A capitalist wake-up call to society and our lost humanity.

“To achieve the American dream of boundless wealth, you need to stand on many other people’s backs.”

Touré, 2018

Cassius started as low-level telemarketer and rose up to higher status by using the so-called “white voice.” He didn’t have much experience for the job, but then again they hire anyone just as long as you “stick to the script.” The white voice was described as an easy-going sound that gave people the impression you have it all together and that you don’t need them. Basically sounding as if you’re entitled to the good life. Sounding white spoke in a deeper level as Cassius was able to advance in his position. It showed that for black people to succeed you have to present yourself in a way that is pleasing to white people. The moment he ranked up and was moved to a higher floor, he was required to use the white voice much more often.

Inequality in the current system.

You can’t get to the top without standing on someone else’s back. The system is a wreck when the middle class population decreases, and the rich continue to get rich, while the poor continue to get poorer.’ This is most evident in how Cassius left behind his middle-ranked friends and clibed to the top as a “power caller” Cassius was earning a lot of money, but he wasn’t earning any favor amongst his former peers. The middle class workers would rally against this inequality, yet they still remained powerless to the higher-ups.

Media in the film, emphasized on how it dissentisizes people

Society has a dark humor of seeing people humiliated. There was a television show in the film that became popular by showing footage of people getting beaten up. Even Cassisus, getting hit in the head became a comedic viral sensation. Towards the end of the film, Cassius had to go to a series of pain and humiliation on live TV just so he could get people’s attention. Despite all that, people barely took what he said seriously.

Exploitation of Labor Workers

Equisapiens are half-human half-horse creatures who’s purpose is to work for the labor force. CEO Steve Lift has devised this formula that turns humans into monstorosities to boost productivity in his factories. This was really fucked up! In the scene when Cassius found the Equisapiens, It reminded me a lot of the animal abuse just like in the film Okja – It really made me loose hope in humanity. Despite that scene being fictional, I gotta say I was pretty impressed with the CGI and how I was able to empathize more with the situation due to the realism of it.

This film is definitely something that any person living in the 21st century would resonate with. Although I wouldn’t exactly say I enjoyed the film, I do respect the message that the film tries to portray. It was definately eye-opening and impactful.

After escaping a UFO death cult and setting up mediocre lives independently from their camp, Brothers Aaron and Justin return to where they began in hope of finding “closure.” Unsastified with his life, Aaron becomes restless urges his brother Justin to go back to the Camp after finding a VHS tape.

The Endless ranked 3rd place in rotten tomatoes list of best horror movies of 2018. It is a meta-brainy horror that consists of sci fiction mysterios thriller makes use of an unforeseen entitity with concepts of space and times and creative use of media. Set in the dawn of the 21st centure when flip phones and video technology were still a thing.

The brothers decide to go back to a cult after recieving an old videotape that “brings them back to where they began”. Despite growing up in the same place, Justin and Aaron have divergent views of the camp. Justin constantly remarks on how “culty” the camp is; meanwhile, Aaron remembers only the good things like eating healthy food, and being cared for.

We immediately notice odd things as they arrive at the camp. The people there appear to have long, healthy lives, they eat healthy food and ale, They are able to master skills at an an uncalculated level. Justin even makes fun of them for being sullied.

Beyond this, other weird things conspire in the camp such as this “higher being.” According to Benson “The antagonist is an actual mythological being”. The Camp doesn’t really have a leader, the brothers/audiences simply assumed it was Hal because he was the one that talked the most in the camp. Hal tries to explain this entity thrrough a series of equations. He portrays himself as someone who likes the entity, but does he really?

This unknown entity or the “unforeseen” communicates through media like videos, photographs and computer files. Just like the videotape the brothers got earlier in the start of the film about the camp. Anna was the person featured in the starting film. She apppears as a kind, easy-going girl but indulges in a peculiar attachment to the naive Aaron. Aaron grows attached to the camp and wants to stay there forever, however Justin becomes conspicious of the weird things that conspire and wants to leave

Camp Aracadia is apparently a 10 year loop. The brothers left right before the reset and are getting there right before the next one. In a climactic ending the brothers drive off to escape the time loop. They victoriously made it and escaped from the reset; however did they really escape the loop or are they part of a loop that is larger than their own.

