Schizopolis

The movie started and ended leaving me confused the entire time. I failed to understand and connect the things happening in the film. Having this movie as the first one we are going to watch for this semester, it is really something I did not expect. I did not really like this film. It was quirky and different from the movies that I usually watch, maybe that is something film enthusiasts would like; but as a person who enjoys the mainstream kind of movies (or one could say just an average person), Schizopolis is not really my cup of tea. Or maybe I simply did not appreciate this kind of movie enough. The movie overall feels like there is no one cohesive plot. There are different things that happen at the same time and yet feel like they are connected with each other. Some people in class were laughing at some scenes but I just spent the whole time watching trying to understand the film. Whenever they would laugh, I felt more lost since I wasn’t really sure what they were laughing at. I hated the feeling of feeling confused the entire time, trying to decipher the situation and what the characters are saying. It was only during the class discussion that made some sense to this movie. One example was the porn-like scene. I would not have realized that until someone pointed it out. I could not understand why the characters in that scene had to talk gibberish? Weirdly enough, I may have understood some things that they were saying, just pure guess out of the context. However, during the class discussion, someone also pointed out how no one really cares about the story of a porn video. This could have attributed as to why the characters were speaking that way. Moreover, the scenes where Fletcher Munson becomes a different person were another part of the movie that confused me. It seemed like Fletcher and his wife had their marriage on the rocks for quite some time and Fletcher’s writing of a speech for his boss seemed like the tipping point. Fletcher was not supposed to be the person who is the writing the speech but his boss gave him the job. It seemed like Fletcher is not really into his work or does not really know how to make speeches since as shown in the movie, he seemed to have a hard time. This seemed to put Fletcher on a ton of pressure that it affected his relationship with his wife. Their conversations had merely become a description of what they were saying, a generic type. It could have been anything based on the description, noting that their marriage is deteriorating into a mere courtesy.

Overall, watching the movie for the first time did not really make me appreciate the movie. If I were given the chance to watch it for the second time, I might be able to understand it a little bit more than the first. Watching this kind of movie would require me at least to watch it twice before I can comprehend anything that is happening in the movie.

Trainspotting (1996)

Set in the slums of 90’s Edinburgh, Trainspotting (1996) is Danny Boyle’s portrayal of the addicted lifestyle and the ups and downs that come with it. The colorful and lively backdrop of the big city is strangely apt for this film’s exploration of crime, drug abuse, violence and death. It’s uncomfortable and leaves you with the feeling that it won’t end well, but you stay hooked regardless. Boyle manages take the wide shots, dream-like sequences and awesome soundtrack and make it feel like one long alternative rock music video. I quickly understood why the film is such a cult classic – it speaks to the edgy, dreamy rebellious teen in all of us.

As dark as it is, Boyle manages to inject lighthearted jokes and hilarious scenes that ease audiences’ shock or sadness. Truthfully, it was definitely not comfortable or necessarily easy to watch. There were so many jarring scenes that were difficult to look at and made me want to look away, and for the most part I did. Something about the painful reality of the film was hard to digest, probably because of deadly serious it really can be. The most memorable scene was the death of Allison’s baby. It felt like a huge slap in the face, and I saw the characters feel it too. Apart from the horror that came with recognizing a lost life, I felt a mix of pity and disappointment for the gang, mostly because of how deep into their addiction they really are. I couldn’t believe how quickly they turned back to drugs to numb the pain. It left a sad, bad taste in mouth. It made me want to take a bath right after.

