival?

Tsotsi ends up taking the baby with him.  He is no way prepared to take care of a baby but it seems as if there is a deeper moral and selfish obligation that is driving his decisions now.

I got a sense in the movie that Tsotsi, more than anything else wanted to keep that child and take care of it.  At first the decision might have been driven by not wanting to get caught but it developed into something more.  It was as if he wanted to take care of that child in a way he thought his own parents should have taken care of him.  He wanted to prove to himself and to everyone else who looked at him as a poor excuse for a human; a low life thug, that he was capable of having more depth and responsibility than just following the moral code of the streets.  He wanted to prove to Boston and others that he did have decency.  For the rest of the movie you see Tsotsi force his way into peoples lives in the typical thuggish ways but they all had the purpose now of helping this baby. 

In the end, Tsotsi sees outside himself.  He realizes that he is not capable of taking care of this child.  He also realizes that the child has two very loving and capable parents, something he never had.  He takes this and realizes that he will never be able to offer the emotional support and stability that he lacked in his own upbringing.  In the end, he sacrifices himself in order to return the baby to his parents.  In this exchange we are brought back to a very intense stare from Tsotsi but something is very different than from the beginning of the movie; this time there is compassion, humility, honor, dignity that are shining through the pain and the tears.   It is at this point I realize he learned to not be selfish but to be humble and accept that a person can not change their past but they have complete control of their future.

 

Duh another iconic transition

 So as I was thinking more about some real stand out transitions I realized I missed probably one of the most famous ones of all time:

 

  How could I have possibly passed up this scene?  The use of black and white film indicating everything before she ends up in Munchkin City is genius in my opinion.

For a film from 1939 I think this was an amazing depiction of a unique transition, done with out special effects.  It is still, in my opinion, one of the most stunning visual movies ever.  There are not many newer, current films from today that can even compete.  And that says a lot since directors have all the bells and whistles for new technology at their fingertips.  

This got me thinking about why I am drawn to older films.  To me, it takes real talent to invoke a feeling, get a point a cross and make the viewer really a part of a film where they are so entranced by what is going on, at the end they felt like it happened to them.  I almost feel this was done better prior to all this technology.  I feel as if directors get so consumed by the technology that it becomes the main focus and it distracts from the movie.  I mean I tend to think I am fairly intelligent and I do not mind being made to think or even connect two dots in order to understand a story being played out on screne.  However, with all this use of technology there is no more of a challenge on the the behalf of the director to have to do something different or unique. 

Take for example this scene from Alfred Hitchcoks "Notorious:"

There is a nice dissolve transition but on top of that.  The shot really makes the viewer experience the hangover Ingrid Berman's character is feeling.  I love how the shot shows Cary Grant's character entering the room and what it would look like from Ingrid Bergman's perspective from laying on the bed.  It also gives the viewer a very dizzying sensation which is just perfect for a scene in which a person is hung over.  (How many of us know that dizzying feeling?!?!?)

Cary Grant is my favorite male actor while Ingrid Bergman is my favorite female actress and Hitchcock is just a genius in my opinion. 

 

 

Down the Rabbit Hole

 

I was sitting with my daughter watching Alice in Wonderland when a big light bulb went off and hit me upside my head.  This has got to be one of the best transitions scenes I can think of.  What a better way to transition from the reality of Alice's real world to the crazy world of wonderland then to have her fall down some crazy abyss in which her dress plays a parachute and slows her down enough to take in all the wild things passing her by. 

My husband and I have gotten into weird conversations about parallel universes and this to me is the insight into what that means for Alice.  I wonder if I came across the rabbit hole if I would want to venture down it and see my own parallel universe?  Would you?

Featured Blogger for the Whale Rider

The movie Whale Rider directed by Niki Caro, shows the conflict that arises between traditions versus modernism, young versus old and men versus women.  The historical attributes of the Maori culture contributes greatly to these conflicts.   You have two main characters in this film; Paikea, also known as Pia, who is a young Maori girl and Koro, Maori tribe leader and Pia’s grandfather.

According to this tribes legend their existence can be traced back a thousand years to a single ancestor named Paikea.  It is believed that he was able to escape death by riding on the back of a whale.  It was also believed that the first born males of the tribe chiefs were a direct descendant of the original Paikea.  This would also mean that this first born male would become the new leader of the tribe.  Since it was Koro’s oldest son, Porourangi whose wife and son died, there was no longer a line of leadership.  Koro wants his son to toughen up and get over it, find a new wife and have a son.  Instead, Porourangi leaves for Germany, leaving Pia with her grandparents.

