One Awkward Questions with Many Surprising Answers

” Are human beings, in essence, good or evil?”

Who has ever thought that finally something will happen in a village as small as Viscos? A village too small to be worthy of mentioning, despite of its reputation as a paradise. Well, that morning, the paradise has finally received a visit..

Grizzled told-to-be-crazy Berta is actually the first one to welcome the honorable guest: a shabby stranger with the Devil on his shoulder. And he doesn’t come empty handed. He comes with a proposition: how far are the residents of Viscos willing to go to possess the eleven gold bars in his belongings? I want them to break the commandment ‘ Thou shalt not kill.’. 

A man who has been wounded by his unfair destiny: someone who has lost so much that he fears nothing anymore. A woman who always blames nothing has been fair to her and simply looking for an escape, but too scared to do anything. The whole village committing the sin of greed, the sin of arrogance, regarding themselves as the most holy of all. 

As the story goes on and on, it seems like the only person who keeps holding on her senses is the crazy old Berta. Everyone is preoccupied with the ferocious battle of their own Devil and Angel. 

Imagine if they did though.                                                                                       Imagine if they earned enough money for the rest of their lives                  Imagine if they earned enough money for the rest of their lives and their  children’s lives.

 The Devil and Miss Prym brings a fresh perspective for us to address our everyday dilemmatic question. The integrity of each one of us as a human is put on test and as the book portrays, the veil that you wear will not hide you from your true image on the mirror.

♣♣♣♣♣ as always.

Talking About Crushed Hopes and Dreams

The moment journalist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr) catches sight of homeless Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (Jamie Foxx) playing violin on the street of LA, he knows that he is a story, in a world where no one longer finds stories different enough to read. 

But Nathaniel’s story is a story with a lots of full stops. As Lopez said, Nathaniel is shy in our first encounter. It takes more than sessions of questions and answers to know about Nathaniel, his cello and Beethoven, his dreams, and the shouting match ongoing in his mind: a story so perfect that it will make you doubt your own conscience when you read it. 

Nathaniel is gifted and he only has one dream. The dream stays the same even when fate decides he should end up on the street with a two-stringed violin instead of in a concert hall. 

One day I asked him about his hopes and dreams. That’s easy, he said. I’d like to get these other two strings. 

Blame his schizophrenic mind. Maybe blame the unforgiving fate. Life isn’t fair, is it? His mother once said: You know what I hear when you play your music. I hear the voice of God coming.. You got something special here, baby. A way out. There is a whole world waiting for you.  But, unfortunately, everything ends up not just as it should be. 

The Soloist illustrates how Lopez rides the roller coaster of not only interacting , but also developing a relationship with Nathaniel. Not seldom he has to deal with his own frustration of being unable to comprehend Nathaniel and his actions.

Look for a different movie if you’re looking for one with a happy ending, or maybe at least a logical explanation. Perhaps, as what I feel when I watch The Soloist, you can not stop telling yourself: Come on, can’t at least life starts being fair to him? But maybe it does. Nathaniel is anyway a simple man. Remember, he once only dreams of having a complete set of strings for his violin. 

I tell him that this is no place for him. He says he wants to be here. He says it’s his choice. Should I take him on his word or should I force him inside? Wouldn’t a little arm twisting be more humane than leaving him here, on the streets, in this lost colony of broken helpless souls?

For Lopez, everything finally becomes as clear as a day when he accepts who Nathaniel truly is. Well, who is he anyway, to hold the power of deciding what’s best for Nathaniel’s happiness? Maybe Nathaniel does regard Lopez as his God. But is he?

Some said that it’s totally a wrong decision of choosing Lopez as the main character in this movie. Some said the story would go better if only Nathaniel is the protagonist. But for me, it is through him that we can fully feel the complex character of Nathaniel. It is through his reactions and endless monolog along the movie that we see who Nathaniel Anthony Ayers is. 

The Soloist is moving. It’s uplifting. And truly a showcase of talents from Downey, and especially Jamie Foxx. ♣♣♣♣♣ for Joe Wright and the actual Steve Lopez, without whom this story would fail to enrich our soul.