The main character Renton opens and closes the film with the line, “choose life”, and this serves as the main theme for the characters’ individual journeys throughout the film. Renton rides one hell of a rollercoaster while struggling to let go his drug addiction. His friends are no better, and their relationship as a group made me re-evaluate what really constitutes true friendship. Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie and Tommy all dug holes for themselves and were with each other while they did it. The fact that they were all suffering together offered this sense of community and camaraderie, and they continued to accompany each other in the routine of destroying their lives. The enabled each other, and that was when I realized just how messed up our understanding of friendship and support can be when you’re in a bad place. Doing cool, illegal things together doesn’t make you friends. It makes your life harder. Somewhere along the line I realized that I didn’t actually like the characters or their actions, but I still found myself rooting for them. You see Renton still trying his best to “choose life” by moving away from the druggie lifestyle. His resolve to say goodbye to his abuse, his so-called friends and his unstable life in Edinburgh are something you wish you had, and despite everything he’s done. I didn’t necessarily like Renton, but the fact that he was still alive and capable of making SOME kind of morally charged decisions made me hope for his capacity to grow and move forward.

In the end, we’ll never really know what happens to any of them. We won’t know if Renton will clean up his act. We won’t know if the rest of the boys ever make it out of their own terrible lives. Trainspotting leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but gives us one hell of a ride in the process..

Futureless Things (2014)

Futureless Things (2014) was not the film I was expecting it to be. Within the first ten minutes or so, I mistakenly thought I had grasped what seemed to be a simple plot about young love. It was initially quite difficult for me to understand that the film contained several different narratives, following an episodic structure. Although these narratives intertwined, and were grounded in the fact that all scenes occurred in and around the convenience store, they remained independent of each other.

Choosing a convenience store as the main setting gave the filmmaker an opportunity to present us with an odd, mishmashed cast of characters. After all, a convenience store does not discriminate based on age, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. If you come into a convenience store, more often than not, you need something specific, whether it be a bottle of water, a pack of cigarettes, or a strange package that has the ability to talk to you – however, there’s not much to do once you’ve accomplished your task. Although the moments we spent with each group of characters were fleeting, they were impactful nonetheless. We saw the gambler who prayed to many different Gods, the North Korean clerk being harassed by a customer, the aspiring actor trying to make it to his casting call, and many more. I enjoyed the different comedic forms that the director experimented with – although it may be argued that the film is inconsistent, I found each and every “episode” refreshing.

I’ve recently become fascinated with K-Pop and K-Dramas, but I’m no expert on Korean culture, therefore making it impossible for me to pick up on all the social commentary embedded in the film. However, one of my particular favorite scenes was the interaction between the clerk and the English-speaking mother and daughter. It reminded me of the Philippines in the sense that there is a certain prestige attached to people who can speak and understand English. Even if you’re in your own country, you’re expected to adjust to English-speakers instead of the other way around. This is also evident in the way that the clerk was learning English on his shift and trying his absolute best to converse with the Middle Eastern women by using the sentences he had learned by listening to his tape.

There is a transitory nature to being a shop assistant – most of the protagonists we saw were working part-time as they pursued a better future and a bigger dream. Their futures are uncertain, but there is a glimmer of hope that they won’t be working at a convenience store forever. These people would definitely abandon their shop clerk jobs immediately after a better opportunity presented itself. Even the customers themselves float in and out of the store. Their presence is transient. However, the convenience store remains a constant in the life of its franchiser – he was buried in debt, could barely keep the business running smoothly, and was placed under constant evaluation by his superiors. Crushed under the weight of this responsibility, he eventually commits suicide.

Schizopolis

Schizopolis is an absurd and confusing film. From its characters to its scenes, the movie is entirely ridiculous. You would think you get what’s happening at specific times during some scenes but then it just surprises you by making the scenes completely different and unrelated the next. If that’s the goal of Steven Soderbergh for his 1996 comedy film, then he succeeded.

The opening scene shows Soderbergh informing the audience that if they do not understand the movie, it’s probably their fault. From then on, I knew this was going to be different. I expected a lot from it because of that opening scene and it didn’t disappoint. Since the movie as a whole didn’t make sense, I was forced to focus on the imagery or symbolism of the individual aspects such as the scenes, dialogues, and the characters just to understand and get something from the film.