At first, Koro was angry that his grandson had died and didn’t even acknowledge his granddaughter.  However, as timed passed, you do see that love has bloomed between Koro and his granddaughter.  This love does get challenged when Pia expresses an interest in learning more about the culture, traditions and indicates that she believes she can be the next leader.  Koro can not accept this since she is a girl.  Tradition does not allow females to take on the leadership role for the tribe therefore he gets upset at his granddaughter for even thinking this.

Koro decides to recruit the young boys in the village and train them in the old ways in hopes of finding a new leader.  It all comes down to a boat ride in which Koro throws out his whale bone into the ocean and which ever of the boys returns with it will prove that he is the new leader.  When none of them come back with it Koro feels as if he is a failure in finding a new leader for his people.  He also starts to place blame on Pia for this.

***SPOILER ALERT***TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE YET***

One evening there is a special program in place that deals a lot with the music and history of the people of the village.  Pia asks her grandfather to come.  As a surprise to everyone, Pia wins an award for a speech about her grandfather and they love and challenges they have.  In this speech she talks about how it might be better to share the traditions with all regardless of their gender so all can carry the burdens and triumphs.  Koro misses this because as he was leaving, he noticed that there was a large whale beached on the shore near his house.  He goes out to investigate only to see more.

Eventually the whole village learns of what happens.  They all end up on at the beach trying to help get the whales back into the ocean.  Koro is working with the biggest whale on the beach.  Pia comes over to try to help but he yells at her not to touch.  He blames her for this happening.  Soon everyone leaves the big whale but Pia stays behind.  She climbs on the whale and is able to get it to move back out into the ocean.  Just than, her grandmother sees this.  She starts to call out for her.  The grandmother than takes the whale bone that Pia retrieved and gives it back to Koro advising him that Pia is the one who got it.  He now realizes that Pia is the intended leader and her gender does not matter.

 

What I loved about this movie is that the traditions and the importance of the men is expressed in a very typical way; men are strong, born leaders – no way a women could do what they do.  In reality, it is Pia who shows she has so much more strength then any of the men in her village.  Koro’s love was something Pia had to fight so hard to get starting from when she was a baby.  By challenging her grandfather, she jeopardized all that time spent building that loving relationship.

I also love how all the older women, especially Pia’s grandmother were essentially rebels.  They allowed the men think that they were in charge but in all reality, the women were the ones in charge.  They were the backbones of the families and the village.  They allowed the men to be in charge of the traditions but the women were the ones teaching life lessons that allowed the tribe to survive.  With out them it is possible that the tribe would have vanished.  And make no mistake of it, when Pia’s grandmother spoke, Koro and Pia listened.  She could be very hard and strict but also be the warm, nurturing figure everyone needs to have in their life to survive.  To me, she was the best of both worlds.  She was bold, she was honest, she was gentle and full of wisdom and she could put grandpa in his place whenever it was called for.

I pose these few questions to you all; do you think Pia’s grandmother was always strong?  Or was it the birth of Pia and the constant struggle she witnessed her go through to gain the love and acceptance from her grandfather that made grandma feel more confident and empowered to stand up to Koro and the traditions of the Maori?  Do you think Koro actually saw the leadership skills in Pia but was too consumed with tradition to allow her to prove herself?  Since Koro was the tribe leader, do you think he could have just appointed Pia as the new leader if she did prove herself or was there something more holding him back?  I know there is much discussion at the end of the movie whether Pia and Koro die or not.  If they did not, and Koro discovered that his sons pregnant girlfriend was carrying a boy, do you think he would have continued to acknowledge and train Pia as the new leader or would he post pone or cancel it all together since there was a boy now entering the family?  Do you think Koro was convinced gender did not really matter for the traditions of the Maori?

 

This scene is one of the first scenes in the movie "Citizen Kane" by Orson Wells.  Just prior to this scene Wells character Charles Kane has just died.  In this scene, his ex-wife Susan, a failed opera singer is confronted by some journalist.  Their goal is to try and figure out what Kane's last word, "Rosebud" meant.  Susan wants nothing to do with them and she refuses to talk to them about anything. 

 

I decided to pick this scene because I thought the transition in the beginning was amazing.  The use if the lighting to move through the outdoor scene of the club where Susan was gives the audience a sense of the raw Susan is feeling upon the death of her ex spouse.  The allows the viewers to experience her raw emotion through this visual transition. 

 

I also thought the use of showing the rain on the sky light and how it blurred the window was an interesting dissolve edit technique to transition to the interior shot of the club where we see the ex Mrs. Kane hunched over a table crying.  We all have cried at some point so think about how it is to try to look through tear filled eyes; it is very much the same sensation we get in this transition.  The rain is like Susan's tears falling and she has cried so many tears, her vision is blurred from them. 