The ending leaves us with a lot of questions. We are left to question: How did the brothers grow up there when there were no other kids to be seen in the camp? Are the brothers stuck in a larger loop that we are unaware of? Could we resonate with being stuck in a loop? All things unverified and can be assumed when watching a science fiction thriller horror.

“The braided cords that we make are the gods of art and represent the flow of time itself. They converge and take shape. They twist, tangle, sometimes unravel break then connect again.”

Whether or not they were aware of it, Taki and Mitsuha’s lives are intetwined by an invisible string. Kimi no Nawa (Your name) is directed by Makoto Shinkai. It has captured worlwide attention as the top grossing anime film of this century. Mitsuha and Taki took “teenage life-crisis” to a whole new level as their lisfestyles were messed around while switching places in each others body. It was a classic freaky friday situation turned into an anime masterpiece. I would’ve thought that was the entire basis of the plot; The film plunges deeper plunge as Shinkai captures the feeling of longing, emptiness and displacement of the two characters as seen in the OP.

Kimi No Nawa tells a captivating story and elevates this with artistic detail. The illustration is so good that seeing the shots of the Japanese food will make you want to eat what’s on the screen. The lighting stays realistically consistent throughout the film; From the glistenning lake in Itomori to the reflections in the buildings of Tokyo – It truly captured the ambiance of each setting. That breathtaking animated time-lapse is an aspect that can easily be overlooked, but when you put into consideration the time and work required to create those shots, you begin to have an even deeper appreciationf for the film.

Two worlds combine as Mitsuha wishes desperately to escape her small-town home and the burden of being a traditional Shrine maiden to her family.

“I hate this town. I hate this life. Please make me a handsome tokyo boy in my next life.”

Mitsuha

In the small town where Mitsuha lives, everything closes early and there are no spots for teenagers to hang out like a simple cafe. Her community is small so she is careful of being judged. Meanwhile, in the city scene, students in the classroom have take-out for lunch and plan to do fun things like watch a movie after class. You may notice a drastic difference in Taki and Mitsuha’s attitude which comes along with their divergent upbringings. Where Mitsuha is cautios of her actions and apperance, Taki is aloof of what everyone thinks of him, even coming off as insensitive at time. These dissimilarities generate a huge misunderstanding between the two causing them to set some personal boundaries.

The film skimmed through the situation like a even explained this through a clip. It realistically captured what it was like if a guy and a girl switched bodies. Towards the end of the clip, I found it funny how they coerce the other to get into a relationship, but neither seem to want it for themselves. the time lapse showed the two sides.

“I’m single, because I want to be”

Taki and Mitsuha

I think Taki started developing sincere feelings for Mitusha when he woke up in her body and restrained himself from touching her boobs. That day, they went to the mountains – which was my favorite animated sequence. I couldn’t help but notice the details in nature that translated in the visuals. Like the leaves falling gently down the river as it created a ripple effect, and the the bright orange trees surrounding them while the sunlight peaked through gaps of the leaves and branches.

The thread plays a key role to the link of Taki and Mitsuha. It wasn’t just a stroke of luck by Mitsuha screaming it out into the air. The two worlds of Taki and Mistuha are bounded by abstact lines that were represnted by the comet and Mitsuha’s red hair knot. This red string of fate in Asia symbolizes love, fait,and destiny. We just knew that the two were bound to end up together. “Musubi” which is knotting means time; when a person comsumes something and it joins their soul. Taki left Mitsuha’s sake as an offering in the Iyamizu Shrine. Later on, he goes back to the shrine, as himself, when he stopped switching bodies with Mitsuha.Taki drinks Mitsuha’s Sake and is transported back to her timeline and body. He flows through Mitsuha’s life, as (Musubi) he drinks half of her. He sees Mitsuha’s life from start to end, from the day her umbilical cord was cut to the day that the comet hits /itomori. As soon as he wakes up he tries to change everything. After figuring out the different timeline – In a climactic effort to save the town, Taki switches place with Mitsuha and plans to save the town from the splitting remnants of the comet.

The 3 year gap in the timeline was the biggest plot-twist and plot hole for me in the film. It was interesting because on the time Taki and Mitsuha tried to reach for each other, they were in completely different timzones – thus increasing the emotional appeal of unattainable love. I’ve also wondered how Taki and Mitsuha did not notice this earlier; Seriously, they both had iphones for crying out loud couldn’t they have checked what year it was. Despite that, I found the film stunning and breathtaking. I was on the edge of my seat as Mitsuha tried so hard to save her town, and the conlcuding scenes wherein we spectate for what feels like forever til they meet again.