Confusing as the film is, the scenes are surprisingly telling the same story but in different perspectives, wherein they are divided into Acts [1, 2, and 3]. Fletcher is introduced as the main characer. As he progresses through his day, other characters are introduced such as his colleagues at work and his family when he went home at the end of the day. His day at work is the literal definition of boring. It started to look like a documentary of what it is like to have a typical corporate job by having a boss that overworks the employees by demanding a lot and is not always easily satisfied, colleagues that are annoying and are trying to undermine each other almost all the time just to get a rank higher, and tasks that are mediocre and repetetive which don’t seem like they are for the greater good of anything. When Fletcher goes home, his dialogue with his wife were all descriptions of the phrases and sentences couples usually tell each other. This depicts how their relationship, and maybe most couple nowadays, don’t communicate to a deeper level anymore. As the film progresses, this is confirmed when his wife cheated on him with the excuse that she feels like Fletcher doesn’t talk to her about things anymore. Another main character in the film is Elmo Oxygen. During his first few scenes, he is seen acting on camera wherein his dialogue with the housewives are all gibberish. All of their dialogues are made up by random words that are just strung together making them completely illogical and nonsensical. Their actions during the scenes are understandable but the dialogue isn’t. When Elmo Oxygen switched to another project, his dialogues are now understandable but not his actions. Up until now, I still don’t understand what he was trying to do in all those scenes or what they were supposed to mean unlike Fletcher’s scenes. The third main character is the guy Fletcher’s wife cheated on him with. Dr. Jeffrey Korchek is a dentist who falls in love with every single girl she meets as his patients. The film becomes more ridiculous when Fletcher started acting as Korcheck, and it becomes more confusing when I realized they are played by the same actor–Steven Soderbergh.

Overall, I loved every second of Schizopolis. I still don’t know what the scenes, characters, or the whole movie is about, yes, but I’m not complaining. It is entertaining and it is not a waste of time probably because it is unique. As this is the first movie shown to us by our professor in class, it made me wonder if all the films we have to watch are as ludicrous and mind-boggling as this. If that’s the case, I cannot wait to see more.

Trainspotting (1996)

Trainspotting (1996) is not clean-cut or glamorous. It’s gritty, unpurified, and at times, downright disgusting. This works to its advantage, though – it’s a film about drug use and abuse, and follows the pretty much completely messed up lives of Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and Begbie (Robert Caryle). But, as Renton reminds us in his opening monologue, this is his choice: “I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

The film tells its story from the inside looking out. It does not feel insincere or sensationalized. It feels real. We see the each character wrestle with a cycle of addiction, convincing themselves that they’re finally going to quit, but eventually giving in and falling back on their habits. When Renton makes the decision to move to London and become a real estate agent, his Edinburgh life creeps up on him, one old friend at a time. When the possibility of a drug deal comes along, Renton’s sobriety is ruined, bringing to light the social aspect of substance abuse. How can you quit, when everyone around you refuses to?

The film effectively illustrates the euphoria of drug use, but does not neglect to show us its consequences. Trainspotting makes you laugh, because it is genuinely funny. But there are tragic scenes, as well – the way that everyone breaks down crying when they find Sick Boy’s deceased child, witnessing Tommy’s death from HIV, and Renton’s arduous withdrawals. Because I didn’t fully connect with any of the characters, I was always just mildly uncomfortable while watching these scenes. I wasn’t sure if I should be sympathizing with them, because they had essentially sabotaged their own lives. These scenes didn’t exactly serve as melancholic breaks from a tumultuous plot. At the heart of each tragedy was an unresolved tension – if these people just put their foot down and made the decision to quit, they could start rebuilding their lives – but Trainspotting continued to prove to us that it’s never going to be as simple as going cold turkey.

Trainspotting showed me a life that was radically different from my own. I highly doubt that anything I experience in the future will even vaguely resemble any of the struggles highlighted in the film, and the director is clearly aware of that. Renton himself tells the audience he’s going to be just like us. It’s chilling in a way I can’t really explain. Many of us can fit into cookie-cutter stereotypes, no matter how hard that is to accept. In the end, we will end up choosing our idea of what exactly an accomplished life entails: “the job, the family, the fucking big television.” This begs the question: who put this idea in our head in the first place? Why do we all resonate with this idea of life so much? How are we sure that this is the right choice, anyway? For me, the film is far from a mere glorification of substance use – it’s definitely not telling us that drugs are the answer to all our problems. In its rawest form, Trainspotting is an unapologetic and chaotic depiction of an all too familiar narrative – young people making bad decisions.