 

Citizen Kane was never one of my favorite movies.  It actually took me a few showings of the movie to really understand it.  What I do like is the whole film is shot in flashbacks upon the death of Mr. Kane.  All through out the movie there are very visually appealing and unique scene transitions.  This just was one that really stuck out in my head when thinking about this movie in general. 

Symbolism in the movie, “The Road Home"

The movie “The Road Home” directed by Yimou Zhang starts out with the son of Ziyi Zhang and Hao Zheng returning home after the death of his father.  His mother wants a very traditional burial service for her husband.  This tradition involves many individuals walking a long distance while carrying the casket back home to the village.  This tradition is rarely celebrated anymore and the son, Honglei Sun is struggling to figure out a way to make it happen.  While planning the arrangements for his father’s funeral, he recalls the story of how his parents met and the movie takes us back through time in a flashback.

Ziyi is a young woman who falls in love with the new village teacher, Hao.  There is a scene when the teacher first arrives in which he and Ziyi lock gazes with each other.  It is at that moment that the viewer gets a sense that this is a love story that is sparked at the first sight of one another. 

One must understand that in the culture and time that this story takes place there is a big separation between men and women.  When the men are working on the school, the women have to stay back by the well where they observe the men and the work they are doing.  The women cook the food for lunch for the men, place it on a table and walk away while they come and get what they want and eat.  Also during this time marriages were more or less arranged.  Women certainly did not get to pick who they fell in love with.  This was all a barrier, a fence if you will, for Ziyi and Hao’s love.

This brings me to the symbol of fences in the movie.  One of the most prominent fences in the movie is the fence around the school.  Men and children were mostly seen with in the confines of this fence while the women were outside it.  Often times Ziyi would make extra trips to the well near the school in hopes of seeing the teacher and maybe even interacting with him.  In contrast, Ziyi would often times follow Hao from a far of distance as he walked some of the school children home.  There was no fence to separate them.  As time went by, she got more nerve to get closer and eventually enough to actually interact with him. 

Another scene where the fence is very symbolic is the fence around Ziyi’s home.  One afternoon it was her and her mother’s turn to host the teacher at their home for lunch.  Ziyi was very excited and made sure to prepare everything just perfect.  After lunch she offered to make some mushroom dumplings for dinner.  Hao had to leave unexpectedly with the mayor of the town.  He stopped by Ziyi’s home to let her know he would not be able to make it for dinner.  She insisted that he stop by before he leaves to take some food on the road for him and they mayor.  All while they are talking this fence separates the two of them.  It is as if no matter how hard they try to acknowledge their love there is some barrier in the way.  It was at this time that Hao gives Ziyi a beautiful barrette. 

This brings us to the second symbol I wanted to discuss; the barrette.  As a child growing up I always had barrettes in my hair.  Usually they were the plastic ones that were in the shape of animals or hearts or something along those lines.  They were always in bright colors.  When I got to about the fourth grade I had given up on those barrettes.  I had grown up and those were too childish for me.  A funny thing ended up happening when I was a junior in high school.  I started to wear those same barrettes again.  It was as if I was on the brink if becoming an adult and I really didn’t want too so I resorted back to something familiar from my childhood. 

The barrette Hao presented to Ziyi was a bit more sophisticated than the plastic ones I used to wear but they represented this transition between being a child to becoming an adult.  She still wore her hair in the braided pigtails just like a young child but by lacing the gift of the barrette in her hair it signified this transition from child to adult.

I have to say this movie and the use of the fence and barrette as symbols kind of hit home.  It got me thinking about how many times I fenced myself in to certain situations in life.  The main one has always been my job.  I hated it but I did it for over ten years.  To be honest, I often thought about what I would do once I graduated and even though I had some ideas I honestly saw myself fenced in to this job because I had seniority or built up vacation time.  After all, it is all I have known for over ten years and I had grown comfortable with it.  I started to think about how many times does being comfortable fence us into situations in our lives that do not make us happy.

Needless to say on September 12 I got notice that my job was being eliminated and November 10^th would be my last day at my job.  Initially I freaked out.  My husband is not working and now I won’t be so there was the whole financial stress that really freaked me out.  But after the dust settled I really thought about it even more.  I graduate this December.  My ten years of service will allow me almost 6 months of my salary starting on November 10^th.  It’s as if the universe aligned up and proceeded to open this gate I never saw and allowed me to see the freedom that laid before me.  I can honestly say I do  not know if I would have left fairly soon after graduation since I was comfortable where I was.  I also know that I would have continued to be miserable and with each passing month it would be harder and harder to open that gate myself.