Meet our superhuman..

I really should have watched this movie earlier..When it was played on the cinema, I heard the review was so so, so I pass..But yesterday I watched it, out of boredom (and the recommendation from my boyfriend actually) and I totally loved it!

I love a story where superhero is not God, where superhero is sometimes a human being as well..  They can do mistakes as and they’re not figures which are totally out of our reach.. giving us hopes that maybe, we can all be superheroes.

I mean, where else can you find a superhero who has to attend AA and anger management class? (Except maybe in Watchmen, which is why I enjoyed it as well..)

Hancock (Will Smith) is the hero here. But this movie also has another hero: Ray (Jason Embrey). He dares to stand up for what he believes..or to be exact..maybe who he believes in: Hancock, whom everyone has lost faith in. And it’s hardly Hancock’s fault for lacking in motivation to improve himself when everyone, who hardly does nothing at all, can not stop booing him. Please..

I think those who don’t enjoy Hancock simply can not handle a switch. Don’t expect anything plain here. Our superhero can’t even get his girl here…. As she, Mary (Charlize Theron) once said: And the one thing I learned, fatedoesn’t decide everything. People get to choose.  

In some scenes, Hancock is also hilarious. Especially, in that scene of Hancock learning to say “good job” and his chronic allergy with “asshole”..He’s simply lovable..

In short, I can not tell much about Hancock unless you watch it by yourself. You might then be able to decide on your own if you love it or not. 

But the thing I love most about Hancock is: it gives us hope that everyone can indeed be a hero… if you and someone you care believe that you can.

A Brocade of Affair, Death, and Karma

  

Aki and Yasuaki are once a happily married couple. They are the type of those model couples whose happiness people tend to envy in their college times. Nothing seems to be able to go wrong.

But their marriage has not lasted more than a year when they decide to file for a divorce. 

Kinshu: Autumn Brocade is a compilation of letters they exchange through seasons, 10 years later. This correspondence — which is initiated by an unexpected encounter between Aki and her disabled son, Kiyotaka, and Yasuaki, in a gondola lift in Mount Zao — slowly unfolds the secrets of their past and each of their struggles in the present day. Struggles that both of them agree are the karmic consequences of their past actions.

But first, let’s look back to that one dramatic incident, which ends up their marriage. The hint of morning sun is barely on its way 10 years ago, when Aki receives a call from the police, requesting her to identify her husband who has been involved in a double suicide in an out-of-town inn and who’s now in a critical condition in the hospital. He suffers from a deep wound on his chest and neck and is discovered with the body of Seo Yukako, a hostess from a nearby club. 

At that time, the grief-stricken Aki, can not decides which hurts her most: the possibility of losing her husband or his betrayal in the dawn of their marriage. Their pain and sorrow, with the intervention of Aki’s father who has regarded Yasuaki more as the heir to his construction empire rather than his son-in-law, leads to an abrupt divorce. From this moment on, Aki can not stop relating the misfortunes that she experiences later – from the conflagration of her favorite coffee shop to the birth of her disabled child – as her penance for Yasuaki’s shameful action. It’s started, hasn’t it? The unhappiness has begun after all… 

It’s later, though, due to a visit from the late Yukako’s father and their correspondence, that Aki learns Yukako is not a mere hostess from one unknown club. She’s a figure from Yasuaki’s youth. Yasuaki’s first love, far before she even knows him. This fact hurts her even more, thinking how come as his wife, has she not even known this?

In one of his letter to Aki, Yasuaki once relates the event on that fateful night. How Yukako silently asks if she’s ever going to be someone to whom Yasuaki returns. Tomorrow morning, you’ll leave and go home while I’m still asleep, won’t you? You’ll always go home, won’t you, to your family? You’ll never come home to me. Never once it crosses Yasuaki’s mind that his answer to that question might be the reason behind the tragedy.

It occurs to him in the future, as he watches a cat plays with a mouse before it devours it, that he might have been the cat to Yukako all along. 