I love a good feel good film, and Kimi no Nawa was definitely the film I enjoyed the most in this class.

“Not just a job, It’s an adventure”

What made Repo Man so great was the fact that you could jump from one scene to another and lie close to making sense and not making sense at all. It was an unusual formula of automobiles, aliens and punk rock. The film reminded me a lot of Back to the Future with the same comedic intakes of Dude, Where’s My Car. Cox got the idea of making a film about Repo Man when he drove around with an actual one. Hence, the Repo Man code in the scense where bud shows Otto the roped was actually a legit thing.

The film kicks off with a scientist driving a Chevy in New Mexico with conspicuous contents in the trunk. A police officer checks what’s inside and get dinsintegrated to ashes. Meanwhile, punk kid Ottoworks as a stock supermarket in LA. After quitting his job, Bud who offers him an opportunity to be a car repossessor. He was hesitant to take the job at first, however after realizing his parents has sold his college funsds he takes the job and gets into a whole sheananigan of adventures.

Along the way, he meets a girl named Leila who was running down the street. Leila tells Otto she’s got top secret news. She has a picture of an alien and it’s gonna be in the front cover of the news. Otto laughs at her, next day just as Leila says he sees the picture she showed him in the front cover of the newspaper.Parrell the scientist arrives in LA, but is unable to meet his waiting UFO compatriots because of a team of government agents lead by a hand. The government had been on the lookout for the Chevy due to it’s possible link with aliens. A 10,000 reward was labled on the car which made it a jackpot for every Repo Man. Every Repo Man is out on the hunt for the 1964 Chevy Malibu. The government believes that it is linked to some extraterrestorial conquest. Meanwhile, Otto is just after the 10,000$ prize offered for getting the car.

In Night Club Scene a group of people were trying to steal the scientist cars. He tricks them into opening the truck and again one of them gets disintegrated. Parrell then picks up Otto. Otto then takes the Malibu back to the Helping Hand and leaves it in the lot.
More crazy things start to happen as the car gets stolen then they go on a car chase. Why is everyone after this car? There’s even an intense car chase, where a whole bunch of weird studd starts happening.

The ending I find was spectacular. Otto gets inside the car after ditching his girlfriend with a classic line: “What about our relationship?” He gets inside the car floats away and they cruise through the sky. It may not have entirely made sense, but in that moment I just felt like that was the closest film we had watched in class that was “feel good”. I especially loved how they angled that final scene to look as if you were cruising through the sky with them just like those tacky rides you’d see in timezone.

Violence is a severe act that causes more harm than good. However, we cannnot deny our allurement to violence especially it’s portrayal by the media. Barron Geisler and Kiko Matos’ fight, for example, garnered large-scale media attention that was rather unexpected given the lack of experience of these actors as MMA fighters. 

Tension between Geisler and Matos began when the two got into a bar fight. A video of them punching each other quickly went viral and the two became a media sensation. Geisler and Matos have been thrpwing shots at each other since then on Social Media. It escalated from a bar fight to a live on-stage MMA fight. Matos originally thought that Geisler was gonna back out of the fight once he said “yes”, but neither of the two declined the offer. As a result Geisler and Matos had set a fight at the Palace. Manuale Mesina III’s film “Beastmode: A Social Experiment” gave us a behind-the-scenes-look on the fight that went down with the two actors. According to Esquire Philippines, Mesina III has quite a fascination for violence and even refers to as “self cultivating.” He further explores the nature of violence as a concept and it’s relationship with media through his indie film.

The title itself indicates that the match between Geisler and Matos was staged. We were all duped into soaking up the riled tension between the two actors. The match had huge media coverage and even attracted popular celebrities to attend. Both actors were winded by the 2nd round and could barely make it to the 3rd. They called it a tie, and didn’t push any further. By the end of the match, Geisler grabbed the mic and said “were you not entertained?” The audience didn’t really know what to expect. Most of the people who were there was just drawn to the drama and wanted to see how the fight would turn out. Despite neither one of them having any background in Martial Arts, they were able to amass a huge fan base and got a clamorous reaction from the audience.