Shin Godzilla

I had mixed feelings after watching Shin Godzilla. I am familiar with Godzilla, a dinosaur-like monster from Japan, but other than that, there is nothing else I know. I had a different expectation as to how the movie was portrayed. Indeed, it showed Godzilla destroying a city. I expected the movie to show civilians affected by monster, however, it focused on how the Japanese responded to Godzilla as a crisis. It focused more on the politics behind it. But the way they responded to Godzilla was also different from what I expected. I thought they would fight off Godzilla in a way Pacific Rim did. Even though it is different, I was not disappointed at all. Instead of entirely focusing on Godzilla and how it destroys the city, the movie mostly showed how the Japanese would respond to a disaster. And their response still corresponds to their culture. They still respect the hierarchy in the organization. They made sure that the order and procedures are being followed, even if the situation was an emergency and calls for an immediate response. The movie also addresses the history of Japan. When they started talking about having the need to drop a nuclear bomb to be able to kill Godzilla, Japan was very wary and did not want a repeat of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in 1945. Even though the use of the nuclear bomb was to kill something that threatens the country and not because of human greed, Japan still did not resort to that solution. Instead, they looked for different ways on how to respond to and solve the problem. The movie also showed the resourcefulness of the people of Japan. Indeed, they were able to find a solution that did not involve destroying a city. It was something that would involve teamwork and cooperation of its people. Through the great minds that worked together, they were able to come up with something that would not kill Godzilla, but would make it passive and subject to experimentation. They showed how responding to a problem or crisis, we don’t necessarily have to resort to extreme means. There are different ways on how we could solve them, we just have to think things through.

Shin Godzilla (2016)

Shin Godzilla (2016), the first and only Godzilla film that I have ever seen, defied all my expectations. I presumed that I would be seeing a glorified montage of devastated citizens, flat-out destruction, and a classic redemption arc, and while Shin Godzilla ticked all these boxes with ease, the film also managed to be a clever depiction of modern-day Japan’s struggles with bureaucracy and deep-seated historical scars.

Whenever Gojira appeared on screen, it felt almost reverent to me. The way the camera slowly followed Gojira as it slithered through the city at its own pace was chilling, a stark contrast to the fast-paced shots of politicians and scientists trying to resolve the crisis within the limits of strict government protocol. We don’t get a sob story about innocent citizens being caught in the crossfire of Gojira’s rampage – there’s very little interest in the personal lives of those involved. Shin Godzilla effectively portrays the urgency of crisis management with rapid-fire, almost clinical dialogue as the film’s characters wrestle with the weight of their accountability to the people as they attempt to get the situation under control, recognizing that lives are hanging in the balance as they rush from boardroom to war room to basement to helicopter. However, I was pleased that I could follow the narrative even with the constant jumps and actual mental exhaustion it caused me. Governments are often unprepared to deal with disasters. Many of the characters adhere to the bureaucratic system despite the state of calamity, helplessly clinging to the societal structures that ground their decision-making. This was definitely frustrating at times, but it served to show us both the merits and inefficiencies of the system.

Gojira is continuously evolving and becoming more and more lethal as the characters evaluate and re-evaluate possible solutions to the problem. When the United Nations wants to take the nuclear route, Japan hesitates, because of its tragic history of atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A group of “lone wolves, nerds, troublemakers, outcasts, academic heretics, and general pains-in-the-bureaucracy” led by chief cabinet secretary Rando Yaguchi therefore brings it upon themselves to find an alternate solution. I love how the team uncovers Goro Maki’s codified research notes and try to decipher what it all means. They gather international support and put their deep-freeze plan into action just a few hours before the planned nuclear attack. It’s the redemption arc that I was expecting, but none of it feels predictable, and we’re left hanging until the very last second – will they succeed? Would a happy ending be too much to ask for?