He also can not stop himself from thinking that every women he got involved with, Yukako, Aki, and later Reiko, a woman he’s been living with during his correspondence with Aki, always ends up having an awful experience. Maybe, that is his karma. His punishment for simply behaving like a man that one afternoon, when he let his curiosity of his first love, leads him to the now-grown-up Yukako, to his first and last infidelity in his young marriage. 

Nevertheless, tragedy is not kind enough to punish Yasuaki alone, while leaving the others unharmed. Everyone involved is hurt in one way or another, while at the same time learning their lessons. 

Aki’s father, who seems to never feel any emotion other than his obsession for his work, has to endure his pain in watching his daughter’s ache. When I look at you, I feel so sorry for you I can’t bear it. Aki, herself, has to go through a marriage to a man she doesn’t love, a man who she will never love. They have let the jar slipped through their grasp, let it shatter to pieces, to the point of irreparability. 

Every character in this story has their own insecurity. Their own punishment as the karmic consequences from their past misdemeanor: a result of a decision as simple as turning right or left. 

It’s also not rare that they have to look back to the past. It’s only through it that they can learn their lessons and come to terms with their ordeal. Isn’t it weird how experience can be the strongest encouragement for people to live the rest of their life? 

And sometimes, if there’s nothing else that can be done, it’s better to let it the way it is. Just like sweeping leaves falling to the earth. No matter how much you sweep, more leaves will fall. There’s no end to it. 

It’s a wonder how Teru Miyamoto, as a man, is able to weave such a story, full of delicate feelings and emotions. ♣♣♣♣♣ for Kinshu

Julie & Julia Take 2: “What if you had not fallen in love (with me)?”

Julia Child and Julie Powell. Both seems to have so many differences when the movie starts: so many that it seems hardly possible that their life might cross paths in some way.

 

Clearly, they live in a different time space: more than 40 years apart. One lives

in Paris, the capital reputable for its culinary finesse, while the other one lives in Queens, definitely not known for its amazing restaurants, on top of a  pizzeria. One has a dream in culinary, while the other is dying to be a recognized writer. Then of course, clearly portrayed throughout the movie, how Julia Child (Meryl Streep) has such a daring, strong, but witty personality who can see everything from the bright sides. On the other hand, Julie Powell (Amy Adams), is the weaker one, prone to emotional breakdowns, and can not even man herself enough to dismember a lobster. 

However, slowly, as the story goes, we can see why these two true stories are brought together in one movie. Both don’t discover their dreams early enough,yet they don’t fail, which give faiths to us who don’t have the chance to pursue our dreams early enough, that your dream comes true when you decides to realize it. And both have been saved by love. 

 

Julia once asked to Paul, her husband: What if you had not fallen in love with me? And Paul (Stanley Tucci), almost without thinking, responds: But I did. They’re no longer young (no effort is made to make them look young, which is brilliant), still, their love affair is so breathtaking, despite their visible differences. Julie, at the same sides, has Eric (Chris Messina) who always encourages her, though there’s one time when he explodes and crumbles, reaching the point where he can’t take anymore of Julie’s sometimes-self-centered-attitude. I mean, what will happen to us, when the most important person in our life, doesn’t understand and support our dream?

 However, for me, this love, doesn’t necessarily only signify their love to their men. That’s why I put brackets on the title. The question can also mean: What if they had not fallen in love to cooking? To their dream? For Julia, it might be, a feeling of being insufficient and not being fulfilled. She is obviously an ambitious one, particularly in that post-war period, when the role of women is less of importance. For Julie, perhaps, she will remain to be the weak Julie: Julie who can only bite her tongue, being a stooge in front of her cobb-fan-and snob friends. As Eric mentions in the movie, she changed. And no, Julia Child doesn’t change her. She changes herself. Julia merely becomes the the figure who lights the fuse. 

That’s the reason that when Julie fell to pieces, when she heard that Julia hates her, Eric can help her to understand that the most important Julia is the Julia in her mind. Her imposing guardian angel. Her imaginary best friend who has been with her all along. Not the foreign Julia Child whom she never even meets. 