“ We would like to emphasize that, whether we admit it or not, we are all unwitting players in this social dynamic, and we hope that, as soon as we ‘get’ the message, we will eventually learn to be more vigilant in looking beyond our biases and passing judgment on people or what we may perceive to be controversial issues”

Geisler’s text message to Rappler

The above message was subdued to the fact that popular celebrities who attended the event had stolen the limelight from the main message of the Social Experiment. The Cast members even admitted it in the open forum q&a held in Ateneo.

Needless to say, fans are still curios as to whether there will be a part 2. Geisler, most especially, likes to tease around this possibility.

In an interview with Manila times he states: “The question is for me actually. Hindi pa kami tapos [we’re not done], there’s a ‘Kiko-Baron PArt 2’. I challenge him. if he has the balls for it, ?i challenge him, do you [have the balls]?” To which Matos retorts: “I missed this, just like last year, kahit kailan, kahit saan, anytime, anywhere, I’ll be there.”
 Geisler then returns the response: “Pare, that’s so 2016, can you come up with somethin else? Putangina, seriously, hanggang dun na lang [is that all you have]? That’s so lame, man!”

Whether or not there will be a part 2 I’m sure peeople would gather around and watch. Despite these characters lack in technique, their rouse to attract the medias attention was fulfilled and resulted to an entertaining fight. Although their attentions were rather unclear they sparked up quite a controversy and were able to confirm what we already know about society – which is that violence, as a concept, is in fact self-cultivating and entertaining for the masses

“Today there’d be fighting in the street, but in 1972 it was more like dancing”

Mandy from Velvet Goldmine

An age of Glam rock, sexual rebellion and lots of glitters, the people of the ’70s wore extravagant clothes and danced around wildly to match the era and music. British glam rock stars, as portrayed in the film Velvet Goldmine, have an eccentric demeanor tied together by their flamboyant costumes, ear-piercing music, and outlandish stage presence captivating fans worldwide.

The movie was originally meant to be a biography of rockstar David Bowie; however, he disapproved of it which led to an alternate interpretation of their ode to the artist. I initially thought the movie was a fairytale set in London, because of it’s an introductory statement “Childhood is the happiest time of life” little did I know this would set the plot of the grievances of rockstars and their haunting childhood.

Velvet Goldmine captured the feeling of what it was like to be a fan of rock music in that era. Arthur Stuart, played by Christian Bale, conducts an investigation behind the death of an icon Brian Slade. Stuart was a fan of Slade himself back in the day, this encouraged him to take up the role. He did a thorough investigation and pieced together the puzzles of Slade’s life.

Brian Slade, also known as Maxwell Demon, is a rather complex character. He is driven by fame and just like any other artist presents something beyond his music. One of the scenes that struck me the most was when Slade’s wife hit him with the words “You live in terror of not being misunderstood”.

Brian Slade, also known as Maxwell Demon, is a rather complex character. He is driven by fame and just like any other artist presents something beyond his music. One of the scenes that struck me the most was when Slade’s wife hit him with the words “You live in terror of not being misunderstood.” It made me dig deeper into the psyche of Slade’s character and how this applies to multiple artists today. “Give him a mask and he’ll tell the truth” Slade states in the film.

The life of a pop star is not as it seems. What looks like glitter was far from gold. The film dove into the personal life of Slade and pieced together his past experiences in helping us understand what made him the iconic pop star that he was. Just as the film states “There is suffering in birth, just as there is suffering in the birth of a pop star.”

Overall, The film gave me a gay daydream glam rock kind of tone. It interplayed with the whimsiness of fairy tails and the technical aspects of rock that make it so outlandish. 70’s rock has never really been my type of music, but after watching the movie I became interested in the genre and did my own exploration of the David Bowie era. 70’s rock despite the oddity, appeals to people because it brought misfits together. Glam Rock captured a voice for the people who felt as if they didn’t belong. It shook them to the core and inspired a generation of rebellion, homosexuality, and freedom. I still think rock music is weird; however, I’m glad I gave it a chance. It was nice to know there was more of a meaning behind to it and essentially meant more to the people from that generation before.

