Maybe it was the full moon shrouded by cloud mist that could account for the craziness of learning while having fun, or could it be spring (life) burgeoning, trees retain their bare look as yellow-green leaves bloom-- a diaphonous fashion. Or maybe it was the delicious $2.75 White Chocolate Strawberry Torte Cake or the Caramel Frap and Green Tea Frap, I had in Starbucks. Well whatever it was, I found myself applying almost everything I'm learning this semester to the three movies I watched at the Ritz.
The first film my friend and I watched is called L'enfant (French for 'The Child'). I had no idea what this film was about. I read the blurb written on the movie poster: "tour de force" and something blah blah "artsy" "compelling." I had two summer semester of Elementary French (15 weeks, 4 days, 4 hours per day in various texts- movie, music, television news, children's picture books, cuisine, art, etc) so the sounds weren't foreign to me. I recognized some of the vocabulary and grammar composition. The word that stood out the most was "d'argent" which meant "money" (hmmm I wonder why?).
The pace was slow. Right away I questioned the plot (Writing of Fiction, Publication Workshop). Plot versus story (Why and how versus when). Only trouble is interesting rang in my head. Basically the movie is about a very young couple who just had a child. I figured that the title was a pun. It begs the questions: who's raising who? who's the child? Metaphorically, the child is the young parent. Literally it was the baby. The fact that this is basis of the whole movie presents tension (underlying conflict of providing for this newborn while at the same time growing up for the characters). Clues scattered showing the immaturity of the characters: wasting money, playing with food, bad behavior like stealing, being selfish etc.
***Caveat: Here's where I destroy the ending by revealing it for anyone interested in watching the movie.
My writing teachers imparted in me the mantra of "make your characters suffer," "torture them," "forget ethical issue of the death penalt(electric chair), this issue doesn't apply in writing." So while watching, I wondered: how this character was going to suffer? what's the main conflict? the action? the theme? I started guessing.
The beginning characterized the protagonist as irresponsible, and provided background. Then it progressed to the male character being in debt, needing money, then he came up with this brilliant idea-- why not sell his newborn son to this shady underground adoption agency that sells and buys newborn baby (crises)?
cause and effect
His girlfriend fainted, she was brought ot the hospital, she told the police, he went back called the dealer and ask for the baby back...
I was thinking "make the character suffer"
the dealer told him to meet in this garage (at first I thought that there was no way the dealers would return the baby)
they asked him to give back the money and his sell phone, I thought that they would lock him in the garage, run away with the money, the baby and his cellphone--- to my surprise they gave him back the baby, but now he owns them because according to them it cost them extra for backing out of the deal...
once the baby is back, his girlfirend is pissed- tension high, i saw how the girl ignored him and how he tried to gain back her trust (the "no" dialogue)
problems rise- now some kind of low class mafia is after him, his girlfriend rejects him, he needs money. he called one of his contact, who was a kid younger than him. He borrowed the kids scooter and invited the kid to go stealing with him...building up to the climax, the kid got caught, the main protagonist 'grew up' took responsibility for his actions and turned himself in. The conclusion was his girlfriend visited him in prison, it was implied that his girlfriend knew what he did, and felt sorry for him, forgave him. they cried, the end (it was this abrupt too in the movie).
The second movie was more of a documentary about oppression specifically in the gay community and how sex was used to celebrate liberation. This documentary was aptly titled Gay Sex in the 70s. There were hilarous moments when the interviewee were candid but also there were graphic images. What was poignant was what the commentator said about"not being alone, striving for human contact" (even if at the price of sexual exchange and its not yet recognized disease AIDS).
Gays who came out were the flower child of the hippies who continued to question authority (distrust them, why should they believe the government who told them that whatever they were doing was immoral?, when hundreds thousands of people died listening to the government). Then it was revealed to me how the stereotype of gay men's promiscuity began, sexual liberation (Kate Chopin). Twentieth Centruy Art (Ross Bleckner), ---the "politics of the personal"---- gays have been suppressed for so long, take away the reign and they took advantage of that without thinking about consequences, in the 80s, AIDS started showing up (illustrating how the older generation affected the younger ones).
The third movie had more of an obvious plot compared to the first one (especially over the documentary). It was romantic. It was called Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School (reminded me of musical dace, Jazz, and the fiction writing mantra- "fiction can go inside the heads of people revealing their thoughts rather than audience interpreting facial expressions). I like the idea of the movie.
Basically the premise: a guy on the way to meet his "sweetheart" for Hotchkiss' Ballroom dance lessons got into a car accident. Another guy (makes bread for a living), who recently lost his wife crossed paths with this injured guy and called 911 for help--- in order to keep the guy in the car accident conscious, the bread guy had to talk to him, this was when his plan to meet his "sweetheart" was revealed. The bread guy ended up promising the dying man that he would go to the dance class to tell the sweetheart that he kept his promise.
The bread guy never found the sweetheart, BUT instead he found dancing therapeutic (to drive away his demons, helped him move on with his life, let go of his dead wife, finding new love). Later it was revealed that the "sweetheart" didn't go to the school, she got the invitation, and she kept a box full of memorabilia of the dead guy (car accident), their love was never realized, they never acted upon it, the desicions they made separated them from each other (the guy went to prison, she was just by herself, cranky)- when the guy finally decided to act on it, he got into a car accident and died...
I liked the idea a lot. However, the flashbacks were overused. There was a flashback within a flashback. The flashbacks distorted and jumbled the timeline and the pace. I understood now how Movies can get away with this technique more frequently than fiction writing. I was reminded of point of view. There were three main ones: the car accident guy, the bread guy, and the sweetheart.
everytime the car guy reminisced, time slowed down (I get that this is like your whole life flashes before your eyes time is relative). It's just incongruous with the rest (it wasn't so cohesive-- even the French "avant-garde" film was more unified). I recognized how the camera jumped "head." The bread guy found the sweetheart in her trailer, he left after telling her about the car guy. The camera then zoomed to the sweetheart as she opened the box of memorabilia... later on the movie ended, it flashback to the statement the car guy made in the beginning of the whole movie-- this was where it was revealed that he was in prison and he just got out. Overall the time used in Marilyn...'s was more circular as opposed to the linear order of L'enfant and Gay sex in the 70s .
All the movies were fun and educational. It's good to know that things I'm learning in college are actually being processed in my head...
Posted by Michael Diezmos at April 15, 2006 10:43 AM