In the later parts of the story, when both Julie and Julia, are almost toppled down by the fact that the dreams that they both pursued for so long might turn to be a practical joke in the end, another question is asked to the audience (or at least me..) What will you do next? What will you do when your life long dream turns out to be a lie? Or even, when you have achieved it? The former and the latter might drag us to the point of emptiness. We have lost our drive that has fueled us for so long. It will be of our discretion how to answer this question.

Despite of everything I have been babbling over in this post, this movie is simply enjoyable and funny. Not in a uncontrollable way where you will laugh your head off, but more to the entertaining side. And it’s also enriching… both your heart and your belly (since you will sure be running to your kitchen to cook like you’ve been possessed  by Julia Child yourself..unless you’re on a diet like me..damn!)

♣♣♣♣♣ for Nora Ephron, the person behind the beauty of this movie, and many other fabulous romantic comedies, and needless to say, the real Julia Child and Julie Powell, without whom this movie will not even be here for us.

Sajak Makna Sebuah Titipan (WS Rendra, alm)

Sering kali aku berkata, ketika orang memuji milikku,
bahwa :

sesungguhnya ini hanya titipan,
bahwa mobilku hanya titipan Allah
bahwa rumahku hanya titipan Nya,
bahwa hartaku hanya titipan Nya,
bahwa putraku hanya titipan Nya,

tetapi, mengapa aku tak pernah bertanya,
mengapa Dia menitipkan padaku?
Untuk apa Dia menitipkan ini pada ku?
Dan kalau bukan milikku,
apa yang harus kulakukan untuk milik Nya ini?

Adakah aku memiliki hak atas sesuatu yang bukan milikku?
Mengapa hatiku justru terasa berat, ketika titipan itu
diminta kembali oleh-Nya?

Ketika diminta kembali,
kusebut itu sebagai musibah
kusebut itu sebagai ujian,
kusebut itu sebagai petaka,
kusebut dengan panggilan apa saja untuk melukiskan
bahwa itu adalah derita.

Ketika aku berdoa,
kuminta titipan yang cocok dengan hawa nafsuku,
aku ingin lebih banyak harta,
ingin lebih banyak mobil,
lebih banyak popularitas,
dan kutolak sakit,
kutolak kemiskinan,
seolah semua “derita” adalah hukuman bagiku.

Seolah keadilan dan kasih Nya harus berjalan seperti
matematika:
aku rajin beribadah,
maka selayaknyalah derita menjauh dariku,
dan nikmat dunia kerap menghampiriku.
Kuperlakukan Dia seolah mitra dagang,
dan bukan kekasih.
Kuminta Dia membalas “perlakuan baikku”,
dan menolak keputusanNya yang tak sesuai keinginanku,

Gusti, padahal tiap hari kuucapkan,
hidup dan matiku hanyalah untuk beribadah…

“ketika langit dan bumi bersatu, bencana dan keberuntungan sama saja”

- I really wish that I can translate this poem for everyone. But I don’t think I’m that good. -

A Brief Lunacy: A Moment of Craziness from The Past

To the memory of the thousands of Roma, taken in the night from the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau to the gas chambers on August 2, 1944

Jessie and Carl have been prisoners in their own home. When a stranger came into the front of their cabin in the Maine woods, pleading for one phone call and a shelter for the night, they admit him in: with a hope that someone else will take pity of her missing daughter, Sylvie, who ran away from her asylum. 

But they should have known that their importunate guest, Jonah – so he said his name is, has something in his mind. That he knows their daughter. That he knows so much about them, even things that even neither of them has shared between each other in their 40 years of marriage…  In their attempts to outsmart their captor, the usually-feebleminded Jessie, who always counts on the pretense safety and sanity she finds in her husband, discovers her hidden strength, while Carl gives in to his long hidden painful past. 

