Written by Moosh Reyes | 161690

Watching F For Fake as the last movie for this class was definitely one that was worth the wait. I am a big fan of magic and the art of misdirection, especially in movies! The biggest movie I’ve watched that really mastered the art of misdirection before F for Fake would have been Now You See Me. F For Fake, however, totally changed my perspective as compared to the usual movies about magic that tries to mystify and shock its audiences.

F for Fake is a movie that isn’t a movie and a documentary that isn’t a documentary. Orson Welles is somehow able to piece together a work of art through the magical editing that he and his team pull off. The editing is then accompanied with Orson Welles’ story telling abilities which he shows as the narrator. F for Fake started out as a documentary film for the art forger, Elmyr de Hory and some of the shots in the film show it. Most of these shots (of course) focus on Elmyr de Hory talking with the people in Ibiza and looking at paintings he had made. My favorite part of this film would most probably be the fact that I thought this was a genuine movie that had fictional characters. That’s how well I found editing and how well Orson Welles was able to fit pieces together.

Moving on to characters, I believe that each character truly portrayed a remarkable aspect of the theme of fakeness. Orson Welles is the first person who perpetuates this fakeness by guiding the audience through the movie and establishing himself as a trustworthy source for the whole movie. This is true for most of the movie until the last 15-20 minutes when he and Oja Kodar give a fake story about Picasso and de Hory feuding over paintings that Picasso painted for Oja. Oja presents the role of one who knows the truth and yet continues to help Orson with misdirecting the audience with what is truth and what is fake. Next, we have Elmyr de Hory. His character is more diverse in the sense that he believed that his art works were real. They were, after all, made by him. The problem with his work was that it looked similar to other artist’s and was therefore accused as fake. Lastly, there is Clifford Irving. His character is the
one that outs the fakers and continues to be a faker himself. His character is one that, in my opinion, seems to be the most hypocritical out of all the four major characters. With the first three, they are aware of what is real for them and what is fake. These characters are able to work along these lines and distinguish what is right and what is wrong. Irving, on the other hand, continues to call others out on their fakery while he tries to make profits with his own.

F for Fake is a work of art in its own way as are Elmyr de Hory’s art works. It isn’t necessarily trying to copy other movies but it is trying to take what is familiar to most and making it unfamiliar to them. This is the wonderful magic that Orson Welles is able to do with his film. I have yet to see another film like this one.

Written by Moosh Reyes | 161690

Kimi no Na wa was a very intimate experience for me to watch for this class. I am a big fan of animation in general but this was my first anime film outside of the Pokemon franchise and Studio Ghibli films. That being said, Kimi no Nawa definitely changed the game in terms of how animated films would be seen by the general public. Before this film came out, most of the films that had surmounted this amount of success would be from the founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki with Spirited Away. What allowed Kimi no Na Wa to be such a success? I believe it attributed to a number of factors.

Let’s start with the imagery. The imagery and color palettes were something that caught my eye immediately with its amazing use of modern animation especially for that scene where Taki witnessed Mitsuha’s past. That particular sequence in the film had a different art style adding a very mystical element to it, tones of purple and blue were used in the scene which enhanced the dreamy and mystical experience. Anime was always able to make the viewer feel the environment that the characters were in and this movie is no exception. This is especially shown in the comet scenes. First, we have Taki in the city watching the comet from the rooftop with wonder while the lights of the city would try to compete with the brightness the comet brought about.

Next, we would have Mitsuha watching the comet in a hill above her town that focused mostly on nature rather than the town to accentuate the town’s rather small environment (shown through Mitsuha’s excitement over cafes and such).  All of this accompanied with the hauntingly beautiful music by Yojiro Noda made the atmosphere complete and let the audience get the full anime experience.

I don’t think the characters played a big part in the movie’s success considering that they were both one of the mill character types. Taki was a boy from the city who frankly wasn’t sensitive enough until Mitsuha switched bodies with him. This made him consider being more sensitive with others as seen through the way he treats Mitsuha when he first meets her and his relationship with Miki. Meanwhile, Mitsuha was a traditional “doormat” small town girl who wanted to see the city and have something bigger happen to her. When Taki switches bodies with her, Mitsuha becomes more popular. This is when she realizes that she needed to be less of a doormat and to start asking for things herself. What I believe made people fall in love with these characters would be the relationship between these two main characters and how likeable the two are.

The biggest factor, in my opinion, would most probably be the plot. I do not want to spoil the plot to anyone who hasn’t watched so I won’t go into much detail aside from the body switching. (But just in case I screw up, SPOILER ALERT!) The way the movie’s plot worked was confusing for the first few minutes but once Taki goes to the restaurant, everything makes sense. It was a joy to see something that didn’t seem linear in terms of time at first finally piece itself together to make a cohesive timeline for everyone to understand. Understanding each main character’s story was easy enough to understand due to the simplicity of the characters. Perhaps, the simplicity of the characters is what allowed for such a wonderfully complicated plot to be written.

All in all, I found Kimi no Na Wa to be a wonderful film that is able to connect two completely different people and find ways to make one influence the other for the better. Without the body switchings, Taki and Mitsuha would technically only have about 2 encounters with each other. Even then, you could see the chemistry between them because they believed that they encountered one another in a dream or somewhere. The film emphasizes being at the right place at the right time and truly captures that essence.