Shin Godzilla’s conclusion was far from an extravagant celebration of Japan’s triumph, but it was satisfying nonetheless. It’s practically impossible to achieve a spotless happy ending for a disaster film, and I think that the directors were aware of that. The city must be rebuilt in the wake of Gojira’s destruction. Innocent lives were lost. And at the center of it all, we have a group of people just trying to do their best.

Schizopolis (1996)

Schizopolis (1996) is one of the strangest films I’ve seen to date.

When I watch a film, more often than not, I obsess over what each and every scene means, searching for insightful reviews online that show me things I might have missed. I usually associate the feeling of confusion with the feeling of dissatisfaction. Coming out of the classroom after seeing Schizopolis, though, I was extremely confused – but I wasn’t mad about it.

In the moments when I thought I knew where the film was going, I would be thrown off by what seemed to be an uncalled-for dialogue or random switch-up. Much of my confusion came after the first act, when we see Dr. Jeffrey Korchek being played by the same guy who played Fletcher Munson. (I later found out that the actor was Steven Soderbergh himself). I didn’t know whether or not the Korchek narrative was connected to the Fletcher narrative, and when it was revealed that he was having an affair with Fletcher’s wife, I honestly thought that it was just some weird role-playing thing. This still baffles me – are they really two different people? Did I miss something?

Perhaps this speaks of my inexperience with experimental cinema, but even after having some time to think, I find myself unable to grasp the movie as a whole, to see any semblance of a “bigger picture.” This is not to say that the film didn’t have any praiseworthy scenes. I personally loved Elmo Oxygen’s scenes in which some sort of gibberish dialect was used to seduce housewives. As I watched Elmo gallivanting around the neighborhood, I thought that this use of language was just some funny gag. The more I heard the random phrases he said, though, the easier it was for me to follow along. It felt like re-watching a K-Drama without subtitles. I could identify some of the most basic words (“nose army” for hello, “smell sign” for goodbye), but I depended on intonation and facial expressions to decipher the rest of the conversations. Once I understood Elmo’s main goal was to sleep with people, I recognized the gist of the situation, but not the specifics.

Soderbergh continues to experiment with communication and language throughout the film. Some of the most effective dialogues were in the interactions between Fletcher Munson and his wife, in which words such as “hello” are replaced with “generic greeting.” I recognized that Fletcher’s relationship had turned into a routine, so predictable that an outsider could know what was happening with close to zero context. The film continued to play around with these scenes between Fletcher and his wife, cleverly devising an unfamiliar way to illustrate the familiar narrative of a love that has ceased to exist. Although we will never be one-hundred percent sure what exactly Soderbergh intended to do by creating Schizopolis, the film in its entirety feels like an endeavor to find brand new ways to tell the stories that filmmakers tell over and over again. Maybe that’s why the narratives that we were presented with were half-baked and barely intelligible – we’ve seen all these these things before, but never in this way.

Shin Godzilla (2016)

As Japan’s take on the iconic Hollywood monster, Shin Godzilla (2016) is a sharp and refreshing look at the human experience with disaster. Unlike most Western interpretations (which are the only ones I’ve seen), the film doesn’t focus too much on individuals or details. There are identifiable characters whose actions propel the story, like Deputy Chief Secretary Rando Yaguchi and Presidential enjoy Kayoco Patterson, but I never got the feeling of being invested in either of them as individuals – instead, I recognized them more as parts of the bigger picture.