As the painful truth unfolds, comes the story of young Carl, whose actual name is Veshi, a Rom, A Gypsy, who’s so ashamed of what he is that he decides it’s easier not to be one. His nightmare, starting when his whole family is dragged to the Nazi concentration camp, and not ending even when he succeeds running away since his freedom is paid with his family’s deaths. Under the truck where’s he’s hiding, so close to the smell of free air, he is forced to see something’s too much from what he’s able to bear. His small sister, Nonni,whipped, bleeding until bent, forcing herself not to fall to the ground for not to be shot. But maybe death will be a relief? His mother, forced to watch how her husband and daughter tortured and disgraced, with a pistol in her mouth, which blows her head soon after. And her father, compelled to spread his own daughter’s legs on the Nazi dirt and rape her, with a false belief that he will be able to save his wife that way. Little Carl thanks God at that time for having his grand mother sent to the gas chamber earlier so she doesn’t have to see all that. 

And all along, little Carl knows that her mother knows where he is hiding. But it’s still much better for 3 people to die rather than 4, isn’t it? A mother will do anything to protect at least one of her child. 

Those grim nightmares are relived again during that one damnable day. Again Carl is disgraced and forced to see how his wife, his beloved Jessie was then raped by Jonah. He said he needs to know the womb where his beautiful Sylvie resides before being born.  And Jessie knows that she has to overcome her fear, of which they all stink, to protect what she still has. To protect Sylvie.

Here, Sylvie never really exists. She is simply a strong figure, hovering in the back of everyone’s mind. In Jessie’s, as she recalls the way she treats her unbalanced daughter: disbelieving everything she says simply as something passing through in someone’s lunatic mind. In Jonah’s, believing that he’s showing his love to Sylvie by aiming a loaded gun to her parents’ head. The gun is the force, as he said, to make Sylvie’s parents listen to and share their secret with him. In Carl’s, as he keeps repeating to himself, that what he has now should be a new chapter in a novel of his life. All the pains should have been left in the past, in the forsaken Europe, not in this country, where people don’t normally shoot other people and make them do things that have no dignity.

Cynthia Thayer also wrote A Certain Slant of Light and Strong for Potatoes. The latter won an award. 

A Brief Lunacy is really sly and amazingly real thriller, although in some pages it might seem to progress so slowly in order to tell the stories in a lively detailed way.

♣♣♣♣

Color my life with the chaos of trouble, cause anything’s better than posh isolation

(500) Days of Summer: The (500) days signifies the days from when Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an ever-hopeful guy spots Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a girl whom he believes is his soul mate until he finally gets over her. Or maybe, it would be more accurate if I say an ever-hopeful “girl” who spots the “guy” as her soul mate. No hard feeling for us girls, but just be honest,how it is so annoyingly true that in this movie, Summer is the one wearing the pants and Tom is us. 

And, no, the plot doesn’t start with Tom falling in love with Summer, but when Summer dropped the bomb, ending whatever that they have, to the blissed-out Tom, without him can even recall when the time detonator starts ticking. So the movie is filled with a series of flash backs, and sometimes events happening now, for Tom to explain himself, an answer why everything suddenly goes wrong.

Perhaps it’s true that we have been brainwashed with all the white lies hidden in our childhood fairy tales (just like He’s Just Not Into You portrays..although again in the end this movie lies the same to us). Perhaps it doesn’t always mean that your soul mate thinks that you are her soulmate too…She still can feel unsure when you are falling head over heels in love with her..And sometimes Happy is just not enough..

But how beautiful world is when we (think) that the love that we feel is not unrequited. I just can not stop smiling remembering the scene of Tom dancing and singing in the Park, complete with his cartooned little blue bird (just like those cute Bollywood movies – I mean about the dancing and singing part, not the bird). And how painful it is when he’s forced to see, that when he thinks  even an idea of a cat reaching for a glass of milk is just plain stupid – since there’s no such thing as inspiration and dream, the one causing all the pain has moved on.

Hell, such a cruel irony that Summer can be heartless enough to suggest an idea of friendship to the devastated Tom. 

No one’s to blame, though. Tom and Summer are just two different persons. Tom is the Romeo. While Summer is simply a truthful girl who loves her long black hair and can easily cut it off the next second. A pragmatic. 

One advice from this movie: If you haven’t found your soul mate until now, maybe you just haven’t been looking. (No, this movie doesn’t believe that love came when you least expected it) I mean, what are the chances that Autumn will come after Summer? 