It’s the angel man

I’m derranged

Cruise me, Cruise me baby

David Bowie’s Song

Navigating the Highway of Lynch’s Mind; Lost Highway begins with the scene of the road in motion while David Bowie’s “I’m Derranged” plays in the background. The audience is placed on the position of speeding down a highway as we journey through movie’s almost unnavigatable plot. Centered on a man with a derranged fantasy, “Lost Highway shows how a man’s failure to maintain a self-contained home causes him to lose his mind and his memories.” (Staley, 2018)

Fred, the protagonist, along with his wife Renee have some unspoken tension in their home. He is a saxophonist in the night club, when he asked Renee to come watch him play, she portrayed disinterest stating she would rather read. In bed, Fred is unable to please his own wife leaving him disappointed and unssatisfied. Both become frightened as VHS clips of a person invading their house are sent to their doorstep. The police investigate the scene and ask if they have any CCTV cameras. They don’t have any because Fred hates them.

“I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.”

Fred from Lost Highway

Videos have always been a reliable documentation of the truth; however in Fred’s case, it is used as a leeway to manipulate his reality and avoid evidential truth. Using memory as a basis could be faulty because oftentimes our perceptions are biased; hence “we believe what we want to believe.” This is the case for most people who are accused of crime. Memento by Cristopher Nolan is a recommendable film that angles on human perception and the unreliability of memories. It’s summary is about a man suffering from short-term memory loss in pursuit to catch his wife’s murderer. But in reality [spoiler alert!], it was he who had murdered his wife all along. He simply constructed this lifestyle of chasing a murderer that never existed in order to avoid the reality of what he has done.

The last VHS tape that Fred recieved shows a horrendous scene of what appears to be him murdering his wife. In shock of what he has seen, he pleads to the police “Tell me, I didn’t do it.” While in the cell, Fred is suddenly replaced by another male character Pete. Pete is a fantasy element of Fred’s. He represents the life he desires to have. Compared to Fred, Pete is young and is in a thrilling relationship with a girl named Sheila. Pete and Sheila have the passionate connection that Fred was lacking with his wife; however in Fred’s fantasy Sheila still wasn’t enough. Alice, the mistress of Mob Gangster Mr. Eddy, comes along and seduces Pete. Unable to control himself Pete gives in to her every request. He ends up losing his girl Sheila in the process and killing a guy named Andy.

“We killed him.”
“No you killed him.”

Pete and then Alice

Alice coincidentally looks like Renee. Both character are played by the same actress Patricia Arquette. Its conspicious how the same actress was used to play two different characters;however when we take into account the derranged mentality of Fred and the fantasy life that Pete portrays, we can therefore deduce that Alice is a haunting image of Pete’s murdered wife. Alice’s last words to Fred was “You can’t have me.” After hearing those words echo Fred is snapped back into reality, where he finds himself in the middle of the dessert with a wooden cabin as the only landmark.

The mystery man reappears. Who is he? He appears in the scenes as an all-knowing character in the film. He knew that Fred switched places and he knows the truth that he murdered Renee. An iconic scene was when the Mystery man was holding a camera in his face as Pete was running away. This represents Pete avoiding the reality of his actions. The real questions we should be asking is: Did Fred really murder his wife? and why? After all the research I have gathered, Fred is infact derranged and murdered his own wife out of jelousy. What I can’t confirm is whether Renee did cheat on him with Andy. The only thing I could conclude about that was that Renee and Fred did not have a satisfying relationship and there is a possibility that Renee cheated on him.

It’s also worth mentioning that in the end of the film when Fred was completely hypnotiized by Alice, he had killed Andy. Fred in shock stated “We killed him”, while Alice said “No, you killed him.” Andy could simply have been another murder case for Fred’s psychotic nature.

Many would say that Lost Highway is a lost cause for analysis. Trying to understand the film would defeat the point of understanding it. It’s understandable how one would get lost watching the film given that the main plot of the film is hidden with other highlighted scenes that are unseemingly fit to the main plot. Not every detail is worth mentioning, however the other details that are worth bringing up are hidden deep in the background of the film; such as how Renee always looked dolled up even washing her face, or the odd behavior of Pete’s parents. What we can mainly deduce from the film is the derranged nature of the Protagonist Fred and how his memories portrayed in the film are as shuffled as how he understands his self – which pretty much explains why the film was so confusing – because we are literally spectating the mind of a man who does not know his own reality or does not want to believe it himself.