The Japanese government really was the star of the film. While it had all the typical monster movie characteristics, the main focus was really on political relationships, structures and strategies. I found myself frustrated with painstakingly slow way they had to deal with everything. Buildings were being destroyed and people were being killed in the midst of their arguing and decision-making, and it almost felt like a poke at Japanese beaurocracy  and its obsession with tradition and procedure. As upset as I was with how slow the pace of the action was in the beginning, I couldn’t help but feel bad for how the government’s cautious attitude towards deciding ANYTHING was getting in the way of really helping their country. After Japan’s traumatic experiences with natural calamities, nuclear disasters and violence during World War II, I can understand why they would be so adamant about being careful. The Japanese people have been through so much in the last century, and despite their progress and will to move forward from their past, they still fear it. Godzilla itself isn’t a scary monster to behold – it starts off as almost comical-looking and annoying at most. I did not find myself fearing it all, even when he was wreaking havoc and all hope seemed lost. The whole monster aspect of its existence was still there, but it was muted by the actions of the people around it. Godzilla felt more like a problem to fix and less of an evil, unholy creature that had to be destroyed.

One aspect of the plot that I personally loved was Japan’s refusal to be bullied by the U.S. The tension between the two governments felt like a big culture clash, and I found myself rooting for Japan to take the lead and stand their ground when it came to making decisions for their people. It felt like an appropriate response from Japan, and it led to a beautiful, almost magical development and appreciation of Japanese culture. The origami, the language and the shots of the landscapes were featured more toward the end of the film, and it felt almost patriotic to know that the solution lied within Japan all along.

In the end, Shin Godzilla (2016) proved itself to be more than just an action-packed sci-fi explosion parade (although it definitely embodies those qualities too). It felt like I was watching a slow but satisfying real life anime, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even liked Godzilla itself, from its weird fish baby body to its ultimate death-serving form. Despite the title, I truly feel like the film wasn’t so much about the monster, but about Japan’s capacity to face it.

Schizopolis (1996)

At first glance, Stephen Soderbergh’s Schizopolis (1996) might not seem like the kind of movie most people would enjoy – at least, for the same reason they enjoy your typical blockbuster hit. This wild, experimental satire pushed the limits of what I thought I knew about cinema and how to experience it. While it’s unclear what the film really talks about because of its hilariously obvious lack of a linear plot, it does follow a structure in the form of acts – the whole film is divided up into three main acts that follow the same plot, but through the perspective of three different characters.

 The first act looks at the life and experiences of Fletcher Munson, an office employee of the cult-like company called Eventualism who wants to go far with his work. He feels trapped in the everyday routine of his life, and this is seen in the way he fails to pay much attention to and properly communicate with the people around him, including his family. We immediately see the recurring idea of miscommunication in the way both Fletcher and Mrs. Munson resort to generic greetings instead of having an actual conversation. This situation is further aggravated by Fletcher’s decision to take on more work, which eventually leads to Mrs. Munson having an affair with the main character of the next act, Dr. Korchek. His life as a dentist is similar to Fletcher’s in its mundane way, but he seems to enjoy his work and find real pleasure and meaning in it. His communication with Mrs. Munson throughout their affair is clear and comfortable, and they seem to genuinely like each other’s company. This changes, however, when Dr. Korchek falls madly in love with one of his patients and – in true Schizopolis fashion – is shot dead. Lastly, we have the third act focused on Mrs. Munson. Her perspective of the story clarifies many things that seemed weird at the start. She continues to speak in different languages with both the men in her life, anchoring her problem to the overarching theme of miscommunication. She feels unwanted, unheard and mostly unloved, and its painful to see her go from happy to heartbroken to hopeful to resigned all within the span of a couple of minutes. It was the closest thing to real the film ever got, and I appreciated that momentary dip into relatable human emotion and experience. This turned out to be my favorite part of the movie because it confirmed the themes that I had suspected at the start and provided the whole story (or lack thereof) with some kind of resolution. There are other aspects of the film that confused me, like the disturbing subplots of Nameless Numberhead Man and Elmo. They were welcome comedic breaks, and while it initially led me to believe that they were going to be irrelevant parts to the main story, I was pleasantly surprised to be proved otherwise.

This was the first time I had ever watched a movie of this nature, and while I didn’t completely understand it, I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I appreciate how it managed to poke fun at itself and how weird and nonsensical it truly is. I realized that a movie doesn’t have to make sense for it to be likeable and enjoyable, and Schizopolis definitely lived up to that.