PS. ♣♣♣♣♣ for Marc Webb (as well as for Tom and Summer, of course). A beautiful debut.

Project Julie & Julia: Take 1

I finally watched this movie! Well, at first I was not really sure if I’d like to watch it or not…I like Meryl Streep, but I’m not a fan..Honestly…never really been a fan to anyone =p I just admire how she is a true “chameleon” in every character she’s playing…Just imagine… from the Cruella de Vil of Miranda Priestly to the charming and witty Julia Child…Two thumbs up!

Anyway…so…I decided to watch it when I knew it’s about cooking…I love it..(Well, maybe it sounds so pathetic..saying that I’m a movie fan but I don’t really pay attention to the list of upcoming movies..unless those whose trailers I’ve seen in the cinema…when I was watching other movies…my bad..) 

UNFORTUNATELY….my honest genuine passionate initiative to watch it had to be trashed due to intermittent rain in one day… =p 

But finally I watched it today…although in the middle of the movie I had to leave since my boyfriend fell asleep next to me..Can’t really blame him though…Maybe a movie about cooking doesn’t really interest any boy…I will definitely re-watch it tomorrow..

But I already love the beginning..especially the hilarious point when Meryl Streep so passionately slicing onion…just for the sake of being acknowledged among the guys…lol…that’s the girl that I love…

So…let’s wait for the second take…as soon as I re-watch it..hopefully tomorrow (finger crossed) ^^

There’s no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one…

The Brothers Bloom is the second masterpiece of Rian Johnson, after Brick, his 2005 film noir debut. Unlike Brick, though, The Brothers Bloom are more to the sunny and flashy character. 

Our story starts with two little orphans, Stephen and Bloom. Constantly being kicked out from one foster home to another, Stephen has exhibited his talent as a mastermind while Bloom, his younger brother, acts as the protagonist of each scheme, willing to do it for then he can become someone he’s not. Even from this period of their life, we can recognize how Bloom is the soft hearted one in every plot. Until 25 years later, our charming- green-eyed-with-a-crook nose Bloom (Adrien Brody) demands that he wants to quit to  Stephen (Mark Rufallo). Later on, what Stephen said to Bloom during this moment (about how real blood should turn black after a couple of hours) and how Bloom bid good bye to his brother-in-crime will be felt  painfully familiar in the end of the movie. Then, poof, Bloom is gone, not after assuring Stephen not to look for him since he will not be able to find him anyway.

Of course, however, our mastermind finds him and successfully lures him to their grand final globe-trotting scheme. Bloom is reluctant at first, until he sees their new mark, pretty New Jersey heiress, Penelope (Rachel Weisz; she also starred at My Blueberry Nights, my other favorite movie). Bang-Bang (Ryoko Kikuchi), who speaks barely than two words in the whole length of the movie, is also introduced as the new sidekick of the team, a.k.a their master in fireworks (explosive, to be exact) 

Her initial characters of being clumsy, innocent, even epileptic, ensuring Bloom how she will be an easy target. Anyway, who’s fool enough not to learn from their mistake, that a Lamborghini is not a car to be treated like one in a crash test? When asked, Penelope said that she is a hobby collector. It turns out, she’s not bragging, since she later shows Bloom her expertise from circus skills and banjo to karate.

What the brothers bloom don’t account for is when Penelope turns out not to be the Penelope they imagines at first. Instead of being an easy mark, slowly, in their coming adventure of smuggling an antiquarian book, Penelope, with her surprising natural talent in con game, becomes their partner. An intricate game of lies, secrets, and unpredictable truths starts, with an unexpected aftermath, waiting in the end, where we can not even believe what our eyes has seen. 

I’m not sure if the end of the movie can be considered tragic of satisfying. Nevertheless, as Stephen once says: a perfect con game in one where everyone got just what they wants. And perhaps, it can be said, that everything has gone as it has been planned by the maestro himself, who said to Bloom: the gravest danger in this game is when you fall in love with your mark.

Therefore, ♣♣♣♣ out of five, for this unique, wise, but hilarious adventure-comedy.