References:
Staley, H. (2018, January 15). Lost Highway: A Home is a Man’s Castle. Retrieved from https://www.intjournal.com/thinkpieces/lost-highway

Futureless Things is an odd Korean movie that would require to you to have a good attention to detail and a small backgroud in Korean society in order to fully comprehend the film. It is set in a convenience store and follows an episode-like narrative through the passing shifts of the store clerks. I was fooled into thinking I was gonna watch a cute Korean Gay Drama, however as the film progressed we were introduced to the more charcaters with their own sub-plots in the film. Although the film was rather odd at some points, substantially speaking it will make you see store clerks in a different way and hopefully treat them with even more kindness.

At the time Futureless Things was showing in class, I was really into K-drama. The first shift began with Ha-Na and Gi-Cheol. Gi-cheol was new to the job and relied on Ha-Na to show him the ropes. They had an interesting conversation about love, and it was later revealed that they had personal relationship issues of their own. Ha-Na had feelings for her co-worker Eun-yeong while Gi-cheol was conflicted with the current realtionship he was in because he would have to leave to do military service soon. Everyone in the class was gushing as the gay couples struggled through their personal relationships and we saw glimpses of the couples bein cutesy towards one another. The conflicting relationship of these two characters was far from main plot of the film. It was just a piece that would unfold the twist in the end.

The next few shifts would tackle the “true” struggle of being a store clerk worker. Hyeon Soo struggled to make two ends meet as he was stuck working his shift and was already runing late for his casting call, Soo-hee had to handle a difficult customer who was harassing her identity as a North Korean, while Min-hee got fired because she refused to put-up with the ridiculous requests of the customer with a negligent smile. These series of the workers makes us ponder the most on the title Futureless things. It is not the things in the convenience store that our futureless, but the people working there who are treated like Futureless things. The film is a satire in the day of the life of a store clerk.

Futureless Things gets even more odd as the store temporarily closes down. At one point the convenience store shuts down and a group of people are left outside waiting for it to open. I found this scene to be the weirdest given that you do not simply wait long hours just for a convenience store to open – It negates the purpose of it being convenient. There were apparently hints that anticipated the twist in the ending but you would have to watch it again. Like the box that was give early on in the film and the weird lady that was acting really weird in the convenience store.You really have to pay attention to the details in order to understand the ending.

There are multiple details and we may not be able to simply cover it all in just htis one paper, so you would have to watch the film seversl times yourself if you want to get a full grasp of what the film is about. Nonetheless, I would enjoy watching the film again and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in Korean culture and would like to check out something new.

Fight me on this! [at Q Lim] out of all the movies we had watched for COM 111 My Own Private Idaho was by far my favorite movie. (Apologies if my blog post was not uploaded chronologically)

Yes, I do admit to the fact that I enjoyed it much more than Trainspotting. Call me “wholesome”, but I’m just not into films that overly portray people’s dark side in such an appaling manner such as when Mark, the main character of Trainspotting, was sucked into the shittiest toilet in Scotland or the image of an innocent infant dying over an accidental drug intake – Straight-up not my cup of tea.

Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho blended the story of Street hustlers in Portland, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, evident in Scott’s dialogue, and a touch of some odd scenes inspired by “In a blue funk” when they meet a german auto sales-man. It was compilation of out-of the-box ideas that translated into Van Sant’s final screenplay – My Own Private Idaho.

I was reminded a lot of the characters in Trainspotting as I was introduced to Mike and Scott. There were numerous times wherein the traits and attitudes of the characters alluded me to character foundations ones in Trainspotting or maybe that’s just because every human is similar to the core, and the characters in both the films were focused on looking for something beyond their shitty life or had something troubling them, which of course is what makes wathcing a film so engaging.

Wherein Trainspotting follows a bunch of heroin addicts who screw up their lives, My Own Private Idaho delves into the past of these two male characters and how they each became hustlers for different reasons. Both characters in the film had a compelling story that resulted to who they are now. Mark getting sucked in with the drama of his heorin addicted friends, while Scott was rebelling against his father by choosing to hang out with street hustlers. Then there was mike, the most touching character of all, played by River Phoenix.

Mikey’s unintentional love scene was one of the most iconic scenes for me was when Mikey confessed his love to Scott. I researched more on the film and found that it was almost entirely made by River Phoenix. It wasn’t initially intended to be some gay love scene “He had decided that that scene was his character’s main scene and, with Keanu’s permission, he wrote it out to say something that it wasn’t already saying … It was his explanation of his character.” I found the serendipitous scene that Phoeniz initiated added a lot to the plot’s tension and heightened the closing image of the never-ending road. That to me, was the main image in the film: Mike’s never-ending road. The loneliness he felt after his mom had abandoned him and his bestfriend left him for an Italian girl while he was searching for his mom. I couldn’t help but feel for the guy. I guess you could say my emotions towards Mikey was one of the reasons I have the bias to the film over Trainspotting. I truly empathized with his character despite not knowing what it was like to be a hustler, or getting rejected by your best friend in the way Mikey did.

The main reason why I brought up trainspotting in this film is because of the “white picket fence” image that these fucked-up American always go back to. I notice in both characters the awareness of not having it “as good.” They crack jokes about this “good life”, but deep down that consistency is something they desire. The white picket fence was brought up in My Private Idaho when Mickey was having a conversation with his brother Richard, on how his Mom had wanted a white picket fence life. Richard, who was apparently his father, showed him a postcard written by his mom about how she had all these basic things like aircondition and a roof over her head – mikey said “that sounds nice”.

It made me think back to why such people desire a white picket fence life and why movies always portray this. Sheltered and privileged people don’t always see that what they already have is something that others could only long for. Then I go back to the title My own Private Idaho – maybe it’s mikey looking for home in this neverending road of disappointment. After facing so much of that, who wouldn’t mind a white picket fence lifestyle.

References:

Snider, E. D. (2016, May 11). 13 Public Facts About My Own Private Idaho. Retrieved from http://mentalfloss.com/article/79865/13-public-facts-about-my-own-private-idaho

Van Sant, G. (n.d.). On the Origins of My Own Private Idaho. Zoetrope, 20(1), 48.

Based on a popular novel by Irvine Welse, Trainspotting gives us an in-depth visualization of the Edinburgh drug scene through the medium of film.Trainspotting follows the heroin addict Mark Renton along with his freinds Sick Boy, Bigbie, Spud and Tommy. One way or another, the film shows the cause-effect of their addiction to drugs and how it messed up their lives. Compared to the novel and due to the limitations of film, what we watched on screen was only the perspective of Matt.

The camera captures the desperation of these addicts to their vices. Just like when Mark dove down the shittiest toilet in Scotland to recover the pills that fell from it. The fantasy was that he was swimming under the ocean but when we popped back up he was covered all over in poop. Film-effects were creatively devised to elaborate the feeling of being on drugs. What we see is different from what they feel. In the scene where Mark takes another hit of heroin, just after he was warned to stay clean since Spud’s arrest, Mark takes a hit and feels as if he has collapsed on the comfiest rug. His senses were completely numb as he was dragged all the way to the hospital. To everyone else’s eyes he was passed out cold, but the film perspective showed that he felt as if he had collapsed down on a soft rug as he was being dragged all over the place. After getting hospitalized he began to hallucinate. All of which was the part of cleaning up. Afterwards he cleaned up his act and headed to London.

“Drug at choice overpowers the things in life we live for like: friends, family, jobs and sex.” (Eggbert, 1996) Without the drugs, Mark was able to get a job in real estate and even his own apartment. He achieved a satble lifestyle and more importantly was drug free – until his friends cam knocking back into his life. Drug has impacted them negatively at one point or another. So for Mark to get sucked backed into this spiral, we could already tell that it wasn’t good news. Yet, he still agreed to their final heist. Once this was completed and they got the money. Mark betrayed them so he could leave this heinous life and start that “white picket fence life.” I’m conflicted on whether to say the ending was happy or not. One thing is for sure it will leave you thinking.

Our choices in life affect the environment around us and the person we become. Each person had a reason for getting into drugs and since then have fallen into a pattern of disappointment. Tommy being the prime example; He had a decent life with a girlfriend before he succumbed to depression and died alone. It comes to show that how our life is, all in the matter of our hands; yet, it is diffucult to achieve this control when addicted to a vice such as drugs.

References:
Ebert, R. (1996, July 26). Trainspotting Movie Review & Film Summary (1996) | Roger Ebert. Retrieved from https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/trainspotting-1996